Written by NFL Umpire Tony Michalek and Big Ten Referee Bill LeMonnier, USA Football's Certified Officiating Education Program (COEP) is designed to give officials a way to hone their skills from the comfort of their own homes.
Some officiating organizations are beginning to mandate that their officials take USA Football's online course, in hopes of ensuring that all of their officials are on the same page when they hit the field.
"The program is an excellent home-study tool that allows our officials to train at their own pace," said Ben Heugel, the President of the Tampa-based West Coast Officials Association (WCOA). "It's a detailed training program that's very simple to use. It allows you to learn from demonstrations of plays and mechanics involved in making the correct call. In most cases, our officials can answer their own questions through the program."
The COEP involves both a basic education course and a mechanics course. The programs even feature a "save" option so officials can complete the course at their own pace, rather than having to commit an entire evening to going through the material.
"Some officials can't always make it to in-person training, so this makes that part of it easier, you can do this online if need be," said Jay Drewry, the President of Alaska's Anchorage Football Officials Association (AFOA), which provides officials for games affecting approximately 3,500 players throughout high school, Pop Warner, independent youth and girls flag league. "I want to provide a more consistent level of officiating throughout our whole organization, and USA Football's program will help us to do so."
The basic education course uses animation to illustrate techniques, signals and proper positioning. This course takes approximately two hours to complete, and contains four chapter quizzes to help ensure that officials participating in the program retain the information that is presented.
The mechanics course teaches the essential game mechanics of 2-to-5 person officiating crews, with curriculum in special teams and the running and passing games. It is separated into four different courses, each taking approximately 90 minutes to complete. Each of the four parts of the mechanics course is concluded with a quiz and awards each official with a Course Certificate. The mechanics course is also a great way for youth officials to prepare for a move to the next step officiating high school games.
"The Broward Football Officials Association (BFOA) plans to direct its members to the online training that matches up with the subject matter we will be covering at each meeting," said Steve Epstein, the Vice President of the Fort Lauderdale, Fla., organization."We also expect to have the ability to draw upon USA Football's resources to assign quizzes related to each of the topics."
Epstein said the BFOA was also interested in using the online course because it is another way for the officials in the association to receive the information they need to be successful.
"We were impressed with this comprehensive and easy-to-navigate resource that could supplement other training initiatives we already had in place," Epstein said.
With large officiating organizations across the country already mandating the program in 2009, many more are expected to follow suit in an attempt to achieve the same level of consistency within their own crews.
