Mechanics

When I began officiating in 2007, our association began each meeting by having everyone stand, raise their right hands, and recite, “I will not blow my whistle unless I can see the…

Here is a Ray Lutz “Forward Progress” post from August 19, 2008 (edited for clarity). Too many times the crew leaves penalty enforcement entirely to the referee, which is not correct. The…

Beginning, Middle, and End We need to see the whole play (beginning, middle, and end) to determine if a player fouled. Sometimes we’ll only see the end of the play and throw…

I’ll never forget my first inadvertent whistle. My mistake was during a first-round playoff game. I was the “youngster” on a crew of veteran officials, so I was excited and honored to…

Occasionally, I will share a play in which I made a mistake. This is a “fun” story to tell 15 years later, but it wasn’t fun for my crewmate at the time.…