Officiating dress code in NH?
 

Hey New England fellas. My nephew is the starting freshman QB at Bishop Gertin in Southern New Hampshire. He came down for the holiday to NJ to see me. He couldn't wait to show Uncle Joe his 1/2-hour video of his highlights. Unfortunately I couldn't be there working high school and NCAA in the NJ/PA area.

In EVERY game the officials were wearing white shorts with their Federation Socks pulled up to their knees.

The officials did a nice job at working the games, kept everything boxed in, covered the flags, etc. They looked good from that perspective. But the uniform choice???

With all due respect that looked goofy as all hell.

I worked a JV game years ago with a guy who dressed just like that with the added bonus that he was about 50 pounds overweight and wore a jock strap under his polyester shorts. The shorts were stretched to their limit and the jock strap shone through the shorts like it was a neon sign. The kids laughed and chuckled at him the entire game.

Normal sub-varsity uniform here is shorts with uniform socks until the weather causes a change. Which almost didn't happen this year. Varsity is always pants, no shorts.

We wear regular white crew socks with shorts, which can be worn for anything below JV games except youth football playoffs. I do not like shorts on football officials but I will wear what I am told to.

I don't mind shorts (pretty ubiquitous here), but I prefer the black ones to the white ones.

With all due respect, why would you wear your regular uniform socks up to your knees with shorts?

If you couldn't find your small white socks. That happened to me right after I moved. I had no choice. I looked goofy, but I learned.

Joe, our (North Jersey) "official" sub-varsity uniform allows for shorts but mandates that we wear the Fed socks. I know of at least a few crews that don't adhere to the "official" policy.

Added - No shorts for Varsity games!

Walt, are you serious? I'm ok with the shorts, but if so, you need to wear white crew socks. I would simply wear the knickers if the mandate was to wear federation socks with the shorts. That combination looks horrible. We had one crew that actually did that in a varsity game and they were told if it ever happened again they would be out of a job.

I thought the white shorts/fed socks combo was a lacrosse thing.

We wear black shorts (and white, hopefully short) socks for scrimmages but full uniform for all scholastic games. I sure wouldn't mind wearing shorts in the heat of late August and September for sub varsity or even just Jr. high.

I've never worn shorts in ANY level H.S. game. I've only worn shorts in youth games, our youth association requires the full sock w/shorts. IMO, wearing the full sock with shorts doesn't look anywhere near as bad as wearing an adjustable hat with ANYTHING on the field.

I asked our president why, and he said that the striped socks stand out in a pile, and if the kids know that your there, the less likely that something is going to happen. I don't know whether or not that's true i don't know, but I can understand the reasoning behind the logic.

Personally, I think that if your going to wear ankle socks they should be black, but that is me.

When I was in school, I remember the officials wearing shorts early in the season on Friday nights. The first association I was in, we could wear shorts for all sub-varsity games with white "footies". The group I am now with allows us to wear white shorts for youth and MS ball but we wear white OTC socks.

I'd much prefer the shorter socks!

I've heard tales of young officials or transfers showing up with striped socks and shorts but have never actually seen it.

The lacrosse officials sock actually has no stripes, just a solid black band from the top down about 3-4".

What looks the worst, IMO, is the varying lengths of shorts of guys who have purchased them in different years. I think the ones I have now are a good 2 inches or more longer in the leg than when I started out in '94.

For a scrimmage, we may wear black shorts, but I prefer short black socks with my black shoes. That is not a bad look IMO.

Our then-president passed down an edict 2 years ago stating no shorts for regular season varsity games and also said that if shorts are worn for scrimmages or sub-varsity we're to wear the NFHS socks.

We have the choice of wearing knickers or shorts with NFHS socks.

Many of our officials choose to wear shorts even for varsity games in spite of the fact they look terrible on some for various reasons.

I give my crew a choice of either knickers or knickers and they wisely always choose knickers.