Rules Knowledge is Perishable
Rules knowledge is like mastering a second language. When you’re immersed, hearing and speaking it every day, the words come naturally. When you step away, even for a short time, your vocabulary…
Ready For Play
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Life Tips from @SahilBloom
I’ve shared in previous articles that I enjoy collecting life tips I come across on social media. What follows isn’t written with football officials in mind, but you’ll see how the ideas…
Anticipate a Coach’s Timeout Request
In past Ready for Play articles, we’ve talked about crossover concepts between basketball and football officiating. Here’s another one: in basketball, officials are taught to glance at the bench near the end…
Dealing With a Mistake
Every official has made a significant error, like blowing an inadvertent whistle, making an incorrect ruling, incorrectly enforcing a foul, or mishandling communication with a coach or player. Maybe a coach blew…
Everyone Has a Role in Penalty Enforcement
I’m recycling a Ready for Play article from 2024. We’ve had a few penalty enforcement issues in the first few weeks of the season, so this is a good time to remind…
Referee Signals
In our last Ready for Play article, we introduced the ‘Rule of Two’—a guideline for how officials should signal. This article provides a few best practices for referee signals. When blowing the…
The Rule of Two
We use signals to communicate with our crewmates on the field. We use signals to communicate to game clock and play clock operators. And we use signals to show our judgment during…
Avoid Tunnel Vision
One of the bad habits newer wing officials develop is staring straight down the line once they’ve reached the forward progress spot and squared off. For some reason, they have tunnel vision…