New Official!

[Mike22Official]

I'm currently a full-time student at Clemson University majoring in financial management. I'm 22 years old and have been married for about 16 months. I plan on graduating in August of next year. My beautiful wife graduated this past May in civil engineering and works nearby.

I'm in the middle of applying to be a high school official for next fall. The South Carolina Football Official's Association (SCFOA) is looking for new and young officials, so it seems that I'm pretty much in.

I love the game of football. It's the best game in the world. I've never had the chance to play organized ball, so I'm excited about getting on the field. I never really thought much about being an official up until the past year or so. My wife's cousin, who is much older thatnus, has been an official for about 6 or 7 years and he always talks about officiating when we're at family events. Also, this past summer, I read a book by former SEC official Dick Burleson titled "You Better Be Right". It's a great read and it pretty much pushed me over the edge to pursue officiating.

In hopes of gaining some sort of officiating experience before applying, I decided to officiate intramural flag football here at Clemson. It's 7 on 7 flag football, so the rules are vastly different, but I think the experience helped get my feet wet.

I've got my NFHS rule book and have been reading fairly often. I'm just trying to absorb as much as possible. The SCFOA publishes the exam grades for each official, and it seems that I'd be doing awesome if I got a 70 on my first attempt. Yikes. Does every state officials association take a standard NFHS exam or is each state's exam different?

I'm looking forward to learning a lot about football and getting on the field. If anyone has any advice for me then I'd greatly appreciate it. Sorry for the length of the post.