Do you have to think about incomplete "shovel" passes?

[OnlyRefFB]

I think I've only made this mistake once.

It happened my first year as a high school official during my 2nd scrimmage and happened right in front of me. I was CLUELESS and must have had the "deer in the headlights" look.

The referee yelled "WHAT DID YOU HAVE?" about 5 feet from my face (he was a former Marine.) so now I wasn't only clueless but felt about 2 feet tall.

He has a reputation for being a bit hard-nosed, but I've worked varsity games with him since and we still laugh during the pre-game when this situation comes up.

I still feel one road to officiating success is to get those mistakes out of the way and then never repeat it.