Our series of 2005 newsletters resumes now that your season has started. We hope you all had a good summer break and that all are excited about our upcoming games. Everyone is looking forward to the potential of a great season. For that, if for no other reason, it is a fine time of year.

 

This edition of our newsletter deals with how to be ready for the arrival of the Referees once the season begins. Our idea here is to make our arrival and very presence the smallest amount of hassle for you on game day.

 

We are mandated to have our crew at the game site 90 minutes prior to scheduled kick-off. In typical metro Atlanta afternoon traffic, we’ve found it challenging to get our crews away from their day jobs and to your game site within the 90 minutes we are required to make it at present. We’re glad that GHSA hasn’t yet required us to be there even earlier, though there has been talk of this for some time now. GHSA wants to be as sure as they can be that proper pre-game preparations are taken by each and every crew prior to the start of their weekly game. We feel the same way. That is why we’ve decided to dedicate this edition of our newsletter to this subject, alone.

 

GHSA is right about 90 minutes being about the minimum time we need to get ready for the game. We take about 15 minutes to change from our street clothes into our game gear and then spend the remaining time before we’re to take control of the field 30 minutes before scheduled lick-off going through our formal pre-game preparations. Each Referee / Crew Chief has his own personal way of conducting his pre-game. But we’re all fairly consistent in covering typical in-game situations as well as any special situations we may know about that could have pertinence to this week’s game. For example, we’ll spend a short amount of time in our pre-game meetings early in the season discussing the weather and how it is likely to impact that week’s game. As the season wears on, we’ll learn all we can about each of the teams, the kinds of offenses and defenses each runs and how these may provide special challenges to our officiating coverage. The hour for changing and conducting a pre-game goes quickly. For that reason, we want to be able to get straight into these activities just as soon s we can and with the least amount of confusion possible.

 

GHSA mandates that the schools provide a private place for us to change and meet, a secure place to park our vehicles and security escorts on and off the field at game’s start, halftime and at game’s end. If we don’t receive any of these minimum supports, we are required to report the deficiencies to GHSA in a game report. In reality, we have very few problems with schools’ not meeting these requirements. And as long as your school meets these, we’ll be happy. If you can have someone available to direct us to our parking spots and then on to our meeting place starting about 1 hour and 45 minutes prior to the opening kick-off, we will be well on our way to meeting all our GHSA-mandated requirements for our pre-game meeting.

 

Of course, some schools feel an extra obligation, or some might say opportunity, to treat the refereeing crews to more than the minimum. We’d be less than human if we said we didn’t notice and appreciate the little extras some schools provide. We really mean it when we say we appreciate your having air conditioned space in the summer and heated space in the autumn. Water or sports drinks are a big plus since we often do a lot of running, especially with the wide-open offenses we so often see these days. And of course, something to eat is a really nice touch when offered. As much as we do appreciate any extra attention like this that you might give us, it is truly not required. And though some folks may see it as an “opportunity” to favorably influence how we eventually call the game, we are scrupulous in not letting ourselves be influenced on the field by how well (or how poorly) we might think we’d been treated with facilities, snacks and the like. We’ll call the best game we can regardless of any of the “extras” you choose to give or withhold from us.

 

Actually, about the only thing you can do to help the overall quality of our job on any given night is to help us out physically. Of primary concern to us all is that we remain as well hydrated as the players do. Meaning that when there is a time-out and players on the field get water, we’d like to get some too, if it is at all convenient. Our only source of this must come from the teams, themselves. So the extent you can try to remember the officials at time-out time, we’ll be able to do a better job for both teams. It won’t win you any favoritism from us, but it will make for a better-called game for both teams if the crew stays up-to-speed all game. Replenishing fluids for us is a very important part of that mix and the one thing teams can do for or to the referees that will not be taken by anyone as an attempt to influence our calls.