The USA Football Super Bowl Officiating Seminar was about sharing ideas.
Whether an NFL umpire or a Pop Warner League linesman, all thoughts were welcomed at the seminar held Friday at
Nearly 200 officials from all levels of the game listened to presentations and watched videos from an impressive crew, led by USA Football Director of Officiating and NFL Umpire
“When you’re sharing ideas, that’s how you get better,” said Michalek, who earlier in the week was named to work on the crew for Super Bowl XLII. “USA Football has met 7,000 officials over the last two years (in seminars alone) and has developed great relationships. Bill and I are really fortunate to be part of the team at USA Football. We all love this game and we enjoy serving people like the men and women at tonight’s seminar. They are significant contributors to the backbone of this great sport and we learn from each other to make it even stronger.”
Michalek spoke of how he still learns from other officials and expressed to all to “have fun.”
“I’ll be in my stance Sunday (at the Super Bowl) and there will be a point in the game where the quarterback will step up and be taking his time with the play clock and I will actually say to myself, ‘This is so cool!’”
That everyman approach of Michalek and LeMonnier went over well with the officials in attendance. They’re all part of the same fraternity.
“Other officials I’ve grown up with and have been mentored by, they talk about how it’s a family,” said Dave Formosa, 23-year
LeMonnier graded out as the Big 10 Conference’s top referee. The 15-year veteran of the league has been officiating since 1973 and is a veteran bowl official, too. He worked this year’s Orange Bowl and last year’s memorable Fiesta Bowl between
He suggested officials need to learn to make calls subconsciously – not consciously – and talked about presentation in light of the increasing number of televised high school football games.
A good portion of the three-hour seminar was spent critiquing a video LeMonnier edited consisting of difficult calls during the recent college bowl season. It drew a lot of dialogue, a few laughs and was a good learning experience for all.
“The video/computer replays and the officials with experience telling us what to do and not to do helps,” said Jesus Aguilera, a high school official from
Aguilera added that hearing NFL and top college officials talk about making mistakes and being able to laugh about them later was another positive aspect at Friday’s seminar.
“As a high school official and as a person, we all make mistakes,” added Aguilera. “You get upset and say to yourself, ‘Man, I made a mistake,’ but when you hear a guy that’s going to the Super Bowl and has great character tells you that honestly, laughs about it and says, ‘Hey, we’re human.’ That makes you feel like we’ll learn from the mistakes. There will be more mistakes, but that’s part of life.”
The clinicians also stressed the need of more officials.
USA Football’s officiating mission is to address the shortage for football officials and provide educational resources for new and current officials to improve. The goal is to help recruit, train and develop football officials at all levels.
“This is what I do. This is my passion,” Michalek said.
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USA Football Officiating Membership offers officials of all experience levels the ability to learn best-practice officiating mechanics, watch videos of plays from across the nation with rule interpretations, receive discounts from Honig's, and more. The yearly Membership also offers the opportunity to take advantage of resources and offerings available only through membership. READ MORE
Story courtesy of Red Line Editorial, Inc.