• For 2011 we continued our long established programs of soliciting feedback from the teams we serve via our crew evaluation process on this web site, and we continued distributing ball-point pens with Multi-County information to be given away to head coaches during pre-game meetings between the Referees & Umpires and Head Coaches. We also repeated the video shooting of our "top 3" crews at or near season's end. These were reviewed and eventually both our "top 2" crews had their videos submitted to GHSA for evaluation by the newly-established video review committee (GHSA limited submissions to 2 crews per association). That committee selected one of our crews as a semi-final crew.

• We again held our regular "Monday" meeting schedule to 12 meetings for 2010. This allowed us to continue to help members use more of their time for their personal lives without compromising on the content of our training sessions. 

• 2011 was our 4th season of using ArbiterSports as our booking medium.

• Our membership count bounced back in 2011, reflecting some good recruiting efforts as well as having some folks "return to the fold" after a few years testing the waters elsewhere. By season's end we had 88 officials on our active roster; 87 of whom were able to work scheduled games for us. While the count of brand new officials was about average, we maintained the recent trend of attracting generally high-quality individuals into the group. We were still able to meet our long-term commitment to getting qualified people onto the field as early as possible in their careers even though our number of total games (at the Varsity level at least) remained near the 2010 level.

• In line with the successful recruitment of high-quality new officials in the past few years, we continued the mixing of officials on different crews during the regular season - much as we were able to do in 2010. We managed to keep a good balance of working crews together in preparation for the playoffs toward season's end with a real good mixing of crews earlier in the season. This helps us on both the developmental and playoff-readiness fronts. But it is a delicate balance as we must remember that every game is a big game for the teams involved; we must always put competent crews out for every contest.

• GHSA continued to assign us most of the same schools' contracts  as we'd had in 2010. There were a few changes, but overall we continued to serve many familiar programs compared to the past few years. We continued to help GHSA with "schedule balancing" by taking several "travel" games at various sites outside our normal geographic area, these sites were all in central or north Georgia.

• Varsity: We did 97 regular season GHSA games over the course of an 11-week-long period; all used 6-man on-field crews plus an ECO. Games done in DeKalb County and for Newton High School also included use of an MCFOA chain crew. This was 1 more game than we worked in the regular season last year.

• Sub-Varsity: We worked about the same number of sub-varsity games in 2011 as we did in 2010. This reflects the continued absence of the bulk of our historic middle school schedule that went along with last year's folding of the NewRock league. We hope to be able to resume calling a higher number middle school soon; but this all depends upon the economy and a return to play of the middle schools in our geography.

• All playoff games used 6-man on-field crews along with an ECO. In the 1st round, we also provided 3-man chain crews for a total crew size of 10 men. In 2nd and subsequent rounds, we used 4-man chain crews for a total crew size of 11 men.

• First Round - 5 games: AAAA Johns Creek vs Flowery Branch - Reed; AAAA Jonesboro vs Griffin - Rice; AAA Carrolton vs Columbia - Camp; AAA Sandy Creek vs Butler - King;  A George Walton vs Wilkinson County - Kirshner.
• This compared to 6 games in the first round in 2006; 5 games in each of the years: 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007 & 2010 and 4 games in both 2008 & 2009.

• Second Round - 2 games: AAA Sandy Creek vs Troup - Reed; AA Lamar County vs Blessed Trinity - Rice.
• This compared to 3 games in 2006 & 2007 and 2 games in the second round in each of the years: 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2008, 2009 & 2010.

• Third Round - 1 game: A Aquinas vs Landmark Christian - Reed.
• This compared to 1 game in the third round in and 2002, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 & 2010 and no games in the years 2004 & 2005.

• Fourth Round - 1 game: AAAA Lovejoy vs Warner Robins - Rice.
• This compared to no games in 2008 & 2009 year and 1 game in 2007 & 2010.

• We handled the same number of total playoff games compared to 2010. Probably more importantly, we got back-to-back semi-finals games for the first time in any current member's memory. Getting 5 games in the 1st round kept us at our historical "average" number of games for that round. While the number of games in the playoffs in any one year isn't a good predictor for coming years, the trend continues in the right direction. 
• The competition for deep playoff assignments has gotten tighter in recent years. We have been both fortunate and deserving of the deep round games we've had assigned to us. This reflects hard work on the part of the entire association. Only continued hard work will allow us to continue that trend. Everyone who has worked so hard to achieve continuing excellence - not just those crews who got the assignments should feel justly proud of the accomplishment. This is no time to sit on our laurels, however. The competition is keen already; only continuing our efforts toward excellence will give us the chance to continue this trend and perhaps even receive a finals assignment.

• (FUTURE) Follow this link to view a gallery of playoff crew pictures: 2011 Playoff Pictures

• We had a total membership of 88 officials as of the end of the season in ArbiterSports (7 more than for 2010). This is slightly above average size for the 23 GHSA-sanctioned local officiating associations and is roughly level with our membership for 2008 and 2009.
• Our long-time Secretary, Jack Henderson, decided to essentially "call it a career" at the end of this season. An orderly transition in this hugely important and visible job has already been accomplished as George Allen has "hit the ground running." We all owe Jack a big debt of gratitude for the fine way he has represented MCFOA both on the field and off - especially in serving our interests in relation to the GHSA.

• President, Frank Reed - re-elected
• Treasurer, John Register - re-elected
• Secretary, George Allen, newly elected
• Vice President, Booking, T. C. Candis - re-elected

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