White Hat's answers are too good not to share.

[DinwiddieProud]

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You know the old saying, "you can call holding on every play"? Other than a blatant obvious hold, what do you and other refs watch for? What will you allow that is borderline holding? Will you ever say something to a player ahead of time, warning him about his holding?
Holding seems so easy, but I'm convinced that you need 7-10 years officiating experience to know when to call holding. You could call it on every play, but 98% of those would be bad calls. First of all, I will usually warn a player about it. More on that in the next answer.

The latest myth about holding is that it's fine as long as the hands are inside. Blockers will have their hands on the chest of a defender and grab jersey, but it's hard to see, so it's legal in there, right? No, it's still illegal to hold. But if a guy getting held is allowing himself to get held -- If he's just dancing with the blocker and not trying to get off the block, I can't tell he's being held. If he's actively trying to get off the block but can't, I can tell. The feet tell the story. I tell people I call holding by watching the feet and they think it's counterintuative, but it works. Imagine this, you tell two boys to stand facing to a wooden telephone pole, One of them has the front of his shirt nailed to the pole but you can't see which. If they start trying to walk around that pole, you're going to be able to tell which one can't move without seeing the front of his shirt.

There are several aspects of holding. It's "grab and restrict." The key is the "restrict." You can grab all day long, but if you don't stop a guy from going where he wants to go, you haven't done very much. Think of a recevier blocking a defensive back downfield. The receiver grabs a jersey but the DB runs with him, makes no effort to get off the block. Is it holding? No one on my crew is calling that.

Did the hold affect the play? A hold by the left tackle on a sweep to the right isn't an issue. We look for holds at the point of attack. If a guy is getting held at the point of attack but he still makes the tackle, he wasn't really restricted from being where he wanted to be, right? I'm not flagging it.

For this reason, when I call holding it's usually a couple seconds after the fact. I want to make sure it affected the play.

One final note on holding. I am going to call the same way for both teams. There have been games where one offensive lineman is just getting worn out. He's holding on practically every play as a means of survival. Since I know that no one there came to watch me throw a flag on every play, I basically let it happen (within reason). However, I'm going to let the other team do the same thing. I've had conversations with coaches about it and most appreciate the position. They yell "#80 is holding!" and I will say "Yes, he was, but if I call that I will call your #32 every time he holds the same way, because I've let #32 slide a lot." With one exception, most coaches think that's fair.

From Dinwiddieproud:
TRY AS I MIGHT, I could not get the rest of the questions and answers to cut and paste. I encourage you to take a look at Whit Hat's post on the "Ask the Official" thread.

I wish all football officials had his wisdom and common sense.


2 White hat, Today at 12:17 PM

 

[DinwiddieProud]

MORE FROM WHITE HAT

NewI know the expression all too well. A coach is flagged for something he said and he wants to appeal to me because "I didn't cuss him."

This is more prevelant in lower levels, especailly young guys coaching their first teams in middle school or even volunteer dads coaching rec leagues.

There is an idea that cussing will get you flagged. No cussing, no flag.

It doesn't work that way.

What I'm going to say here is, officially, my own opinion. It's not written in a book anywhere but it is discussed. It's a good guideline for officials and something more coaches should know.

There are three things that can get you flagged -- all start with P. In reverse order:

3. Persisitence. This means a coach is not happy about a call and wants to keep on whining about it. I'll listen to a little bit. If it's mentioned after the next play, I'll suggest we all move on with the game. If I keep heaing about it, then I'm going to flag it, depending on how it's presented. Angry roaring after a couple suggestions to cool it will get a flag. Quiet chirping might take longer, but eventually there is a line where we've heard all we need to hear.

2. Profanity. Everyone thinks this is #1, but it's #2 for most of us. We are adults and we live in a world where profanity exists. Part of having a thick skin is hearing a swear word now and then without freaking out. I can hear prfanity without reaching for my flag. Again, it all depends on how it's said. If grandma with bad hearing aids in the top row has no trouble hearing it, I'm sure it's going to draw a flag. Profanity directed toward an official in anger isn't going to be tolerated, there are times when we can deal with it. It's not automatic.

1. Personal. This is the one that is an absolute no-no. Name-calling or implying that there is dishonesty or favoritism will not be tolerated.

Officiating is not a personal endeavor, it's a job. Not a single decision I make is based on a personal issue. I understand that there are going to be calls that people don't like. There might even be calls that are wrong, without debate. But none of those calls is ever made to intentionally hose a team or player. Sometimes it's comforting, in an odd way, to believe that there is dishonesty afoot, rather than just simply a call going the other way. People seem to think that the official saw the play the way they saw it, but chose to call it differently simply because of some desire to hose their team.

No one is out there to cheat kids playing a game. That's just ignorant. It requires too much work and effort to get out there for some motive other than love of the game. There's no way anyone would go through all this on the off chance that they would end up in a position to screw over some kids.

If coaches disagree with a call, that's fine. If they say the call sucks, that doesn't bother me. When the coach says the official sucks, I've got a problem, but I know how to fix it. I've flagged a coach for calling one of my crew mates "sorry and worthless." That's personal. I'm not having it.

 

[SpartanOfYore]

I was at a Salem basketball game in '99; the Spartans were hosting Allegheny, who actually had a pretty good team that year, in a key Blue Ridge District game. The Mountaineers coach at the time was Carl Watson, who always - for whatever reasons - seemed one bad call away from a meltdown.

Allegheny was playing well on this night, leading the eventual state champs by several points at half. Midway through the third, Salem had come back to take the lead, but it was still a good, tight margin of only three or four points. In other words, still anyone's game. My friend and I were sitting on the front row, very near the Allegheny bench. Some seemingly insignificant thing happened, like Salem getting a loose ball. Watson, motivated by God-knows-what, suddenly decides to stand up and yell, "Don't give me any of this home cookin' now!"

Well, my friend and I, sitting all of six feet away, both immediately made the "T" signal, followed by the ref about half a second later. I mean, what the hell, man?! With your team right in the thick of it, why would you let one innocuous non-call prompt you into virtually begging for a technical? Needless to say, that opened the door to a big Salem run, and Watson's team lost by double digits. It underscores what White Hat is talking about. It also underscores that some guys are just plain nuts, on the court, at any rate.