Step onto the high-energy field of football with us and our esteemed guest, Scott Lewis, a seasoned referee and crew chief in the Denver Football Officials Association. Ever wondered what powers the game beyond the players? We're about to unfold the captivating world of football officiating, unraveling the synergy between mechanics, rules, and philosophy. Learn how mechanics is not just about executing the rules, but being in the right place at the right time, and how these rules create the legal framework of the game. All of this is wrapped up in the philosophy of the game, which forms the backbone of mechanics and rules.
Embrace the thrill of the game as Scott guides us through the concept of foul threshold for sports officials, and the pivotal role of safety and fairness in the game. Is being flag-happy always good? Hear Scott's insights drawn from years on the field. Transitioning to a more academic take on football, we tackle the differences between high school and college rulebooks, while also learning how not to drown in the sea of rules. Scott paints an anecdotal picture of his first high school football game, unveiling the invaluable lesson it taught him.
As we steer our conversation towards game infractions, we delve into the differences between live and dead ball fouls, substitution fouls, and the philosophy behind killing the play. Scott's invaluable advice for new officials and resources for understanding the rules is the cherry on top of our engaging discussion. Fast-paced, enlightening, and packed with insights, our chat with Scott Lewis is a masterclass in football officiating. So, get ready to view football through a whole new lens; through the eyes of the officials that keep the game running smoothly.
Step onto the high-energy field of football with us and our esteemed guest, Scott Lewis, a seasoned referee and crew chief in the Denver Football Officials Association. Ever wondered what powers the game beyond the players? We're about to unfold the captivating world of football officiating, unraveling the synergy between mechanics, rules, and philosophy. Learn how mechanics is not just about executing the rules, but being in the right place at the right time, and how these rules create the legal framework of the game. All of this is wrapped up in the philosophy of the game, which forms the backbone of mechanics and rules.
Embrace the thrill of the game as Scott guides us through the concept of foul threshold for sports officials, and the pivotal role of safety and fairness in the game. Is being flag-happy always good? Hear Scott's insights drawn from years on the field. Transitioning to a more academic take on football, we tackle the differences between high school and college rulebooks, while also learning how not to drown in the sea of rules. Scott paints an anecdotal picture of his first high school football game, unveiling the invaluable lesson it taught him.
As we steer our conversation towards game infractions, we delve into the differences between live and dead ball fouls, substitution fouls, and the philosophy behind killing the play. Scott's invaluable advice for new officials and resources for understanding the rules is the cherry on top of our engaging discussion. Fast-paced, enlightening, and packed with insights, our chat with Scott Lewis is a masterclass in football officiating. So, get ready to view football through a whole new lens; through the eyes of the officials that keep the game running smoothly.
Welcome to your first downs, the podcast dedicated to helping new high school football officials. Here are your hosts, Joel Pogar and Kirk Russell from the Colorado Football Officials.
Speaker 2:Association. Hello everybody and welcome to week three of the your First Downs podcast, where we try to help new high school football officials get the best start they can. My name is Joel Pogar, I am your host and I am joined by my co-host, the handsome and always smiling Kirk Russell. Kirk, how you doing today.
Speaker 3:Oh good, thank you, Joel, good to be here. Are you traveling again this week? I'm on the road a lot. I'm out in Palisade, Colorado, beautiful peach country.
Speaker 2:For our listeners that don't know Palisade Colorado is the peach capital of Colorado and they have some really good peaches. So, kirk, don't forget to bring home some peaches for the crew. Alright, We'll do. Just a quick reminder to our listeners. If you have a question or comment for Kirk and I, we can be reached through our website at yourfirstdownscom. Again, that's yourfirstdownscom. Feel free to send us a message or a question and we will address it on air. Alright, let's get down to business for week three. Kirk, I am super excited this week. Do you have any idea why I'm so excited this week?
Speaker 3:Let's see, is it your birthday.
Speaker 2:No, not my birthday, but I won't keep you in suspense any longer. So a couple of exciting things for this week. Number one we've had a lot of downloads of this podcast and we're only in week three, so I'm super excited to see that people are listening and liking the content. The second thing is is we're only five weeks away from the 2023 football season for high school here in Colorado. God, this time has really flown by.
Speaker 2:And then, last but certainly not least, is our guest this week is Scott Lewis. So let me just give you Scott's bio real quick and you'll understand why I'm excited to have him on the podcast. So Scott Lewis is a referee and crew chief in the Denver Football Officials Association, also a member of DFOA, former area director, cfoa board member. Currently the DFOA rules interpreter. He's a multi-time state championship official, both at the back judge and the referee position and, most importantly, he was one of my mentors when I first came into the association and officiating 12 years ago and was just instrumental in helping me move quickly and get to where I'm at today. So, scott, can't thank you enough for joining us here on the show.
Speaker 1:Glad to be here. Well, thank you, I appreciate you asking me on.
Speaker 2:So Kirk and I are going to talk with Scott today about rules and how a new official learns them, understands them, processes them on the field. I don't know if rules are the most exciting part of the game, but they're certainly one of the most critical parts of the game. And, kirk, let's kick off our first question with Scott, with you this week.
Speaker 3:You know what's interesting? New officials especially. They grabbed that rule book and it's overwhelming. It's got stuff in it that you didn't realize was football related and that it makes up the game. It makes it better for everybody involved and we're kind of like the police on that football field and Scott Lewis is Denver's master of the police association on football fields and I wanted to share with our newer officials.
Speaker 3:You know, when you get overwhelmed by that rule book, chances are you've got a guy on your crew like a Scott Lewis. I'm not one of them. I count on one of those guys on my five man crew that comes in with the information necessary to go. Oh yeah, that's right, that's that rule that I didn't pay attention to. So don't panic, if you're a new guy, the guy like Scott Lewis will be there for you in those early years and maybe you'll turn out to be a rules guy.
Speaker 3:So, scott, thank you for joining us. So, as we're talking about rules and we spent a fair bit of time on the other podcasts talking about mechanics and philosophies and rules Can you, can you share with us the difference? And maybe I should point out before I go there you hear the word mechanics and we go well, that's the guy that works on cars. Well, in reality, that's that's the term we use as referees and football officials to be in the right position, looking at the right thing at the right time. You can't possibly see the whole field, and so there's five guys focusing on different things. So, scott, talk a little bit about the different rules, mechanics and philosophies.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, like you said, the mechanics is kind of being in the right place at the right time. The rules are the laws of the game, essentially, as you talked about like a policeman, it's like what the laws that we're out there to enforce. The philosophy kind of goes underneath both of those. The philosophy is what the intent of those rules are or what the intent of the mechanics are. So in terms of like a rule philosophy, it's like why do we have holding, why do we have passenger ference? Why do we have face mask, for instance? And a lot of that boils down to either disadvantage, unfair disadvantage, or safety issues. A lot of the times we talk about mechanics, we're talking about how do we get in the right place, and we have a manual, and I'm sure every state has their own manual. Sometimes they use the Federation manual for mechanics that tells you this is where you should go, this is what you should watch. But again, the philosophy underneath a lot of that is why are you trying to get to that position? And that's to get the best spot for what your coverage area is. So there are times where a philosophy may I don't want to say break a rule because you don't want to just ignore rules. But there are times where a philosophy might indicate that you treat a rule or treat a mechanic a little bit differently to get to the intent of what it is For a mechanic. There may be times where a mechanic will say, hey, go to this spot where you realize, well, if I'm in this spot, I'm going to get straight lined by somebody. I need to move a little bit downfield or a little bit upfield so that I can be in the best position to watch a play.
Speaker 1:Same thing with the rules. If we wanted to call exactly by the rules, we could be calling a hold on just about every single play. But by philosophy, what we're looking for is why do we call holds? It's because a team got an unfair advantage that gave them more yarders than they probably should have gotten, and so when we're calling a hold, we look at does this hold affect the play? Is this something we need to call?
Speaker 1:If you have a hold on the right end, 15 yards behind the runner on the left side, are you going to call that? Unless there's a safety issue or potential sportsmanship issue, Probably not. We may go talk to the kids say, hey, we saw that, don't do that, but it's not good for the game to be throwing a hold that has nothing to do with the actual play. So I think that's where the philosophy comes in is knowing what the purpose of the rules is. Why was that rule written so that you can call it the way that it was really intended to be called, without just outright ignoring the rule and just saying, well, I'm not going to call that because I don't like it?
Speaker 3:Scott, I want to do a quick follow-up on on Philosophies. Can you talk about the win-and-doubts, because I know those, those kind of fit into that philosophy space, space rule.
Speaker 1:Exactly and and I'm not going to go through the whole list of it because there's a whole bunch of them but the win-and-doubts. There's a lot of times we're on the field, we only have a split second to decide and we in high school do not have the luxury of replay, so we have to make a decision based on a quick, you know, just a quick look at something. And there's times where we're like well, what did I see? So these win-and-doubts are. Our philosophy is, if you're not quite sure, you know, if it's a 50-50 type of call, like sometimes like a catch, no catch, for instance, what is the win-and-doubt? And in learning those can be important of Deciding like, if I have this decision and I'm not sure, I'm going to lean towards this, and a lot of those Depend on the type of play, like, for instance, with a catch, no catch, when in doubt, it's not a catch.
Speaker 1:They have to clearly have caught the ball. But with safety issues, a lot of times we'll say when in doubt, he pulled the face mask, as opposed to didn't pull the face mask, because when it comes to safety things, we don't want to Let something go that shouldn't shouldn't go. On the other hand, don't let the win-and-doubts become a crutch. Don't let them say, well, if there's a, if there's a borderline, we can just do whatever. We still want to get the right call, but just realistically, there's going to be times where we have to. Just we didn't get the best. Look because we were. There's only five of us, we only have a split second. We have to say, well, I didn't see it completely. So if I'm not sure, here's how we lean.
Speaker 2:So, scott, you were kind of alluding to one of the points I wanted to discuss this week and that is the concept of a foul threshold. And this is something I didn't learn or really dive deep into until my second or third year of officiating. I don't know how many people know this, but I've actually got a background in law enforcement way, way long time ago in a previous life. But when we were monitoring for speeders in it, like the 35 mile an hour speed limit, we didn't stop everybody that was doing 36 right, because, like you said, we'd be out there writing tickets all day At the time.
Speaker 2:My threshold for stopping somebody, you know it's like 47 miles an hour, but somebody else on my crew it was 40, and so, as a new official, how do you develop that foul threshold to decide when something rises to the level of yes, that should be a flag, and then kind of deciding between the discretionary and non discretionary foul. So again, speeding ticket versus stopping somebody for a potential DUI right, that's a non discretion stop. That we really didn't have a whole lot of flexibility in. What are some of those things that I think you mentioned, one Maybe holding somewhat discretionary I think you mentioned face max. That would be a non discretionary right safety foul. How do I, how do I develop that sense of a foul threshold as a new official?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's that's a good question, because there's really not a hard and fast answer to that. It's kind of a almost an art form in a way. When I was a younger official, you know, I think I wanted to just show that I was important, you know, not not necessarily because I wanted to be bigger than the game, but just because it's like, you know, I'm out here on the field, I have a job to do and, you know, I think sometimes I would look for fouls Instead of looking for reasons not to call fouls. I think the key for me was learning that our job out there is twofold one to keep the player safe and Two to keep the game fair, and so those go hand in hand. With that, like with with the example of holding, for instance. Really, what kind of helped me start making that distinction is when I see a hold. I started slowing down and thinking, okay, yes, I saw a hold. He grabbed his jersey. There was obviously restriction.
Speaker 1:Early on in my career I would have been an automatic flag. I saw the restriction. But as I got more experience, worked with with mentors, that kind of helped me work through some of those I learned. It's like saying, okay, now I got to look beyond just this hold. Where is the ball? Is the ball right there? Okay, then maybe I'm still gonna throw that flag because that might have impacted the play.
Speaker 1:We can't always guess what might have happened. We don't want to throw a flag 20 seconds late because we wanted to see what happened. We have to kind of judge what's going on right there. But if we see that the hold happened here at the line of scrimmage and the play is already, you know, 20 yards down, you know we're not gonna call that because there's no point to it. All it's doing is punishing a team for something that really had no impact on the play. Could you call it by rule? Absolutely, it's a foul by rule, but that's where that threshold is and sometimes you get into that gray area.
Speaker 1:Is that what it have made a difference, would it not? I'm not sure. I know that there's a coach in the Denver area that you know. He, when we, when he's been asked about holds, people have responded to him say well, I'm gonna see if it affects the play. It's very vague, but it's. You know. I don't know how you could better answer that, because one runner, if you hold 10 yards behind the play might have affected the play because he might be a good defensive back that knows how to To catch up to those runners. You know linemen, that's you know barely able to go five yards. You know an entire play. That's obviously not going to affect anything.
Speaker 2:So Kirk mentioned the the when in doubts. Scott, what about the when in doubts on a potential safety issue? Just think blindside block targeting face mask right? Any of those safety files? If I'm not sure, do we have a flag down for that or not?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would say on a safety thing if it's a when in doubt, yes. If you're not sure if it was a blindside block or not, throw the flag. If you're not sure if it was a, you know, spearing or helmet contact, throw the flag. Sometimes you can talk to another official who might have had a different angle, and it's okay to pick up a flag once in a while. But when in doubt, when it comes to safety, I think we want to err on the side of safety, because if it's so close that you're not sure, then there was probably at least something there that could have potentially caused an injury or could have potentially caused, you know, a player to miss a play because they had to sit out.
Speaker 3:I got one of the things that the term that we typically use, as you know, is point of attack and, as I've been doing this for the year over the years, I Recognize that coaches that are watching the game, they know where the play is called and they know where they're attacking. They know they're hitting the a gap or the B gap or they know where they're going. They're focused on getting Getting those players to do what they need to do at that location and a lot of times that point of attack is what they want called. Like you said, they don't care about the other side of the field. That's not where the impact is on the game and if we get to flag happy, then we're marked as just that type and it's never a good thing to be known as oh, that guy throws a whole bunch of flags.
Speaker 1:That's just not good for the game and nobody wants that yeah, and I agree, and I think one thing that I was talks I also referee basketball and an official there helped me with this was not only where is the ball now, but where is the ball going, and I think the same thing applies to football. Where, where is the ball and where are they headed? Because those are where you want to watch stuff that they've been. Who cares where they were? That's not going to affect anything, unless it's a Safety issue or a potential sportsmanship issue. We still need to have eyes on that, but you know, if they're, if they're making a run to the left, we need to see what's going on in the action around the runner and the action that's going on in front of the runner, where he may go, the stuff that's happening behind the runner. Unless you have a superstar, you know, track sprinter that can run down the field faster than anything, they're not going to catch up to them, they're not going to be part of the play.
Speaker 3:So, scott, you know the, the high school rules. So our rulebook is different than the college rulebook and it's different than the NFL rulebook and everybody's watching Saturday football and Sunday football. And then they show up on Friday night and they start complaining about the call that we made. Talk about the, the difference in high school and how you handle Coaches and I shouldn't say parents primarily, but coaches will even have have the wrong rule in their mind. What we should be calling Right.
Speaker 1:So the biggest key on that is knowing the rule. So you got to know what the differences are. For me, because I don't work college and I don't work NFL, I intentionally don't focus on the rules for NFL and NCAA, so I don't have to worry about getting those confused because I don't. I mean, I know the basics, you know I. I see some of that, but I don't know the nitty gritties of those rules. So I know the high school rules and so when I know what's in there and what's not, I'm not going to get them confused. Some officials work both levels and that's fine. For those officials it's definitely important to just know those distinctions and know those rules.
Speaker 1:When it comes to talking with the coaches, the phrase that I use a lot in those situations is by high school rule, because when you use it like that they, you know, if you just say by rule sometimes that might have been being up but you say by high school rule, or even just coach in high school, this is the rule they may not agree. You know I. We had a game where one of my partners called a five-yard face mask on something. Whether or not it was there, it doesn't matter. There were some coach that was yelling about oh, they got rid of that five-yard face mask years ago. It's like not in high school. You know, it's still a rule in high school, whether you like it or not. That's another thing.
Speaker 3:So it's interesting fellas, when I was, when I first started, it might have been my very first high school football game. I just got done playing college ball. I was a defensive lineman and it was illegal in college to scoop and score from behind the line of scrimmage. And I knew that because that was the glory of being a defensive lineman. If you could pick up a fumble and go the distance, hey, you got your picture in the paper. Otherwise you had to get a sack to get any press.
Speaker 3:And I'll be damned if that very first football game I blow the whistle on a scoop and score behind the line of scrimmage and the white hat at the time comes over and says Why'd you blow your whistle? And I said he can't, he can't advance the ball behind the last scrimmage, thinking I was proud of my rulebook knowledge. And he goes no, that's not a high school rule. And of course the coach and it's a freshman game, it but coach goes bananas. And here's the problem. Guess what happens when you blow a call like that one way, it happened the other direction. And you know, being a good official, I learned my lesson. I'm not gonna Blow the whistle on that scoop and score. And now I've got. I've got to now answer why didn't you blow that one dead? And so the message here is hey, we're gonna, we're gonna mess some stuff up and hopefully we mess it up when it's not a televised football game. But just know there's mistakes that are made by officials all the time.
Speaker 2:As a new official right, when you go to class, you get your mechanics book, you get your rules book and I remember when I sat down on my first rules class, the DFOA, and looking through the rules book, I mean it reads like a law text, right I felt like I almost had to be a lawyer to understand it. How do you keep, as a new official, from getting Overwhelmed, and what is the best way that that you can say to start learning the rules, because it's almost impossible to just absorb Everything overnight by osmosis and all of a sudden be an expert. How do you go about studying them and really learning and putting them into practice?
Speaker 1:Right and then that's. You know, everyone's gonna have different learning styles. But I think the the big key is, like you were saying, don't let yourself get overwhelmed. Don't try to just sit down one night and read the book cover-to-cover and expect to be an expert the next day. Break it down into chunks that make sense to you, learn things that are important. You know, by the time you get on the field you should at least have the general basics down. You know, you'll know what a snap is, you'll know what all the stuff is and hopefully you'll know that before you set out there. But every day, especially when you're learning the rule, just find something. Find one rule to learn and learn something different.
Speaker 1:We get two different rule books here or two different books here the, the rule book and the casebook. When I was a new official, I don't think I gave as much credence to the casebook as I should have. It is an invaluable tool because it doesn't just teach the rules, it teaches the application of the rules, it teaches why things happen and it gives you some crazy off-the-wall bonker situations sometimes. But those are the kinds of things you can see on a field that are gonna trip you up. But I think the biggest feet thing is don't try to absorb it all at once. Recognize, when you get on in the field that first time You're not gonna be the top rules expert because there's gonna be a lot of stuff you don't know, and that's okay. Just know enough to get you through that first game and let your partners help you. Let your partners know so that they can they can help you with that. But don't don't expect to be an expert that first day.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of definitions in the book and those definitions are important for a number of reasons. We talk about the passer right, the passer is not always the quarterback. So can you get into a little bit of how knowing the definitions is important to understanding the rest of the game and the rest of the rules?
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely. In fact, that kind of goes along with the previous question too. If you're gonna start somewhere, start with those definitions. Rule two I I tell my, my crew all the time, rule two is the most important rule in the game because that's the definitions. There's a lot of times where other parts of the rule will refer to you, like you said, a passer or a kicker.
Speaker 1:If you don't know what that means in the context of the game, it's gonna be hard to get it right. For instance, with a passer, the important things to know are when does a player become a passer? When does a player stop becoming a passer? And it may seem kind of arbitrary. Why does that matter? Well, it matters for things like roughing the passer. You can't rough a passer if he's not a passer. For instance, if the, if the quarterback is running Scrambling and then he gets pulled down by his face, meck, do you have roughing the passer? Well, if he never threw the ball, no, you don't have roughing the passer, because by rule he's not a passer. You'd still have a personal foul. But in this case the difference is that automatic first down, a kicker. You know when does the kicker stop becoming a kicker? Because that's when his protection ends, is when he's no longer a kicker. Certain types of formations, what is a different type of foul? Knowing those will help with some of those nuances as you, as you start becoming a better expert in the rules, because without some of that nuance you're kind of just guessing. Was that roughing the passer? I don't know. Was he passing the ball? The ball get caught? I don't. What's going on?
Speaker 1:Those definitions are important and, again with with what I said before, don't try to memorize every definition Before the game. There's certain ones that are gonna be a little bit more important to start the game than others. There's certain things that certain terms that are used in talking about the game that aren't actual rulebook terms. For instance, we talk about the pocket. That's not a rulebook term and it's okay to use it informally. But when you're learning about what constitutes when the passer throws the ball away, don't think about it in terms of what the pocket is versus not the pocket.
Speaker 1:Look at what the rulebook definition is In high school. It's the lateral boundaries of the free blocking zone. What does that mean? We'll look up the free blocking zone and if you know that, then you know when he's okay and when he's not Now. Obviously, sometimes you don't want to split hairs over it. You know, if his foot's partially in that, do you give him the benefit of the doubt? Yes, you know, we're gonna give him some of that. But if you know when he can do it and when he can't when is a passer a runner? When is a player? A fumble versus a muff versus a catch? Knowing those definitions will help you make the correct ruling on the field.
Speaker 2:Scott, one of the other things I wanted to ask about for new officials was how do you learn the live ball versus dead ball fouls? And I'm asking that because one of the biggest mistakes I see new officials make on the field, especially in their first year, is they throw a flag, you know, after a play has occurred and said I have off sides. There is no off sides in high school. It's encroachment right by the defense and so that's a dead ball foul and they should have killed the play right there. Can you talk a little bit about live ball versus dead ball kind of impact on the game and again, how they kind of learn that rhythm?
Speaker 1:Right, and that's a good point, because I see that a lot too with newer officials. You know, killing a play when it shouldn't have been killed or not killing it when it should have been. There's exceptions to everything, but the general rule of thumb I use is and most of the time this is going to apply is stuff that happens right before a snap. You know, do you throw the flag, kill the play or do you wait till the snap? The official rulebook definition is basically talking about stuff that happens before the snap versus stuff that happens at the snap. Stuff that happens at the snap is going to be a live ball foul. Stuff that happens before the snap is going to be a dead ball foul. And the key to remember is what causes it to become a foul. Certain acts, the act itself is a foul, like, for instance, with substitution. Substitution is a good concept of this, because there's some substitution fouls that are live ball, some that are dead ball. Some examples of a dead ball foul is if a player leaves on the wrong side of the field. It doesn't happen often, but I've seen it happen If they go off on the wrong side of the field that that act of going off on the wrong side of the field is a foul. They cannot fix that. Even if they come back on, they've already committed the action. That is now a dead ball foul. Not getting off the field in time, that's a live ball foul because they haven't committed the foul until the ball is actually snapped. If they get off the field before the snap happens, there's no foul. If they're not off the field when the snap happens, now it's a foul and so that becomes a live ball substitution foul.
Speaker 1:Going back to philosophy a little bit, I've talked to officials that say well, if you can tell that he's not going to make it off in time, we should shut that down. I don't agree with that particular philosophy because, for one thing, he may have gotten off, you may be wrong and he may have gotten off, and now you're punishing him unfairly. And number two, if the offense is reading that correctly because usually this is going to happen with the defense not getting off in time if you kill that play, you've kind of taken away a little bit of the offense's advantage because they read this play. They say he's not going to get off. If we snap this ball, we're basically going to get a free play. So killing the play? I just don't think we do that, because there's no rules justification for it. What did he do wrong? Well, he didn't get off in time. Well, how do you know? There was no snap. It's summary, scott, I like that.
Speaker 3:Other than maybe focusing on rule two, the definitions, and then moving from there through the rule book and letting the rule one kind of take care of itself as time goes on. Anything else, scott, you've got for advice for new officials and the rule book and I should point out a good friend of ours in Colorado is part of the Reading Rule Book. They don't have anything to do with this podcast, but I know a lot of officials out there, certainly in the Colorado area, have taken advantage of that document. There's probably others available that help kind of clear up some clumsiness in that rule book. You got anything else advice for new officials.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the Reading Guide was going to be when. I suggest it's a very thorough guide to a lot of things. It's like a combination of the rule book, a philosophy, discussion and case plays. It's a good mixture of all that. It's very thorough. It's a lot easier to read than the rule book. If you want getting there, there's a document that the Federation produces called the Simplified and Illustrated Rules. That's not one you're going to want to use as the definitive answer, but that's a good way to kind of get into it.
Speaker 1:If there's something you don't understand, that book can often give you good illustrations on what it's talking about, Because sometimes reading some of those paragraphs on those rules are like half a page and you're looking at like glossing it over, like you know where's my law degree, I don't have this here. So that can be a good way to unravel some of those trickier situations. Take advantage of those. Talk to officials that you know that have been around for a while. Ask them about rules. If you have something tricky, come up during a play. Ask someone, Even if you talk to it on the field, and you talk to your crew and maybe you still disagree. Talk to someone. Joel, I know you did that to me with a lot of times You'd say, hey, this came up in a play. I love talking through that with new officials.
Speaker 2:So, scott, I know we're coming up on our time and it's amazing just how quickly 30 minutes goes in these podcasts. I have one last question if you could answer, maybe in 30 or 45 seconds, and that is test taking. Here in Colorado we have a new officials test, we have a veterans officials test. You have to take the test before the beginning of every year to be able to either get on the field as a new official or be eligible for playoffs as a varsity official. What if I'm not a great test taker? What if I'm one of those guys where, if I see it on the field, I know how to call it, but if it's on a piece of paper and it's on a test, I may lock up or panic. How do you coach somebody to sort of get through that?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So the two things I'd recommend are slow down, so don't wait till the last second to take these tests. As soon as that test is open which for Colorado right now, they're open now go in and look at the test, think about them. And the number two thing is diagram. Even as a veteran for me, a lot of the times I will just get a piece of paper and just make those scratch marks of here's the yard line where the ball started, here's what happened. That way it becomes closer to what you're actually going to see on the field. You can see the relative position of the ball versus the foul and get that If you're just trying to read it and do it in your head.
Speaker 1:You know, whenever I've made mistakes on tests, it's always because it's like I just read it too fast, forget where the play was and get the wrong locations, because on the field you're going to see that. So diagram it so that you can see it on the page. It's going to be a slow process if that's what you do for every question. That's why I say give yourself plenty of time. Don't try to rush it in the last 24 hours, because that's when you're starting to get panic mode.
Speaker 2:That's great advice. I know a lot of officials that do really well on the field but struggle when it comes to test time. Well, I know, I say this every single week. It's hard to believe 30 minutes goes by that fast. I could sit here for another hour and talk about rules and get advice from Scott, but we're just about at time, kirk, any last minute words of wisdom or anything for our audience this week.
Speaker 3:I think there was enough wisdom here. I learned even from these podcasts. This is great stuff, scott, great job. Always love listening to your knowledge on the rule book and we can all get better there, so thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, thank you for the opportunity and you know, I just want to see our association be as good as it can get.
Speaker 2:Well, kirk and I would like to thank our special guest this week, scott Lewis, and thank you to our audience for spending 30 minutes out of your day with us and taking time to become a better official on the field. So remember, if you've got any questions for Kirk or I, you can find us at yourfirstdownscom. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next week.