Join the conversation as we navigate the best practices of football officiating with veteran referee Randy Campbell. With an illustrious career including 20 postseason appearances, 18 FBS bowl assignments, and the 2013 BCS national championship, Randy is a treasure trove of wisdom and practical insights. He takes us through the maze of transitioning from high school to college officiating, underlining the importance of mentorship, understanding the rules, and mastering the mechanics.
Beyond the whistle and the playbook, we delve into the less talked about, yet vital aspects of officiating. Fitness, physical appearance, mindset - all these play a crucial role in an official's career. Randy shares firsthand how looking the part can make or break an official's career trajectory. We also discuss the immense value of attending camps, clinics and college scrimmages to gain experience and exposure in the competitive world of officiating.
In the final segment, Randy offers valuable advice for rookie. Balancing personal life with a demanding career is a challenge, and Randy candidly discusses how his wife's support played a pivotal role in his journey. He also highlights the importance of setting realistic goals, acquainting oneself with the rule differences between high school and college, and carving out daily time for the rule book. Tune in for an insightful episode packed with practical tips and sage wisdom from one of the best in the business and a legendary college official.
Join the conversation as we navigate the best practices of football officiating with veteran referee Randy Campbell. With an illustrious career including 20 postseason appearances, 18 FBS bowl assignments, and the 2013 BCS national championship, Randy is a treasure trove of wisdom and practical insights. He takes us through the maze of transitioning from high school to college officiating, underlining the importance of mentorship, understanding the rules, and mastering the mechanics.
Beyond the whistle and the playbook, we delve into the less talked about, yet vital aspects of officiating. Fitness, physical appearance, mindset - all these play a crucial role in an official's career. Randy shares firsthand how looking the part can make or break an official's career trajectory. We also discuss the immense value of attending camps, clinics and college scrimmages to gain experience and exposure in the competitive world of officiating.
In the final segment, Randy offers valuable advice for rookie. Balancing personal life with a demanding career is a challenge, and Randy candidly discusses how his wife's support played a pivotal role in his journey. He also highlights the importance of setting realistic goals, acquainting oneself with the rule differences between high school and college, and carving out daily time for the rule book. Tune in for an insightful episode packed with practical tips and sage wisdom from one of the best in the business and a legendary college official.
A Colorado newspaper has described our next guest as an officiating machine. Stick around to find out who it is and learn all of his best habits to become a great official on your first downs.
Speaker 2:Welcome to your first downs, the podcast dedicated to helping new high school football officials. Here are your hosts, Joel Poger and Kirk Russell from the Colorado Football Officials Association.
Speaker 1:Hey everybody, good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Depending upon where and when you're listening to us, you are listening to your first downs, the podcast dedicated to new high school football officials. We are in week eight. I am your host, joel Poger. I am joined by my handsome colleague Kirk Russell. Hey Kirk, how you doing today?
Speaker 3:Good Good to be with you, Joel.
Speaker 1:Kirk, you know what day today is?
Speaker 3:Oh boy, this is always a challenge at the start of these. No, I don't.
Speaker 1:We are 10 days away from the start of the high school football season here in Colorado. I mean, can't you just almost smell the leather of the football?
Speaker 3:It is right around the corner. That is a good feeling, it is.
Speaker 1:It is. So we're recording these a little in advance. So we're about 10 days away. By the time this airs, this season will be underway, but we're all pretty excited. Scrimmages are starting, all the cool stuff is starting, so we're getting into it. Hey, I don't want to delay our guests any longer tonight. We do have some listener mail we're going to get to, but let me just read you this resume for our guests tonight.
Speaker 1:So started officiating football in New Mexico in 1980. That's a long time ago. Worked his way up through high school, D3, D2, got to D1, had stints in the Pac-12, Big 12,. Mountain West has had 20 postseason appearance, including 18 FBS bowl assignments, five Pac-12 championship games, one Big 12 conference title and the 2013 BCS national championship between Notre Dame and Alabama. And we're not done. He's the only college football official to have worked a national championship, semi-finally conference championship in two Power Five leagues. Prior NFL replay official, including the 2021 postseason. Not only that, he's also a basketball official, Kirk. He's officiated more than 2000 D1 women's basketball games. Former coordinator of officials in the ARMAC, where he was my mentor and boss for a while, In April of this year was named the coordinator of officials for the Big Sky. I'm almost out of breath from reading all that. Please join me in welcoming Mr Randy Campbell to the show.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Joe Kirk, appreciate it very much.
Speaker 3:Randy, you've got to have a long list of enemies with all those championship games under your belt. There's a lot of boos, I hear.
Speaker 2:Well, as long as my wife's not number one enemy, all is good. But the coaches love the game just as much as the players and the officials do, and it's a good trifecta between officials, players and coaches. And that's true at all levels junior, high, high school, all the way up, really, in NFL. It's a good trifecta. What an honor to have you, randy, thank you, kirk.
Speaker 3:Randy, I get the honors of asking the first question here, so we've kind of targeted our newer officials and me. I think, like a lot of areas around the country are struggling to fill openings on our Friday night lights and you are bringing us some excitement to hear what it looks like if some of these new officials get a chance to move up and a lot of guys come in the ranks and feel like they're ready to make the big time already after a couple snaps and we try to put realistic goals into the minds of some of these newer officials, not really knowing what it's all about when you get your first few snaps. But what can you do to help our listeners that are thinking you know what? I don't want this to just be a permanent existence at the high school level. I might want to work up to the college games. Can you talk about some of the key differences between Friday nights and Saturdays and Sundays and the travel and all the things that go into that next step?
Speaker 2:That's a great question. I would recommend to any official listening to this, whether they're a brand new high school official or one that's trying to move up the ranks into college. They should get a mentor. And I appreciate, joe, what he read about my bio, but I wish I'd got a mentor earlier in my career.
Speaker 2:But the biggest difference between high school and college is the real differences. I think at one time there were 220 rule differences between high school and college. And then you throw in the mechanics. That college mechanics book now is 260 pages long and it covers everything from agency. The other big difference is the money's different, obviously. But now you're dealing with coaches. That's their full time job. In college they have a, the head coach, they have a coaching staff at 10 to 12 and we're in high school. You might have a high school football coach, unless you're in the state of Texas. He keep, he could be the shop teacher, math teacher, drivers, ad, you just don't know. And so in college that's their Advocation, that's their livelihood and that's that's a big, big difference.
Speaker 2:The other difference is, like Joe mentioned, typically you don't have a coordinator of football officials in high school ranks. What you do in the college ranks and, yes, there is more travel, there is more pay, but there is more travel and there's there's camps that people can go to to try to get in. I Still try to make some high school football games, most of them now on Thursday nights, but I do make some on Friday nights if I'm open. But I and Joe mentioned the smell of football. To me the smell of football is popcorn and coca-cola. That's the smell of football, but it's not for everyone and I I would just stress to people listening tonight or today Just be the best officials you can be at the level you're at it's. It's hard to get into college football, but I have some great memories of high school football and working state championships in both New Mexico and state of Colorado.
Speaker 3:Randy, I got a follow-up question. You talked about a coordinator of college officials and you know, at the high school level we have a signers and I think what you're indicating is they're kind of hands-off, a they get the games filled and then, unless there's something major that blows up, they are rarely involved. Can you talk a little bit about your role as college coordinator?
Speaker 2:Actually, as a college coordinator, kirk, I wear many, many hats. I report to the conference office, that's the commissioner, associate commissioner, deputy commissioner. I also report to the president's council, the athletic administrators council and all my head coaches. Since I have the armack in the big sky now have 22 head coaches. That means I report to 22 head coaches, 22 sports information directors, 22 different athletic directors, 22 different sports information directors and 22 different Assistant athletic directors. So I report to a lot of people.
Speaker 2:You know there's a rules test that comes out every week. There's a training tape that comes out every week. So college is a lot more detailed and it doesn't matter if it's really division 2, fcs, fbs, everybody's doing the same thing. We're in high school. You do have an assigned or, but typically Nationwide you don't see a training tape that comes out that often at the high school level they don't have to take a test every week. The pregame in college is three and a half hours long. Where high school it may be, you just show up and you talk for half an hour. But the one thing that high school and college officials have in common they love the game of football, they love the game of football and. But there's. There is a different structure to it.
Speaker 1:So just one more follow-up on that initial question, randy, and that is kind of the scrutiny for college officials. I don't think a lot of people know or understand. You know Every snap for every official is evaluated on film after the game. Can you talk a little bit about how that sort of plays in the, the officials career and those evaluations and those game reports and so forth?
Speaker 2:Yeah, they get assessed on every single play and what we look for is they don't make the same mistake over and over again and we don't want to see officials make egregious mistakes. But if they're doing something wrong, the assessment program is to help them overcome that. So if they're doing something wrong in a week, month, they'll get an evaluation or an assessment. Hopefully they don't make that same mistake over and over again in week two, and that's one of my three simple rules. So they have, joe, you probably remember my three simple, simple rules 100% effort on and off the field, teachability and meet all time deadlines.
Speaker 2:And if officials do those three things 100% effort on off the field, teachability, meet all time deadlines They'll be successful whatever level they're at. But it is something different Because typically in high school I wish we had all the funds in the world, that we had evaluators and all these high school games, but unfortunately don't. But we do at the college level and that's something that's a little different for somebody going into the college ranks To be scrutinized every single play and every single game. That is a little different.
Speaker 1:So, randy, we've talked in a previous podcast that we don't really have D3 football here in college. So if you're gonna move up from high school to college, normal route is to the armack and Thinking about new officials and then have college ambitions and dreams. What do you look for in an official to have them make that next move? How did you go from high school to college? Is there a certain look, style, feel? I mean, do you evaluate, you have somebody go out in a value and what's sort of that process that you go through?
Speaker 2:Well, I look for the officials to do those three simple rules. But, most importantly, it doesn't matter what level you're at in fishing, get a mentor. If one thing people take away from this podcast tonight, get a mentor. Don't try to do it by yourself. I think sometimes our ego gets in our way that we want to do it by ourselves. But get a mentor and that mentor can take you from point A to point B of the process of what they did, to go from high school to college. And just remember, to go from high school to college, basically you have about a 3% success rate, 3% chance. And if you're interested in going to college, work a college scrimmage, maybe go to a camp, but get your mentor to help you make that progression, because if you have that mentor that can help you, it makes that jump going from high school to a small class that much smaller.
Speaker 2:And you read my bio a little bit, joe, but I will say this the biggest jump in officiating and that's true in all sports, whether it's football, men's or women's basketball, baseball is going from high school to small college. That was the biggest jump in my officiating career and so we just look for the physical attributes in good shape, but also look for the mental attributes. Are they good at communicator? Do they listen? Are they teachable? So we do look for the whole package and I think nowadays I think the NFL has kind of hurt this a little bit All these officials are in great physical shape. But one thing we haven't talked about at the NFL level and the major college level is what great mental shape these officials are in and what you see on TV. Just remember from the neck up. They're just as strong.
Speaker 1:Randy, you just mentioned camps and clinics and could you just spend a moment kind of elaborating on that a little more? In previous podcasts episodes we talked about sort of two different philosophies right now out there with camps and clinics. The one side is hey, you go there just to be seen by the next level up coordinator, specifically if you're trying to go from D3 to D2 or D2 to D1, you want to take that snap and be noticed. The other school of thought is, yes, you do learn stuff there, but they are expensive and you really have to be selective about which ones you invest in. So could you kind of comment on those two philosophies and maybe where you think we're at with camps and clinics?
Speaker 2:You know that's the $1,000 question. Camps do play a benefit. You get a chance to meet different people from around the state, around the region, around the country. You get to interact. Usually there's a social, you get to see a lot of snaps and all that. But I don't hire strictly from camps. I also go to scrimmages, maybe like Colorado School of Mines, csu, pueblo in our region here, maybe Colorado Mesa. But I also will go to a high school game and the playoff officials at the high school level. Not to be bragging about the state of Colorado, we've done a really, really good job in this state and our state playoff officials.
Speaker 1:A long time.
Speaker 2:So I look at that and I think, kevin, like I said before, I'm not trying to beat down a broken horse, but a mint towards that value. But I think, also to getting those references, people, that there's quite a few officials you mentioned Claire Gosman, and Claire Gosman is a college replay official but he's had his hand involved in high school football in the state of Colorado for, I bet, five decades now and so I picked their brain because there's somebody we're missing. So I would emphasize to people you don't necessarily have to go to a camp to get into a small class league like the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, because I put a lot of stock in scrimmages and what I see through the high school ranks and those three attributes I've mentioned before.
Speaker 3:So, randy, you've talked a little bit about appearance and we struggle with that even at the high school level. I think there's some guys that say I'm not in good enough shape to officiate football, and then we kind of laugh and say you know, a lot of movement isn't to your advantage on a football field, that there is some controls that are needed in your movement, but it does also seem like there's a certain body shape that does not get the, I guess, get the opportunity to advance, and maybe in the college level it would be the same way. What can you talk about? Just physical appearance you talked about everybody's got to have the right head for the game. Is there a break point where the body just doesn't look like it's athletic enough?
Speaker 1:I even take that one step further. I don't see a lot of beards and goatees and stuff in the guys on TV on Saturday and Sunday. Can you talk a little bit about sort of that from an appearance perspective too?
Speaker 2:Very, very few officials I mean less than one, half of one percent would have a mustache. Nobody's wearing a beard at that level because all these college games are on TV now. Even the Armax has a lot of TV games. We have Lifestream and all that and that's what Kirk was alluding to is a lot. When all these games got on TV over the last decades or two, appearance became a big deal, and so one of the appearances I have is I asked my officials to run onto the field. When they come onto a field to start a game, players and coaches run on the field. Officials should too.
Speaker 2:But as to the, I'm not looking for officials that have 2% body fat, or I can go to Venice Beach in California and put a referee shirt on them, but I will challenge them and say are you in the best fiscal shape you can be? 99% of the officials will say no, I'm not, and so it's always a continual effort. And I don't say older officials, I use the term chronologically gifted. It's a little softer term chronologically gifted, not older. But Michael Jordan had a famous saying that father time is undefeated In. The older you get in age, the harder it is to stay in great physical shape. Just remember, the players are the same age whether they're in high school and college. It's the official that gets older, so they really have to work hard to stay in great physical shape. Plus, it's a lifestyle issue.
Speaker 2:A lot of officials I know around the country in both sports. I know a lot of officials in their 70s and 80s and Kirk, I think that is because they worked out and stayed in shape throughout their officiating career. So there are benefits to it. What I? I mean we have some officials in the ARMAC that need to work a little harder on their physical conditioning. But boy, they're great play callers. They're never out of position and they got to have a great head for the game. But I will say this there will be a day that physically they won't be able to keep up and they won't be in college anymore. But the physical appearance does carry no pun intended. Physical appearance carries a lot of weight.
Speaker 1:I like chronologically challenged. I think that's gonna be my new name. I'm gonna have to put on a shirt, I think.
Speaker 2:Chronologically gifted, not challenge.
Speaker 1:Chronologically gifted okay.
Speaker 2:I remember that Chronologically gifted.
Speaker 1:Is that licensed or trademarked or anything? Cause I really do like that.
Speaker 2:You know what, joel? No, it's not, but I will tell you this. The other day, when I was traveling, I saw a T-shirt. I wanted to go up to this lady, but there was too many people at the airport. Four out of three people have trouble with math.
Speaker 1:That's funny.
Speaker 2:Four out of three people have troubles math and that's part of the benefit of officiating is going around the for me, going around the country seeing different things. I haven't figured out what that T-shirt means, but maybe somebody's listening tonight will tell me what it means.
Speaker 1:I don't know, randy, you obviously have more years experience on the field than I do, kirk as well. I mean, I'm entering my 12th year of officiating this year, but during those 12 years I've seen some really good high school officials that have had a hard time moving up to college. I mean, they want it, they go after it and for whatever reason they just can't get there. And on the flip side of that coin, I've seen one or two officials work half a season to high school and then all of a sudden they're brought up. There's no defined career path for officials. Everybody's journey seems to be a little bit different. Can you talk a little, maybe, about why that is and why some people move really quickly and some people that are good officials don't move at all?
Speaker 2:I always call it the it factor. They have it. And, like Jeff, I'll mention Jeff Hutching here. He is 10th year official, he's already in the Pac-12 year two, and that is true. But I will say this I'm very cautious about taking an official into Division II that maybe only has a year or two high school experience, and here's why. Have they seen enough snaps? And the one thing about college football I love college football, I love high school football. But one thing about college football it's not a second chance business and if you take somebody in too soon and they don't succeed, they don't get a second opportunity in college football. And some of them do go back to high school football and they do really, really well. But I will say this to people listening If they've had success at the high school level and they built a strong foundation, rules, knowledge, physical fitness, mental, all the whole package, no pun intended, give it the old college, try you never.
Speaker 2:I came from a college baseball background. Ironically, that's not the sport I am part of individual and athletics. It was football, women's basketball, not baseball. But I will always say this you never know if you can hit the ball if you don't take your bat to the plate. If you want it bad enough, take your bat to the plate and take a swing. I mean, if you sit on the bench with your bat and you never go to the plate, you'll never know if you can hit that picture. You'll never know. Same thing in officiating.
Speaker 3:So, randy, you talked about maybe some of those limiting factors. Can you put your finger on a particular thing and I'll share this with my experience at the high school level? I see guys come in and maybe they find the wrong mentor. I've seen that you talked so much about a mentor and I think that is a great message. Then you see guys that align themselves on just kind of the sour pus. You know the one that's just not happy with the way things are and they just always feel like they're pushed aside and somebody else is gonna get the big game that they should have had. Is there anything that you can put your finger on at the college level that you might put into a box of? You know, unfortunately, he's a great official but he's gonna struggle because of this or this.
Speaker 2:Well, I will say this If their job in marriage is an issue, they'll never succeed at the college level. I love college football, but the divorce rate for college football officials is pretty much what the nationwide standard is it's about 50%. And truth of the matter is, if you got issues off the field, there's no way you can be a successful high school official. You gotta step on that field with a clear mind, clear conscious, and go for it. And I agree with you.
Speaker 2:I think sometimes I don't know if I told Joel this, but I just came back from Egypt three months ago and they take goal setting so seriously they put their goals in stone 4,000 years ago. To this day you can still see their goals and they put it in stone. Now I'm not asking people that's listening tonight to go put their goals in the nearest rocket, red rocks or Garden of the Gods or whatever, but people's, your fishing career is always changing. So if you do have a mentor and you look at, I always say write your goals down for year one, year three and year five. And if you're not accomplishing those goals with your current mentor, by all means change mentors and find someone that's accomplished. Go year one, year three year five and I think I could accomplish more in my career if I'd had a mentor earlier.
Speaker 2:But don't, if you get a mentor, that doesn't mean you're married for life, because the mentors, lives may change and your officials may change. But I think for people going, how come I don't get the big game? Well, first off, all games are big period. I and Joe mentioned my national championship game. I got that game because the person at my position in the last game of the regular season had an Invern whistle and he complained before the game. It wasn't the big robbery game, I guarantee you. From then on and he did work the national championship four years later, I guarantee you every game to him was important after that happened. But if something isn't, I just say this if something isn't working for you, find out what will work for you and hopefully a mentor or somebody else can help you in that regard.
Speaker 3:Randy, your message is so powerful, I can't tell you how much. I appreciate you're coming on here and talking to us.
Speaker 2:It gives me chills.
Speaker 3:I am feeling so fortunate to have you as a guest.
Speaker 2:I appreciate it. But I will say one other thing real quick. Just remember, we live in the Mountain Times, though we don't have a plethora of college football it unlike other states in the Midwest and East Coast, and that's a big part. It isn't so much the official Kirk, but it is sometimes the geographic location of where they're at. I love the state of Colorado I've been here 40 years but your college football opportunities would be better if you went Kansas East.
Speaker 1:That's great advice.
Speaker 1:So we're moving. Hey, randy, a few minutes ago you talked about high school rules to college rules being difficult and I want to spend just a minute chatting about that. I mean, I personally struggled with that when the couple years I got to work in the RMAC with you and then Mike Contreras previously I always had like half a high school season and then half an RMAC season and I was so worried about having both sets of rules in my head that it actually caused me like personal anxiety because I was so worried about on Friday night, you know, flagging something that would be a high school rule or a college rule in a high school game and then on Saturday doing exactly the opposite. So it did stress me out on some levels for the time I was doing it. Do you have any advice for somebody that maybe gets that opportunity, gets to work one or two games at the college level but still work in a full high school schedule? Any special tips or tricks for kind of keeping those rules separated and working both both at the same time?
Speaker 2:Okay, you're gonna put me on the spot now.
Speaker 2:I want to tell you what I did that helped me. But I wouldn't recommend this. And first off, don't ever shortchange a high school student-athletes in the coaches by applying a college rule. Never do that. And on the flip side, you never want to shortchange the college athletes and the coaches applying a high school rule but going through the ranks. This is what I did. I'd have a high school game on Friday night and, by the way, I do emphasize to the ARMAC officials, they can work high school football. I do want them to give back. I really want them to give back, and a lot of them do. But on Friday nights I would referee a high school football game. Then I would.
Speaker 2:There was a study guide back then. It was about four pages long. It had the major rule differences between high school and college, and I would study that for an hour before I went to bed that night. So I had the college rules in my mind but, in all honesty, there were a couple of times like I'd be studying, I'd have a couple of beers, and so I hit the point of limitations, demarcation. I said, okay, that's enough time for bed, but that was the best thing I did and I flipped it around Sometimes if I had a Thursday night college game and went back to high school I looked at the rule differences between high school and college and that was the best way to do it.
Speaker 2:But then NFL has kind of an unwritten rule that you spend 30 minutes a day in the rule book. Off season endurance season, you spend 30 minutes a day and I would encourage anybody that's a high school official that wants to get into college spend 30 minutes a day in the college rule book and I think that will go a lot farther. My wife always joked with me. She goes I don't know how you study rules with your eyes closed, because studying rules football rules in particular at the high school, college, nfl level is one of the most boring things you can do in life. It's really hard to study and that's why I think in the NFL and I encourage my college officials to think same thing Joe, spend 30 minutes a day in the rule book.
Speaker 3:So, randy, this is just such good stuff. You talked a little bit about the importance of family and difficulties with marriages and divorce and I'm sure, at all levels and everything, you could fit this question in, but you obviously you have a very loving wife that allows you to do this.
Speaker 3:I can't imagine my wife every time. She'd roll her eyes in the back of her head if I got another football phone call. I can't imagine what the number of calls and emails that you deal with. Any advice for guys that are maybe getting signed up early in their career. We talked a little bit at some of these podcasts about the importance of getting buy in from your significant other. Any words of wisdom.
Speaker 2:I think I've had a few officials that I've been a coordinator for that got divorced and it was common theme and I would recommend everybody do this If you have a goal and aspiration to move up to a higher level, your spouse and if another has to be on the same page. They got to agree with that goal and I said and I was fortunate because I was self employed so I've been, I've been working on my house now for 33 years, so I determined my own schedule. But, oh my gosh, there's a lot of people that's listening right now that have corporate jobs, have other jobs and they have a boss to report to. I never had a boss to report to. But I will say this and I'll stress this If you have an aspiration to move up to a higher level, whether it's football or any other sport, make sure 100% your spouse and significant other is on the same page.
Speaker 2:And I would go one step further that if you do have a mentor, make sure that they're a part of your life combined your spouse and your life. Make sure they're a part of it, because there is a tendency in college to get carried away and get caught up in the moment and all of a sudden, you've gone away of what you promised your spouse and significant other. That's where the coordinator like me, or the mentor, comes in and says, hey, we need a market correction here, we need to correct this. You're getting out of balance. But if you don't, you're rolling the dice, kirk, if your spouse is not a part of your goals, goal setting Great advice.
Speaker 1:I'm just curious did your wife come do a lot of your games, or your family? I mean, how often were they in the audience watching you officially?
Speaker 2:Well, in the ARMAC I can only remember my wife coming once or twice when I got into the WAC. I was in the WAC and then the Mountain West. My wife came probably to third of the games when I was in the big 12, nothing against the big 12. I went to a big 12 school. I went to Kansas State, but she wasn't thrilled to go to Lawrence, kansas or Manhattan Kansas or still water for a game. When I got to the pack 12, all of a sudden, oh yeah, I love Tucson. Yeah, in the fall, sure, la, great, the Bay Area. She never wanted to go to the two Oregon schools or two Washington schools but she went to probably half the games. She always went to the bowl games. Women's basketball I did 25-insulate tournaments in a relative Division I level. I think she made like 16, 17 of those. So in that regard she did. But in the big 12 days now she didn't care about the Midwest.
Speaker 1:Well, randy, it's hard to believe. We're already at our time and I've got one last question for you. I know you're super busy and I want to thank you again for spending time with Kirk and I. We've got almost 70 new officials coming into high school this year, which we're super excited about. We've talked about the importance of having a mentor, so we got that down on the checklist. If there was one other thing you could tell them and you're standing in front of that room of 70 new officials what would be your one last piece of wisdom for them?
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, before I get to the piece of wisdom real quick, I do make it mandatory that all 22 my college schools, that our officials talk to them about the Player to Ref program. We try to recruit high school officials in our states where we're geographically challenged, like Idaho, montana, colorado, utah. There's one thing I do have to say in parting comment is that things can be taken away from you in life and things can be taken away from you in officiating, but nobody that's listening right now. There's no way they can take memories away from you. And I encourage the 70 new officials, I applaud them and I hope they're still officiating three to four years from now, but I hope they create special memories because nobody can take memories away from them. Amen, you guys create special memories through the podcast and through your officiating. You guys go out and create special memories yourself.
Speaker 3:Well, randy, I remember having a new official. We were trying to find out from newer officials what could make it better for them and this guy was maybe three or four years in. He said you know what, why don't you bring the guys in and let them enjoy pregame, halftime, postgame beer and then stick them into that rulebook and have to study and do all the testing? But if you get a taste of that camaraderie that comes out of those memories at postgame and it makes a big difference. So I agree 100% with you and thank you, randy, for your time tonight.
Speaker 2:You're welcome, kurt, joe. Great to see you again and congratulations on the podcast and good luck in your high school season. Let me know if I can help out in any way. High school football nothing beats Friday night high school football. Nothing.
Speaker 1:So, kurt, that was just an amazing interview with Randy. I don't know that it gets much better than that. And for new officials listening just the wisdom that came out of Randy, I have nothing to. You know, words can't describe it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I want to be like Randy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I wouldn't mind a few FBS championships under my belt either. Hey, I want to get to our listener question of the week. So, as I said before, we've topped 200 subscribers now for the podcast, which is awesome, and we had another listener question come in. It says dear Joel and Kurt, thanks so much again for doing the podcast. Love what you guys are doing for new officials. I just finished my new officials training and just went to an on-field clinic this past week. I'm so nervous about getting on the field because there's so much to remember and so many new things to do. How do you guys keep this straight? Knowing when to start and stop the clock, knowing rules, mechanics and everything else that has to go into what looks like a simple game on TV?
Speaker 3:Boy, that's boy. It kind of took me back in time, joel. I have been doing this for about 30, 35 years, which is crazy. I can remember the first flag. I threw the first whistle I blew in a youth game and I guess my advice or my response would be as soon as you throw that first flag, as soon as you blow the first whistle, you will feel more comfortable All of a sudden. I'm not saying, you're not still nervous, but you'll get so much more comfortable real quick. It's just that, immersing yourself in the game and next thing you know it's just a football game.
Speaker 1:I know I've told this story before, Kirk, I don't know if I've told it on the show, but you remember my very first time on the field was with you, right? You remember that game? I do remember that, yeah. So I showed up fresh out of class, nervous because there was a bunch of giant teenagers on the field and I said, hey, I'm just here to watch. And you said no, you're not, you're going to go get your uniform. And I had my uniform in the car. I stood on the sideline.
Speaker 1:It was a wing very first play from Scrimmage. A wall of humanity comes at me and takes me out, the chains behind me and I thought, wow, that felt good, I'm going to keep doing this. So those butterflies went away after that very first play. And here we are 12 years later. But I totally understood where this person was coming from and sort of that nervous anxiety that gets out there, because there's a lot to remember. And even this weekend, when we had the clinic for DFOA new officials, you could see the headlights spinning from some of those guys that were on the field too and asking some of the same kinds of questions of how do we keep all this straight? I was trying to explain clock mechanics to put new back judges and you could see the deer and the headlights look. So it's experience. Focus on one thing at a time. Like Randy said, get a mentor, Don't try to perfect everything at once.
Speaker 3:And I think we forget, as brand new officials, that you're out there with four other guys or three other guys or gals that have some more experience. You don't have to do it all by yourself. You don't have to see everything perfect, it'll come to you.
Speaker 1:Well, as we wrap up week eight, if you would like to get in touch with Kirk or I and have us address your question, your comment on the air, you can reach us at yourfirstdownscom. Again, that's yourfirstdownscom. Thanks so much for spending 30 minutes of your day with us and we'll catch you in week nine. Bye-bye.