How to get started?

[aschramm]

I'll share with you what I did. I contacted our state (Wisconsin) high school athletic association last fall because I did baseball as well for the first time this year. It costs us $20 for a basic license plus $10 for each sport we officiate. With that $10, we get the rulebook, casebook, and officials manual, plus the tests for each sport. Then look into local officials associations. They usually offer training programs and clinics, or combine with another association to have one. This served two purposes for me: a.) it gave me proper training for each sport (although the football one was more brief than baseball), and b.) it gets you contact information for assignors and other officials. Especially in football, if you get to know a few crew chiefs they can provide you with a bunch of games. Youth games are a great places to start, anywhere between 2-6 games on Saturdays.

Being a former football player in high school, this is something I really wanted to do to stay involved with football, and also give back to the game itself.

Look through your rulebook constantly (people on this board will constantly tell you to READ RULE 2!), and try and find the differences between pro/college and high school rules, as these are the rules that coaches will get most upset about, thinking you are applying the rules or enforcements incorrectly.