Hey Brandon! Your "Poll" question is a bit misleading...
 

Your question; "Should a WH be authorized to overrule the calls of the other officials?"

The answer to the poll question, as written, is and can only be YES!

Why? Because of the game situation where an official throws a flag in error?
Consider this situation:
A young fireball Line Judge throws a flag in a NFHS game for an ineligible reciever downfield during a punt! :eek:

This situation kinda trumps all your other "what if's!" :rolleyes:

Which is why I voted "Yes"!

Nuff said :cool:

I'm not so sure about this always being true. Often times, a side block is not going to be seen and can be quite brutal, yet legal hits.

moved to a new subject

I'm wondering if there are areas where the white hat (i.e Referee; just to be clear) and the Crew chief are or could be two different individuals. Where I work, they are the same. R's have some additional responsibilities (without additional pay, but that's another debate) and do take control. However, if one of my crew members brings me a penalty, I'm going to enforce it unless its just flat out wrong. Then I will convince him to change it -- which I have done. Heck, I've even talked myself into picking up my own flag before! No, we don't get into a habit of that, but if its necessary we'll do it.

I tell my crew (and adhere to it myself): don't be married to your calls. If my BJ comes in with a DPI and my LJ comes in and says it was probably uncatchable, I'll give them 5-10 seconds to discuss it and then we'll come to a decision but I expect both of them to decide on what's the best call for that situation, not what upholds their ego. Otherwise, I expect my guys to make the tough calls and when they bring them to me, I'll enforce them. If one guy comes to me and says, "18 threw a punch, I think he's ejected," 18 is gone. If one comes to me and says "18 had a personal foul but I'm not sure if it was flagrant," I'll try to get together to see if 1) they saw what 18 did on that play and 2) if they had warned 18 before. In the end, whoever made the call will make the decision unless he gives it up to me or the crew.

This is one reason why you need a good pregame if working with guys you don't consistently work with. That's when I give my "married to your calls" speech -- which mainly applies to things like uncatchable pass on DPI or pass thrown behind the line on ineligibles downfield, and like plays.

KWH,
I respectfully disagree with you. A simple conference between the officials INCLUDING the WH would correct this error. I do not believe that in any circumstance should the WH simply over rule a call one of his fellow officials makes. If an official comes to the WH and says I have a illegal helmet contact foul and that particular official says that there was sufficent risk of the offended player being hurt, Just because the WH didn't see it himself doesn't mean that the player should be able to continue to participate. Again I say this with complete respect towards you but if a WH could call the game by himself then there wouldn't be any need for the other officials.

Welcome to the real world. Hypothetically speaking, everyone will agree with you by saying that a Referee should not overrule another official's call.

In the real world no referee will knowingly agree to enforce a penalty that he knows is incorrect.

Using the example cited above - Any R who enforces an ineligible down field penalty on a punt will not be working as an R for much longer.

I agree with Walt!:)

But wait, wasn't Walt agreeing with me?:confused:

Brandon, I am not talking about a judgment call, I am talking about a rule error made by a crew mate. I hope you are not suggesting we should not have picked up the flag when I had a real-life rookie line judge had a flag down for an ineligible reciever downfield on a punt. When he reported to me that he had an ineligible downfield on a punt, we had a breif discussion on the field and the flag was waved off. It wasn't changed in an attempt to bury an blatant ruling error, it was picked up because it was a ruling error from the Line Judge plain and simple. I believe my actions fits your description of a white hat overruling another official.

Brandon, I have been officiating for 31 years and that play and the one where the reciever caught the ball, landed on his back, got up, and ran into the endzone and the covering official signalled touchdown (because he wasn't down by contact) are the only two plays that come to mind. By the way, I "Overruled" the second play also, and you would not have wanted to be in that locker room.

It would be a rare occurance to even discuss a judgment call on the field. (We sure do behind closed doors though)

Again Brandon, you wrote a Black and White question and I am giving you an two examples of why your question could be answered with a "Yes"

And walt hit the nail on the head. While hypothetically, we all would like to answer your question with a Yes, its not 100% yes question...

Brandon,

I'm coming into this thread late, but I can give you two times I flat out overruled another official in a varsity game. Both were many years ago and both involved relatively new officials.

The first was a pass play where the QB was under a lot of pressure. I saw the play clearly. I looked up to see the LJ's flag on the field. He told me he had intentional grounding. I said "no, you don't" and waved it off.

The second was a late hit out of bounds called by the BJ in 5-man. The LJ, on whose sideline it happened, went immediately to the BJ, then they both came to me. The LJ said the defender was pushed into the player by an offensive player and the contact was unavoidable, the BJ said he still should have been able to avoid contact. A no-call is just as valid as a call, so I had to pick one. I went with the LJ because he was closer to the play and because I knew the BJ tended to be a bit trigger-happy.

Never say never.