Recent is a relative term, but a couple of years ago I decided that being a football referee would be a good part-time job. I started with girls’ flag football and then moved to the boys’ side of things in the fall. It’s a decent side job and it’s also fun, but I never realized how challenging it is. There is so much to do in terms of mechanics.
The rules are actually the easier part, especially because there are three refs in flag football and four to five in tackle football, so the collection of rules knowledge is a blessing. But the different keys and checks before the snap and the action that takes place after the snap can get very complicated. And that doesn’t take into account the pressure of not missing anything. The comforting fact is that in the course of a game, there are literally hundreds of decisions that a referee makes, and most of us get 99 percent of them right. Some refs get 100 percent of them right most of the time. None of us are perfect, but most of us are really trying to be.
There’s the old saying that “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” but this old dog decided to take on an entire sack of new tricks, and it’s something that I’ve truly come to love. So the next time you decide to scream at a referee for getting a call wrong, think about the 99 percent, have a little more compassion and scream just a little bit less.
