All Sports
Touch and Go
According to the website deepenglish.com, the handshake dates back to knights in Medieval Europe. Mistrustful fellows, they would shake the hand of those they...
Tip Top
In the 44 years Referee has been in existence, tens of thousands of words have been devoted to helping officials improve their performance. Our...
Brand New Ballgames
How will you feel when the COVID-19 restrictions are lifted and the games resume? Ecstatic? Relieved? Anxious?
How about prepared?
We will be experiencing a new...
Slay the Drag-on
One of the great debates in sports these days is how long it takes to play the games. Television has been a great boon...
Want to get better?
How good an official do you want to be? How much do you want to improve? Good officials, no matter their level of experience...
Collision Course
So you think baseball is not a contact sport?
Look at the photo that accompanies this article, captured during the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association Division...
Your Attention Please
T here are many things that might disrupt an official’s concentration during a game. They might be internal or external and could happen during...
Crew Glue
When any game assignment arrives, all sorts of questions usually race through an official’s mind. First, who’s playing? Great teams? A rivalry game? If...
Sure Thing
Officiating is all about making decisions. That’s arguably the one and only reason they give us a paycheck. Sometimes, in the process of decision-making,...
Say When
In most sports, teams are allotted a specific number of timeouts so coaches may confer with players. Although timeouts may also be used in...
Arrive And Shine
How you enter the arena, stadium, field or other facility says a lot about you. Do you casually stroll in? Are you laughing, confident,...
No Argument About It
Not all arguments with coaches end perfectly. The goal of all officials is to resolve volatile conflict quickly and to an extent that allows...
Fair Ball
Coaches have all sorts of creative ways to question the ethics and integrity of officials. During the pregame meeting, they are often curious about...
Pace Commander
How to set and maintain a good pace to a game is not often discussed at camps and association meetings. But if players are...
Letter Perfect
M
nemonics are devices intended to assist the memory, as a verse or formula. A popular example, HOMES, is an acronym to help recall the...
Pleasure Crews
"Perception is reality.” When it comes to officiating team sports, that’s often the absolute truth. It doesn’t matter what sport you’re officiating, crew cohesion...
Your Chance to Shine
How do officials make it to the top of their respective sport? What characteristics are necessary to achieve that goal? For years, both as...
Best Selller
The score is tied in the championship basketball game with less than a minute remaining. The fans in the packed arena are on their...
Not-So-Secret Agent
At a referee development camp I attended, the camp director began with a single question: “Who is your agent?”
After a period of silence that...
Everybody’s Talkin’
Pregame conferences during the pandemic were often short or non-existent. Many schools asked us to come dressed and masked and arrive at the game...
Forgive, But Don’t Forget
We’ve all had one. Or two. Or 102. That moment when stark reality hits and you realize you have just kicked the ever-living daylights...
No Dead Ends
When the late Jerry Seeman was NFL director of officials, he developed his 10 Commandments for Officiating. Ninth on his list was: Thou shalt...
Career Suicide Can Be a Killer
Officiating is unlike many endeavors in that hard work, diligent study and the right temperament are not guarantees to success.
Conversely, there are several...
Help Yourself
I stumbled upon a couple of clips of MLB games and got a chuckle out of how the announcers reacted to two situations. It’s...