White Hat History anyone?

[HossHumard]

"CFL was last to completely get rid of penalty horns, after CAFA, and long after USA officials."

Geez, I remember those stupid horns as a player....they sounded more like kazoos more than anything....I found them to be a big pain in the butt.

I can't imagine how a mid play signal like that could help the officiating process, but maybe some of you, um, ah..."vets" could shed some light on that!

As well, the CFL remains out of step as far as officials hat colour patterns are concerned as the Head Ref wears black, the rest of the crew white. Cdn amateur is in line with NFL, NCAA and I assume US amateur.

Tonight is the beginning of the spring "Midget" division (community based league for grade 9, 10 and 11 kids) play here in Alberta...with temps just over zero F and a ton of snow still on the ground, it should prove to be interesting to say the least!

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by HossHumard

"CFL was last to completely get rid of penalty horns, after CAFA, and long after USA officials."

Geez, I remember those stupid horns as a player....they sounded more like kazoos more than anything....I found them to be a big pain in the butt.

I can't imagine how a mid play signal like that could help the officiating process, but maybe some of you, um, ah..."vets" could shed some light on that!

There are theoretic reasons for the penalty horn, which was used from an early time in North American football on both sides of the border, but not back to when the ref was the only official. Maybe it came in with the 20th Century, I'm not sure.

When the defense (especially) commits a foul, it benefits the non-offending team to know the remainder of the play is "free", so they don't have to play conservatively. They might not see a flag or other visual, but they can all hear a horn (unless they're deaf). It would've been of greater benefit in such a case to have 2 different tones of horn, one for fouls by each team, but AFAIK it never got that sophisticated.

The other theoretic reason would be a situation in which the enforcement spot is Point Ball Held (which AFAIK has been used only in Canadian football) and the spot of the foul is elsewhere. One official seeing the infraction can sound the horn while another official hearing it marks PBH. However, I don't know if there's ever been such a situation (it doesn't currently come up in Canadian football), and of course there'll always be a bit of delay between seeing the infraction and blowing the horn.

The trouble has always been that players have tended to react to an official's audible signal of any kind by stopping play.

BTW, until pretty recently in Canadian football (I forgot who had it last, CFL or Football Canada -- or maybe it's still there), it was still theoretically possible for officials to whistle a play dead following an infraction if further play by the team in possession would be futile (because the penalty would be enforced from a spot already determined), but officials just stopped using that judgement. (The way the rule was written was poor in that it allowed play to be killed if further play would clearly not benefit the non-offending side, but if you think about play situations you see what a hosing that could be! So instead I'm giving the obvious spirit of the rule.) It was a version of rugby's "advantage law", and was abolished in USAn football much, much earlier. It is kind of rotten, though, that injuries, offsetting fouls, and just plain blunders can be made by players during an interval when play is futile because it will be canceled by penalty.

Robert

[HossHumard]

Originally Posted by Robert Goodman

There are theoretic reasons for the penalty horn, which was used from an early time in North American football on both sides of the border, but not back to when the ref was the only official. Maybe it came in with the 20th Century, I'm not sure.

BTW, until pretty recently in Canadian football (I forgot who had it last, CFL or Football Canada -- or maybe it's still there), it was still theoretically possible for officials to whistle a play dead following an infraction if further play by the team in possession would be futile (because the penalty would be enforced from a spot already determined), but officials just stopped using that judgement. (The way the rule was written was poor in that it allowed play to be killed if further play would clearly not benefit the non-offending side, but if you think about play situations you see what a hosing that could be! So instead I'm giving the obvious spirit of the rule.) It was a version of rugby's "advantage law", and was abolished in USAn football much, much earlier. It is kind of rotten, though, that injuries, offsetting fouls, and just plain blunders can be made by players during an interval when play is futile because it will be canceled by penalty.

Robert

As far as I know, the only play killing whistle we have is on O Line procedure (movement before snap), but I think that's the same in four down ball, eh?

Other than that, we kill the play only for the usual reasons....and when moose wander on to the field (they tend to be real "ball hogs").

[Jim D]

Thanks for the explaination of the penalty horn. As a little kid I remember playing with my father's penalty horn. I don't ever remember asking when I got into officiating how the who process worked. I sure wish he or I had saved that horn, it would be a great keepsake now.

[HossHumard]

I watched a bit of the movie "Remember the Titans" last night and noticed the officials wearing striped hats. The movie was set in the early 70's but I must admit I've never seen that sort of thing before....did the officials back then really wear something like that?

[Jim D]

The stripes on the hats may have been a regional thing.

In the 60' & 70's officials in HS and NCAA wore the same black hats with white piping that they do now.

[FredFan7]

I think some college conferences did things differently until the 90s. I remember seeing Pac-10 games with officials having numbers on their shirts.

I also remember seeing old SEC footage (from the 50s or 60s) some officials wore a white cap with black piping.

Once the 90s rolled around, all college officials in all conferences had the same uniforms.

[Forksref]

Originally Posted by HossHumard

I watched a bit of the movie "Remember the Titans" last night and noticed the officials wearing striped hats. The movie was set in the early 70's but I must admit I've never seen that sort of thing before....did the officials back then really wear something like that?

That was really ugly looking. Just as strange as the long-sleeved shirts worn by the refs in "Hoosiers."

[kfo9494]

I still have a hat with the large black and white stripes that we wore in the 60's and a red penalty flag. And somewhere in this house, I have one of the black and white stripe shirt that is actually a dress type shirt with buttons.
It looks like a dress shirt that buttons-up plus the sleeves had buttons -and this is what we wore. The collar of the shirt and the sleeve cuff are also striped black and white.
>

Thanks for the memories guys!