Why a LJ or L shoudl ALWAYS start the play on the sidelines.

[sloth]

This is my 3rd year as a varsity official. I'm usually working LJ. I learned a very, very important lesson last Friday night. The wisdom is that you should always start the play on the sidelines. As a relatively young and in shape official, I have a bad habit of wanting to be in closer to the play than I should.

A (home team) is punting from around their 30-40 on the far hash from me. Substitutions are taking place and as the ready for play is blown, a couple players are heading towards my sideline (these are the players sub-ing out I thought). At the time I was around 3 yards off the sideline into the field of play (remember ball is on far hash). As I go through my count, I have 4 off the line and everything is set to go. Right then I hear a player say "I'm behind you sir". I look around and realize the I had a player on the field, on the line, behind me. I back up and my first thought is "did he stop with the subs coming off the firled, or did he commit an illegal substitution by just stepping onto the field?" As I step back, I notice that there is no defender on him and right at that moment the ball is snapped...you guessed it, the recieve that was behind me runs down the field for a long pass (no TD).

Alertly and to save my butt, the white hat throws the flag and calls illegal substitution. Although, I believe that the player was inside the 9 yard mark long enough to satisfy that criteria, calling back the long pass play was the right thing to do. I hated it that my poor mechanic created a situation that lead to that penalty being called. I was always tiold that the reason you start on the side line is to get a wider view of the game and to make sure you don't get run over...I tend to think that the most importnat reason it to make sure that you don't have a substitution infraction.

I sure learned from this experience and I hope maybe this might help someone else as well ( man this is like therapy).