60 years as an active official!
 

A football official in the State of Washington will be working his 60th (and final) year as a high school football official in 2009. This same official was enshrined in the Washington Sports Hall of Fame after his 50th year. While it may be perhaps unprofessional for me to list his name here, for those of you familiar with the Longview Association you can likely figure it out.

A few years ago...
 

a former crewmate worked a softball tourney with a man in his 80's...maybe a bit old....but as an infantryman who stormed Omaha Beach in WWII, far be it from me to tell him to hang it up.
cheers,
tro

That reminds me of the partner I had for slow-pitch once, when I moved to Omaha. He was so old and dimunitive I asked him if it was ok if I took the bases all night. He said "sonny, you do the plate all night". :eek:

timely topic for me !
 

I just turned 70 the other day. This season will be my 40th---32 in CNY and 8 here. I've decided this will be my last season for football. The main reason is that I have sensed that I am no longer able to move as quickly as I used to getting to the spot where I will place the ball for the next play. I always thought that I would be able to know when it was time to "hang them up". Well this is it. I have two spring scrimmages here in May. I hope the assignor will give me a couple of competitive varsity games and some "fun" freshman and/or JV games in the fall. Then that will be it. What a great ride I've had. I had the pleasure of working 25 play-off and intersectional games in the Syracuse Carrier Dome. I worked the All Star Game in CNY and the All Star Game here a couple years ago. Worked with some great guys over the years--and some very BIG games and some not so big. Life has been good to me !

I think what you mean is your last season of football on the field? Must be a good few years left in you to be assessing and mentoring rookies.......

Do we draw a distinction between retiring and quiting?
We have a low level of retention here, and a LOT of officials stop after 2-4 years, so I would put the average age at... 25-27?
As for people who have officiated at least 10 years - the average age might be something like 55.

What is causing the low level of retention? We have a program here that is helping to retain the rookies and it has seen some great results, not only retaining but developing them faster.

Probably the biggest factor for loosing officials is that some are not really there of their own free will.

To have enough warm bodies around our association has a requirement that each team needs to provide 2 people willing to officiate + 1 more person per additional team (men's, youth A and B, flag, ladies). So the teams dredge up people to send to the training.

Some are actually interested, some do it for their team (players or ex-players ususally), some want to make a little money. Many are quite young and stop playing after a few years, or go off to University, or finally get a girlfriend... And loose an interest altogether in the sport (which is loosing popularity here in Germany).

The system is not as bad as I make it sound though. There are a few new people each year that find it an avocation and stay on.