SPEAKER_01 0:04

You're listening to the Hanging with the AD podcast, where we break down hot topics in athletic administration and lessons learned through leadership. Now, here are your hosts, Josh Matthews and Don Baker.

SPEAKER_02 0:18

All right, welcome to another edition of Hanging with the AD. Today is another episode of our single topic series, and we have a panel of special guests who are going to focus on officiating. So we have three uh officials, high school officials with us that serve over a multitude of sports. We're looking forward to learning more about officiating. We know there's kind of a nationwide epidemic with a shortage of officials as a lot of the longtime officials move out because of age and other reasons. And we're looking to get new officials in, get a new generation of officials. And I think our panel today will be able to help us maybe share some insight on uh what it takes and why it's great to be an official. Uh, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna start off and introduce each one of our three guests here, give a quick introduction. I think I know each one of them, I know a little bit about each one of them. Um, we won't get the full intro like we do on a regular episode. So uh if you want to know more about these folks, uh let us know. We'll we'll get you more information. But uh, and then for our three guests, once I introduce each one of you, we will let you kind of give us a little bit more about your official uh officiating introduction through a series of a couple questions to start off with. But I'll start off uh our first official, Miss Shay Jones. Uh Shay is a football and flag football, boys' football, girls flag football official. Um, Shay works locally uh for a real job. She works in retail. Uh all these folks, you know, we know all of our officials have real jobs, and uh Shay works in retail there. I will say that these three officials we have are local to Cobb County here in Georgia, uh, rather than search out all over the country and pick people we didn't know. We found three officials that we had a relationship with. So I think this conversation is gonna be a good microcosm. Shay, thanks for joining us. We look forward to hearing your perspective on being a female official across a couple of different sports there. And our next official and next guest is Mr. Brad McBrayer. Uh, Brad is a relatively new official. We'll get into that in a few minutes. Uh Brad Umpires Baseball. Um, and the cool thing, there's a lot of cool things about Brad, but the cool thing about Brad is as a lot of athletic directors, we are trying to encourage our graduating parents, uh, parents whose kids are no longer in sports. Uh, Brad's son played baseball at one of our local high schools here. Uh, when he moved on to college, his career was over. Brad no longer had a connection to the sport of baseball. So um, he had an interest, he loved the game, and he decided to get into officiating. So, you know, if you're an athletic director, what you can hear from Brad is uh a perspective of becoming a or going from being a parent to becoming an official there in high school sports. So, Brad, thanks for being with us today. Absolutely good to be here. And then our last official, maybe our most uh diverse across the most sports. Uh, I don't know all of Shay's experience, but I know Todd's been doing this a long time. Todd Downs uh is a retired teacher and coach in Georgia. Uh so he served his uh his time as a teacher and then uh retired. Now he works kind of as a hobby, I guess, in facility management, event management at Truest Park with a Brays and Mercedes-Benz Stadium where they do a whole lot of things. Uh, so he could probably share a lot on event management, which was another uh series uh excuse me, another episode in this single topic series. But Todd uh was a high school softball coach, moved up to college and coached in college, and he referees or officiates boys' football, girls' flag football, and basketball, and has probably done some other things as well. So, Todd, thanks for joining us today. Absolutely. Thank you, sir. All right, we're gonna jump right in. I'm gonna stay in that same order. So, this first question, Shay, I'll let you go first, then Brad, then Todd, and y'all can just roll right after one another. Uh for for all of you right here. What made you want to become an official? So, Shay, what made you want to become an official?

SPEAKER_05 4:25

Um, so I've played uh flag football since about 2008. I used to give the officials a hard time all the time, but it was in good fun. It wasn't, you know, nothing disrespectful. Um, and then, you know, an official an official was like, why don't you, you know, switch positions? Why don't you just come over and you know, see how you like it on this side? And at first at first I was nervous and scared. Um, you know, because I am a female and at the time it was uh, you know, predominantly male, you know, all the officials were male. So I was like, okay, well, you know, let's see how it goes. And like once I learned the rules and earned the respect from my peers and then from the players, it was nothing but up for me from there. So that's that's what really made me, you know, become an official. And then of course now doing tackle football for the, you know, gentlemen being official for them, um, is even even greater to me. As long as you understand the rules and are able to speak with everybody with confidence and respect, they're gonna respect you back. They might not like all the calls that you make, but they're at least still gonna respect you.

SPEAKER_04 5:31

Good. Brad. Yeah, you mentioned that um I I took up uh officiating and umpiring after my son uh graduated high school, uh, went off to college. Um my daughter, our youngest child, graduated soon after that. This was all right around the time that the pandemic was starting and ending. And um I thought my kids are about to be out of the house in college. I need to find something to myself to get out of the house, stay a little more active. I love baseball. A friend of mine was officiating and been trying to get me into it uh for a year or so. And so I thought, well, let's give it a shot and see what happens. And uh I saw a commercial actually during the high school um playoff season, and it was from GHSA, and it was like, we need umpires, and so that was kind of the final spark for me. I I went and I I signed up and uh got trained, and we're off and rolling now. Great.

SPEAKER_00 6:33

Josh, I uh got started in college and was refereeing uh little kids, seven and eight-year-old basketball, and was just doing it to make a little bit of extra money. And at that time, a gentleman who I did not know approached me and said, Have you ever thought about doing football? And from there, football led into basketball at the high school level. Um, at some point in time in my career, I guess I've done five different sports. Uh haven't done some of the others in a while. But it all started just by mistake from uh hanging out at the gym and doing seven and eight-year-old um girls and boys uh youth basketball. And then it's just escalated from there.

SPEAKER_02 7:15

That's great. Three three different stories, there. You had one who's a participant, uh, Shay was participating in sports and uh just flipped over to being official. Brad was a parent, and then Todd being a college student. You know, college college kids need a hot need stuff to do and want to make extra money and uh easy money. So it's a great way to uh to jump into officiating. Three different backgrounds. That's really cool.

SPEAKER_03 7:39

I don't know about easy money. Uh you know, that's right. Yeah, my bad. I don't think I'd use that. Yeah, I don't think I'd use that term, but anyway, um let me ask you this. Uh and Todd, we'll start with you. We'll go Todd, Brad, and then Shay. Uh, about how many days do you officiate when you're in season? What does that week look like for you?

SPEAKER_00 7:57

Uh, when you're in season, listen, we'll talk about football specifically for us right now that we're in. Um, on the field, you can uh figure you're gonna work almost every Thursday uh at either the ninth grade or JV level. Um, our association is contracted with 26 schools. You may not have varsity games every Friday, but almost everyone has a ninth grade or JV game every Thursday. So you do JVs on Thursdays, uh varsity on Friday, and uh if you choose to, there's middle school options you can do almost all day long on Saturday. Uh, I know when I started, I used to do three middle school games every Saturday. Uh, and then there's a lot of time during the week, though, that is spent leading up to those Friday events, whether it's an association meeting on a Monday night, uh, Zoom calls about your pregames and what's going on. So I'm gonna tell you two to three days a week on the field, and then probably even more so um behind the scenes.

SPEAKER_04 9:00

Good. Rep. And for baseball, it's um if you want to, you can umpire six days out of the week. Um, and it's really completely up to you. I say six days because obviously they do not play high school sports on Sundays, at least not in baseball. I don't I I don't think so in the other sports either. Um, and the six days a week, uh just it's really up to you. Um, and when I when I say that, I mean it completely because we get a schedule, our association, we have a schedule we can go in and we can block off the days uh that we don't want to work. And so it's not like you get an assignment and you have to take it. Um, you pretty much put in the days that you want to work. For me personally, I try not to do more than four games a week. Uh, family is important to me. And so I want to make sure that I honor that time of my wife and my kids when they are in town. Um, and as far as meetings and things like that, uh before the season, you'll usually have one association meeting a week, but during the season, it may be once a month. So uh the time for a baseball umpire is mostly uh limited to the game time. So that is pre-game, game, and then a little bit of post-game. Gotcha. Uh Shay, what about you?

SPEAKER_05 10:15

For me, um, by doing girls flag football right now, um, I can have a game uh any day of the week, honestly. Um and then it's three games uh per day. Um so it could be maybe two days a week or it could be up to four days a week. So it just depends on you know the need for you know me to be an official um, you know, that particular week.

SPEAKER_03 10:42

Gotcha. Now, Brad, you just became a baseball umpire that we talked about pretty recently. Uh, could you maybe talk about some of the requirements to get started? Uh I know any strategies for folks who who want to get into officiating, especially in the diamond sports, that require a little bit more equipment than some of the others.

SPEAKER_04 10:59

Yeah. So, first of all, the the biggest requirement is the want-to. I mean, uh, you need the want-to, and um uh that is the biggest impetus because there, you know, it's probably a little intimidating coming in. I I grew up around sports. I grew up, uh I work in my my real life job is sports television. So I've been around baseball my whole life. I knew baseball inside and out, but even becoming an umpire, um, there were things about umpiring that I did not know after years and years of being around the sport. Um, so the want to and uh and the desire to learn, um, you you have to be willing to learn. But as far as physical things that you need, uh you do need equipment. Um, and that's mostly uh it's definitely uniform, um, but it's also uh the behind the plate gear, you know, the mask, the chest guard, the shin guards, and things like that. My association is really great in that new umpires, when they come in, they have a stash of basically used equipment that previous umpires have donated. And so as a new umpire, you have the ability to, you know, receive some of that free gear uh to bide you over until you make a little umpiring money and be able to get your own. Um, and then you just donate it back for uh new umpires that come in behind you. Me myself, I I didn't have to take advantage of that. I actually found uh uh a guy who was retiring out of umpiring uh on Facebook Marketplace that was selling all his gear in perfect condition. I got it at a huge discount. So um there is definitely that requirement. Um, but there are ways to kind of ease into it as well.

SPEAKER_02 12:45

Yeah, Brad, I think you make some good points there because if you go back to Todd's story about getting started in college, uh, we all remember our college days, and I I don't uh I know NIL is a big deal, but the average college kid probably doesn't have a whole lot of money, right? They're always trying to find some money and to have to buy a bunch of equipment, and and even if you're a basketball umpire or excuse me, official or football where you don't need that extra equipment, you're just buying uniforms and shoes and pants and stuff like that, still still rather uh costly. So I think uh being able to find those things uh on Facebook Marketplace, on social media, wherever associations having stashes. I just heard softball officials talking about passing things down. I think uh for the one who may be out there concerned about the cost, the startup cost, uh, that's great to hear. So that's really good. All right, Shay, I want to come to you. You know, officiating, uh, you kind of mentioned this earlier, uh, is like coaching and the athletic administrator field that Don and I uh have really uh, you know, got some experience in as far as trying to find um diversity, find female participants, athletic administrators. There just aren't a lot of females in those prominent positions and officiating is really no different, I think. What attracted you to get involved as a football and flag football official? You kind of mentioned somebody just challenged you, which is that that may be the answer. Uh, but further than that, how have the guys been welcoming of you and your involvement and what misperceptions did you have to overcome uh getting involved, especially on the varsity tackle football or excuse me, boys or tackle football site?

SPEAKER_05 14:30

So for me, the first thing was I had to get over that I knew everything about football. Um the thing is I didn't I didn't know as much as I thought I did. Um so that was the first thing that I had to overcome. And as far as like being welcomed, I I came in with open arms with the association that I'm in. Um they were eager to, you know, train me, get me to know everything I needed to know. If I had any questions, you know, there was no doubt they were there, like, hey, if you need anything, just let me know. You know, we understand this is something new kind of for you. But you know, if you had questions, just let me know. The coaches, it was it was a little tough for the coaches, you know, because I am a female. So of course the first thing is, oh, here we go with this new person, and she's a lady, so I don't know if she knows what she's doing. But then that's where my association, you know, stepped in before the season even started to get me where I needed to be. So when a coach may have tried to challenge me on a call or a play or even a rule, I was able to, you know, just hey, this is what it is, this is what I saw, this is what I call. And, you know, like I said before, it's not a lot of coaches aren't gonna like what you call at that moment. But, you know, what I noticed was towards the end, you know, maybe of the game or you know, after the game, hey, you did a great job, that was a great game. You know, the call you made was great. You know, I didn't agree, but I still I still like how you was confident on, you know, what you were doing and and things like that. So it's it's been an up and down battle. I can't sit here in line and say that I wasn't nervous or you know, scared because I was, you know, it was something new to me and I didn't want to mess up because I knew that I had the the opportunities um and the knowledge that was given to me, but you know, just being out there, just making sure I don't mess up. Um it was definitely challenging at first, but once once I got it down packed and just, you know, take a couple of breaths, everything went smooth from there.

SPEAKER_03 16:29

That's good. Now, Todd, you coached at the high school level and the college level, then became an umpire. And for a while, you did both simultaneously, coaching at the college level and umpiring high school sports. How did officiating make you a better coach? Uh, I think that it's good for us to kind of get out of our lane from time to time to learn some other things and see that other side of the coin to make us better. Uh, what wisdom did you gain officiating that a coach who has never officiated may not be privy to?

SPEAKER_00 16:58

Yeah, I've done both, and that's a great question. I think this, um, as a coach, uh, when I would look at officials, I would look at a couple of things. I know you're not going to get all the calls correct. Okay, but I'm looking at appearance when they show up. Do they show up? Do they look the part? Do they hustle? And most of the sports, I know their mechanics and are they where they're supposed to be and when they're supposed to be there. Uh, those are the things I look at. I would try not to ever argue or discuss uh with officials um the judgment side of it, uh, because I know that's that's not going to change and they're trying to do that, but maybe discuss why the judgment was not what they were. And then I will always tell always say this as a coach. I used to always say to my athletes, don't give the officials a chance to screw up. So try to do as much as you can as an athlete and as a coach so that it's very cut and dried. That if you put yourself on the official side where it's a 50-50 call, that you may not go in your favor. Uh, so I used to always say that to the to the athletes, don't give um them a chance to screw up because they might. But the things again, it's probably much more mechanical and appearance stuff that I would be most upset with officials about versus you know balls and strikes or you know, fouls, no fouls, and stuff like that. That's good.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

Shay, do you need to go?

SPEAKER_05 18:27

Yes, sir. I do. I'm so sorry. That's okay. All good. No, no, we appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you so much, gentlemen. Y'all have a great day.

SPEAKER_02 18:34

And thank you. Thank you, Shay. All right. For uh Todd and Brad here, uh the next question. And Todd, you can start since you just uh went. Go ahead and answer this one. What makes a good official? What should people look at to evaluate whether an official had a good night, a good game, or not?

SPEAKER_00 18:56

Um, great question. Let me go at it from a couple of angles. Okay. Um, number one, we try to tell young officials, okay, try to hone in on your mechanics first. And I'm sure it's the same with Brad in baseball. It's been a long time since I did baseball, but try to hone in on your mechanics first. Okay, and that includes your parents, the stuff I just talked about, being in the right positions, etc. And then secondly, the rules knowledge will come. Um, because if you jump into that rule book from day one, that's great, but you got to be able to implement it on the field. So I would say number one is your mechanics, and again, are they in the spots where they're supposed to be? Uh, and then from a fan standpoint, you know they're gonna look at it one-sided. But having said that, I think it's important that we try to manage the game, okay, as much as we are refereeing the game. So if we're managing the game, we're keeping it under control, we're where we're supposed to be, et cetera. Um, then I think that's all the people can ask for. And hopefully we're gonna get the calls right. Uh, and then I'll add one more thing. Um, and I don't know, Josh or Don, if you've ever officiated even in a murals or recreation, but once you get into refereeing or officiating, you will never watch a game the same way again on TV or in person. You're gonna find yourself watching the officials more so than you are the game and saying, hey, why was he there? Why was he there, or she there, et cetera, like that. Uh, so that's a probably a little bit of everything you just asked, Josh, but that would be my answer to that.

SPEAKER_02 20:38

No, that's good. I know as a game administrator that manage the game from a referee standpoint is huge because it helps out the whole administration of the game. So we appreciate that. Brad, what do you think? What makes a good official?

SPEAKER_04 20:51

I think more than anything, um, it's I would agree with everything Todd said, but in addition to that, just consistency, you know, especially like in baseball, strike zones. Uh there's there's nothing in the rule book that says exactly inch-wise, height-wise, or anything like that, what a strike is. A strike is kind of individual to an umpire, really, an umpire and a batter. And um uh I think fans in the stands, parents in the stands, coaches, even players, more than anything, want consistency. If you give them uh an inch on the outside to one team, then it needs to be given to the other team as well. And I think once the crowd, the team, the coaches see that that's what's going to be called, then it becomes accepted. And just to echo what Todd said about just mechanics and um uh the the confidence to know what you're doing and game management, um, it's kind of like, you know, uh for ball players, you know, a lot of them think that if you look like a ball player, you'll be a ball player. So they, you know, they dress to the nines. And everything, and and uh they think that's half the game. Well, for officiating, that's it's kind of the same. If you look like you know what you're doing, um, then whether you do or not, you're gonna fool the crowd. Um, so just having the confidence uh on the field to make a call with confidence, to um to ignore uh an uproar, uh, not have rabbit ears, like we we say in the game, um, and just do your job uh confidently and consistently, I think uh people are gonna see that uh he had a pretty good game.

SPEAKER_03 22:38

Now, Todd, let's let's kind of I the last question I asked, you dealt with coaching and how it influences you know how you officiate, but let's stay in the official world for a second. So you you've officiated multiple sports, like you said, five total probably. Is it like the multi-sport athlete or the multi-sport coach who uses different muscles and expertise when they're strengthening themselves by participating in those different sports on the official side? What value does doing multiple sports bring to the official uh as they look to work games?

SPEAKER_00 23:11

Almost everything that Brad just mentioned because the skills of the appearance, the managing the game, the consistency, all of those stay the exact same. And, you know, I I I'm pretty confident I've never done lacrosse. I'll just pick that as a sport. But if tomorrow I wanted to go do lacrosse, I think my officiating confidence experience, everything I've done, I could pick lacrosse up and probably very quickly, you know, at least be able to manage. I may not get everything right, but at least be able to manage what was going on. So I think the common threads that we've mentioned already carry 100% across the board. And I think, you know, let's just say with lacrosse, it would just take me learning the rule book as much as it would that. And I will add that, you know, a lot of officials, you try to get people that have played those sports uh if you can, because that's going to help them uh maybe know what to look for a little bit better than someone that hasn't played that sport. But having said that, that is never a requirement. We we take people that have been nothing but fans their entire life and can turn them into very good officials if they have the time and commitment to want to do it.

SPEAKER_02 24:25

It's good. I don't know all the lacrosse rules, but it seems like that rule book's probably as thick as all those other rule books, the ones you already know combined. So Okay. Yeah, yeah. It just seems like it. But um so, so I'll ask this question to both of you. Uh, we were gonna ask Shay, she had to uh drop out for a second and you know, get get back to like y'all, like we said, y'all have real jobs as well, and we appreciate your time. But um, I had a conversation recently with Shay about the standards that officials have for themselves and their crews, right? It's not just wear a striped shirt, bring a whistle, and anyone can do it. I mean, y'all already mentioned that uh the rules part is hard, right? That's you gotta know all those rules on the fly, but uh you do put in a lot of time and preparation and study. Um talk about the standards that the best officials like y'all set for themselves and how they present themselves. You already talked about it in uh you've already spoken about it in appearance and confidence. Um maybe one thing focus on here is how do you overcome failure? How do you overcome missing a call? Because you're human, you know you miss it probably. Um, and especially when everybody lets you know, right? Um but how do you do that? How how do you set standards for you and your crews and maintain those standards and then reflect upon those standards to get better? Uh Brad, do you want to start? Sure.

SPEAKER_04 25:55

Um, well, first of all, I would say that as an umpiring crew, when you're with your crew, let me first say that you're not with the same crew all the time. Right. You're you're with a different crew almost every game, except in the playoffs. You may have some consistency there. But when you meet pregame, you you establish right early on that there will be three teams on the field. There's the home team, there's the away team, and then there's us as an umpiring crew. And we have to support each other. And that doesn't mean just support of a bad call, that means being where you should be, so that the other members of your team can count on the right thing happening. Uh, and as far as the standard of excellence, that's what the pregame is for. You go over the same things over and over and over again in pregame because you want to make sure that as a team, you guys are doing it right, that the the crew is together, that we know where everybody's gonna be, and that we can trust each other. Uh, and as far as you know, how do you handle failure? That's a tough question because as an official, when you make that call, you're making that call because you feel that that call is the right call. Now, the crowd reaction may tell you that everybody else thinks it's wrong, but you have to have conviction in that call. So you believe that you made the right call. Now, I will say there was a time, like when I, you know, there was a close call at first base. The team came out, said that they felt like I had it wrong. Would you ask your partner? I went to my partner, can we get together? And he said it's your call. And I mistakenly turned around and reversed my own call. Well, that was a failure. Okay, well, I could have let it just slide and like, well, I messed up, not nobody else is gonna know but me. But no, I had to face that. And as the wrong teams were leaving the field, I had to I had to stop everybody and say, My mistake, my mistake, the call stands. And so that was a a clear failure, but I had to admit that failure. And I think that's the best way to handle it is because you want to be seen as having integrity, and integrity is important to an official. Yeah, that's great, great, great reflection there.

SPEAKER_02 28:13

You know, I wanted to say in in between here, Todd, I'll get to you in just a second. Um you know, I just recently had a conversation with Shay when she was at our place after the game. And this this question came from that conversation because she and I talked about how she felt like the uh the standard of excellence wasn't upheld during the game uh with their crew, with her crew. And uh it made me understand that, hey, y'all have a standard of excellence. It's probably higher than anybody in attendance, right? And when that's not upheld, y'all take that home with you and you have to figure out how to get better. So that's kind of where that question came from. And and to Brad, your point, I used to, as a, as a, as an immature AD, and I may still be in a lot of ways, but I used to see the officials when they would get there, especially for football, going over rules, going over communications. And I'm thinking, this is crazy. They they should know the rules before they get to Pope. We got a game in an hour, right? I mean, that's crazy. But once you you just you just said it better of you say it over and over and over again so it gets ingrained, and that standard of excellence is upheld in the heat of the battle there. So I think you said a couple of good things there. Todd, Todd, how do you feel about this?

SPEAKER_00 29:30

Yeah, a couple of things bouncing around, and I will credit Ernie Yarbrough with this. And a lot of us fought this uh when Ernie did this, but as y'all know, we all have different associations. I think there's 24 or 26 football associations in the state. Well, we used to all wear our own patches on our sleeves back in the days when we would wear certification patches and stuff like that. And we were almost 24, 26 individual companies around the state all doing the same thing. And I guess it's maybe even been 10 years ago, seven to 10 years ago, Ernie came in and said, We're no longer going to do individual patches. Everybody's going to wear the GHSA logo, American flag, and that's it. That's all you're going to have on your shirts. And the old traditionalist, and I probably fell into this, well, we're not happy with that. But in turn, what has happened now is we set a standard that everybody across the state, whether it's here or in Valbasta Friday night, is going to look the exact same. And then through the training camps that they do, we're trying to aim for that consistency across the state in everything that we try to do. Um, our president this year, with our association, uh, leading in Josh to what you've just said, has a great theme, and it's called protect the brand. And so that is the standard that we have as the Georgia Football Officials Association is protect the brand. And everything that you're doing out there is above and beyond you. It's our association is the oldest in the state. We're 97 or 98 years old right now. And protect that brand of what those before you have done, very much the same way we do when coaching, of you know, protect what's come ahead of you like that. Uh, the two things about failure during a game that we try to install in officials is it's gonna happen, okay. Uh, is your body language, very similar to coaching again. Your body language when something bad happens, okay. Because as a coach, I know if I look out there and see the body language in an official uh that they're defeated, then I know I can probably get further. And then the second thing that we do in football, uh, the same system that the football coaches use, we have a huddle account uh that all the coaches use to share film. And um every Friday night or by noon on Saturday, we have the film of every single game that we've worked on a Friday night. Uh the coaches view and they they share it with us, and that's something through uh Kevin and now um you know taking over with uh Jay that they make the schools do. And having said that, we use those films for evaluations and uh we turn in a file report after every varsity game. Uh, we have someone that's part of our film review committee that will review that film, review your file report, and then hopefully by Tuesday or Wednesday of that week, you get your review back and you can go back and look at that film and you can say, okay, well, yeah, I missed this call at the goal line because I wasn't at the goal line. Or where did we go wrong with those keys that you were talking about, you would see officials discussing. So in football, Huddle is a great tool for us that we use to cross-check and look at the successes and failures, to be honest with you.

SPEAKER_03 32:52

I think that's great information. I think there's a lot of people that don't know that. Uh, you know, that that intention is put into the back end after the game. Uh, so I think that that's great. Now, Brad, tell me what have you learned about officials in the few years that you've been a part of that world? What do you think officials want fans to know about the job that you and all the officials are trying to do when you're calling games?

SPEAKER_04 33:16

Uh well, bottom line is it's a lot more than just outs and safes in baseball. I mean, there is a dance that an umpiring crew has to do in terms of uh where you're moving, what you're looking at, rotations of a team. And when, you know, as a new umpire, you're going in, you know the game, you know the rules, you never think about that part. I mean, there is a complete uh choreography that goes on with an umpiring crew. So it's a lot more than just the rules. Um and I think what what do you want the fans to know is that you're there for the the the athletes, you're there for the game. Um, you know, I mean, uh the game couldn't happen without it could it could happen without officiating, but it wouldn't mean much, you know. Um, and so uh as much as they want their team to win or their child to do well, the umpire wants the game to go well. The umpires, the the officiate the officials, they love the game, and so they're there for the game.

SPEAKER_02 34:27

Man, that's that's as well said as it can be. The officials are there for the game, and the games need to go well. They want the games to go well. That's good, good stuff. All right, a couple um, I guess less deep questions here, just to have a little fun to finish up. Um Brad, you go first here if you don't mind. What's um you you haven't done it a long time yet, but what's the most memorable game you have officiated? Not the one where you had to reverse your call on yourself.

SPEAKER_04 34:58

That was pretty memorable. Yeah. You know, I've had some really, really good games. Uh I think probably the my first game behind the plate of an official game. It was actually out of weird scheduling quirk and weather. My first official day on the field, I was working a triple header in high school, a double header JV game and a varsity game. Um, fortunately, my partner said I'll take the first two behind the plate. So I've eased my way into the games and I'm behind the plate the third game. And not only did I get uh a foul tip square into the mask in my first game, which is I'm like, okay, I've made it, I've survived, but the game ended on a walk-off home run. And so uh, you know, it's it's hard to it's hard to beat a walk-off home run. So it that was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02 35:59

Just had to make sure they touched on plate, right?

SPEAKER_04 36:01

Exactly. I just had to stay long enough for them to touch the plate. That's right. Todd, what about you?

SPEAKER_02 36:06

You've seen a bunch of them.

SPEAKER_00 36:07

Yeah, um, one thing real quick back to something Brad said that I thought was interesting about we're there for the game. I've heard the saying that you know, a game without referees is just a scrimmage. Amen. Yeah. So so having said that, that was a little thing I wrote down.

SPEAKER_02 36:22

Todd, before you I'll I'll expand on that. I was gonna say it eventually. I think for every athletic administrator listening, and I've tried to start saying this to our coaches when I hear them, or our parents when I hear them complaining about officials, because deep down, when I grew up, I learned how to yell and scream at officials. So I'm trying to do a lot better in that category. Um, the the answer from an athletic administrator is to anyone complaining about officials, you can't play the games without them. So if you want it, if you want to have the games, if you want your kid to play, you can't play the games without them. So it doesn't matter good, bad, or ugly. If you don't, if you want it to count, like you just said, if you want it to count, we got to have you. And uh, you know, hopefully we appreciate you, start appreciating you a little bit better. But go ahead. Uh that most memorable game, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 37:07

Sure. Well, first of all, we take the approach and we try to that every game is those kids' Super Bowl. So, you know, wherever I'm going this Friday, that's the Super Bowl for those kids. And, you know, happens to be region playoffs now, but you know, that's their Super Bowl, and they only get 10 opportunities to do that a year or guaranteed 10. Uh, so that's the first approach. You know, a couple of memorable things for me recently is um I was uh had a chance to do one of the Quarky Kell games this year at Mercedes, which was one of the first um those games that day using the instant replay. Right. So to have a chance to be a part of that from the get-go was uh, I guess a pretty neat thing. And years from now, we may look back and when it's the standard all across the board and say you were one of the first to do that. And going back to last February um in basketball, uh, I had a quarterfinal game uh at Carrollton with Cherokee and Carrollton, and it was one of those old school gyms, about 1,200 people, concrete walls, standing room only. You couldn't hear yourself talk to your uh partner standing right next to you, student sections, bands, um, just you know, all the atmosphere that you would hope to have in that setting like that. And ironically, um Cherokee did upset them over there at their own place. But um that was that was a really, really neat experience. And though those type of experiences remind you why you get involved and why you keep doing all the little things to hopefully get a chance to do something like that at the end. Yeah, that's special.

SPEAKER_02 38:42

All right, last question. I'm gonna give each one of you one minute to recruit officials. What do you say to the people listening who need to do something? Brad, you said you need to get out of the house, right? It was during COVID. Officiating is for them. Brad, I think uh you you got smiles on your face talking about it. And you and I have had conversations about how much you enjoy it. So, you know, those people need to get out of the house and need something to do, officiating us for them, but they haven't made that decision. 30 seconds to a minute. Brad, you're in TV, so we're gonna let you go last. Todd, uh, you go first here. Uh recruit, recruit a new batch of officials.

SPEAKER_00 39:20

Recruiting the new young ones is the most important thing we can do. Uh, we have a saying that each year as officials, we get a year older and the kids stay the same age. So recruiting that next young generation is the most important thing we can do. And it's a great way to stay involved in an activity or sport that you may love when you can no longer play it or coach it or your kids play it. So if you have a sport or activity that you are passionate about and you want to stay involved, it's a great way to do it. And I would tell you this I've been in education my whole life, and I have said that I've been in the kid business my entire life. And in doing so, uh, to a certain extent, you don't have to grow up. The more you're around those young kids like that, the more you can realize and remember some of the stuff that you um have more part of growing up yourself. And then finally, I would say this uh officiating is like a fraternity. I'm sure Brad's baseball group uh is the same way, but some of your best friends and some of your best uh memories and people you can count on when you need stuff, et cetera, are going to be some of your officiating um friends and partners and people that you've worked with. So it becomes something more than just what happens on Thursday and Friday nights. So that's my short version, Josh. I don't know if I made a minute or not.

SPEAKER_04 40:39

That's good. I would say logistically to begin with, you want to go to ghsa.net. There's a drop down that says officials, and under officials, there's a drop down that says become an official. And it's as simple as filling out a form with your name and phone number and email address and the sports that you're interested in. That's as easy as it gets. And within weeks, there will be several people emailing you, hey, we want you in our organization. You know, it may take a month, it may take two, but um there will be people, I still get emails from people in other sports saying, hey, I noticed you signed up for soccer. Are you still interested? So um that it's one, it's easy to do, but two, uh, like Todd said, if you're a former athlete or if you've just loved sports your whole life and you're missing that sport, you're missing that butterfly in your stomach before you play a big game, you're missing the excitement of getting ready for the next matchup. You can get that and have that still through officiating because you get a game, it's it's the same thing. It's it's the butterflies, it's the excitement. I'm getting ready to play a game, except you're just officiating it. It's a part of being that third team on the field. And like Todd said, it's a great fraternity uh of people that you'll be working with. You meet a lot of great people and it's uh a lot of great fun. And if it's something that you're worried about parents being crazy or coaches yelling at you, it's really not as bad as you believe it is.

SPEAKER_03 42:15

That's good. Todd, Brad, thank you for the privilege of your time today. Uh Shay as well uh for joining us. It's been great uh pulling back the curtain uh and getting a behind the scenes look at officiating. Uh, it's our hope that it sends more people into it. So thanks again for the time.

SPEAKER_04 42:29

Thanks, guys.

SPEAKER_03 42:30

Thank you.