Observations from a "Zebra"

Being a sports junkie I found that after my playing days had passed by, I increasingly missed being involved in the sports I loved. To help with this situation, I started to participate in officiating. It started with my main sport of hockey about ten years ago and then that has passed that last three seasons to the hardest officiating I have ever done: being a Pop Warner Football official.

This blog isn't meant to be any sort of war stories, or an amusing interaction with people - but mainly as a list of observations/comments that I see as a disturbing trend in our youth sports today. Many of us that follow or participate in this blog love sports and have children that will hopefully soon be as interested in sports as you are.

Observations of a Youth Football Official

1. A large majority of youth officials come from community based professions. In my group of officials, we are dominated mostly by teachers, school administrators, firefighters, and law enforcement. We all share the love of the game of football.

2. The younger the child, the more the parents care about who "wins" than the child. I officiate Pop Warner kids from the age of 5 to the age of 15. I have come to find that the younger the age group - the parents get more difficult to handle. When a child is learning the game from the age of 5 to 9, it is our job to make sure that they are safe, and that they have a good time playing. Officials understand that throwing flags at this level will make our kids bored to play, and they quickly lose interest. I've found that kids lose interest when their parents are screaming at the officials about a neutral zone violation, or that little Johnny grabbed a jersey 20 yards away from the ball. We understand that the children are our key to being still able to officiate a sport we love in the future.

3. Officials take making mistakes very, very hard. Officials unfortunately are still human. We beat ourselves up over the inadvertent whistle that causes a game to change, or that call we missed that led to a major game change.

4. Parents treat Saturday like Sunday NFL. This is the worst offense I have seen in my years officiating. I have seen parents drag their kids off by the facemask while screaming at them how much they "suck" at football, or how could they drop that pass or fumble that ball. It is important to teach kids to play to win and be successful. It is MORE important to teach a child to always give their best, and to treat setbacks as learning points to acheive more in the future.

5. Blaming the officials to make it 'OK' to lose. I hear this more and more each year. "We were robbed by the officials" "We were cheated" "Home team brought their own refs" This is the wrong thing to teach children. I have never met any official that I have worked with that contains any bias towards a particular team or child. We do our best on every play to make sure we have a fair, and FUN, game.


Thank you for reading my thoughts on something that is very important to our children, and hopefully if anyone does any of these things, you now see a little bit into the other side of the ball.

ahhh Fall...

Fall is by far my favorite time of year.

Even though we didn't have much of a summer here in Syracuse, I really don't care as long as Fall stays until November. My fingers are crossed.

In addition to the crisper days, beautiful foliage and cool nights, I also get to cut down my work hours, attend classes and enjoy my significantly more exciting bike ride to the office as my path is now littered with undergraduates. The weather is even perfect for late evening walks home from class and mid-afternoon runs at the state park.

The lapse of humidity is also a plus.

But possibly the best part about the beginning of Autumn is the fact that I finally got an entire week off of work, my first vacation since Christmas. I visited my parents in Albany, friends in Buffalo, went to Toronto for the first time and saw Niagara Falls for the first time since I was an ornery, miserable pre-teen.

And now, I'm crazy with classes, working and my extra-curriculars, but it's ok because it's Fall for at least another couple of weeks.

The only downside to the glorious weather is that it makes it really hard to stay inside and get some work done...

On the day the Philadelphia Eagles announced their decision to sign with notorious dog murderer, Michael Vick, I picked out a 7 week old Golden Retriever Lab Mix puppy. Despite my obvious conflict of interest as an Eagles fan and dog lover, for the past 2 weeks as I waited for my puppy to be old enough to take home, she was all I could think, talk and dream about. Many of my coworkers at ICS, especially Justin and Andrew, have heard my constant gushing about this puppy, seen pictures and weighed in on their favorite name from my extensive list of name choices. Darla was the final decision and this weekend, she finally was able to be brought home. So far, she has had a few accidents in the house as expected and has attempted to chew remote controls, chair legs and my hair. She has barked at herself as she discovered her reflection in the mirror and has the most adorable pounce as she chases after her toys. To the left is a picture of Darla, with one of her favorite toys: an ICS slapball, which she has already punctured with her pin sharp puppy teeth.