In the narrow view of a particular football game or play, coaches and officials often find themselves in an adversarial situation.
Tony Michalek, the director of the USA Football Officiating Department, and Bill LeMonnier, an officiating consultant and clinician for USA Football, reminded coaches and youth football administrators that in the big picture of the game's future, they are really on the same team.
"We need you as an ally," said Lemonnier, a Big Tenand Arena Football League official told participants at the NFL's Youth Football Summit Wednesday in Canton, Ohio. "At times, it's an adversarial role, but we'reall in it together for the good of the game."
Michalek and LeMonnier had some fun with the traditional battles between coaches and officials during a video presentation. Much of the discussion, however, was geared toward expectations and promoting cooperation for the good of the game.
"The working relationships have to be fine-tuned, especially in front of the kids," said Michalek, an NFL official who worked the Super Bowl in January and is also involved in youth sports as a coach, "especially with all these microphones nowadays and people picking them up on cell phones."
Among the responsibilities for the two officiating leaders is working with other groups within organized football to recruit and develop officials.
When LeMonnier first got involved in officiating football 30 years ago, he thought training was sufficient.
"We're all a product of the environment we know," said LeMonnier, who has worked more than a dozen bowl games, including this year's Orange Bowl. "I thought it was pretty good 30 years ago.
"When I look now, I think today's associations are doing such a good job. A lot are state of the art. Some have Web sites with rules quizzes and mechanics illustrations. We've worked with local groups and some have had much better Power Point presentations than what we had. We've talked to them about taking some of that stuff nationally."
Making better training material accessible to more people fits one of LeMonnier's goals, which is to work with organizations around the country to improve football officiating.
The improvement comes primarily from two steps, recruiting and training.
LeMonnier has been traveling with Michalek to various seminars, including this week's Youth Football Summit, meeting with coaches and administrators to help promote good working relationships with officials.
"It's great to get out to clinics and work in the grassroots with officials," Lemmonier said. "We need to be trainers of the trainers. Tony and I can only teach and reach so many officials directly.
"Eventually, we could have an academy for trainers. That's the future. That's where we need to go."
LeMonnier and Michalek work with youth leagues and high school organizations to find those future officials. That recruiting message was shared at the Youth Football Summit.
"Ninety-five percent of us were brought in to officiating by other officials," Lemmonier said. "We need you to help us, too."
The officials recommended that coaches and administrators help encourage people interested in the game to consider officiating. Reaching out to high schools, colleges and other athletic groups is something that LeMonnier encourages.
Cooperation was one of the themes of the day, along with consistency.
Michalek asked coaches what they expected of officials and heard responses such as "being approachable and professional" and "showing integrity, consistency and good communication."
"We've all heard that we need to be more consistent," Lemmonier said. "We usually take that individually and when we ask officials they all inevitably will say, ‘I think I'm pretty consistent.'
"But, is the side judge consistent with the field judge. It doesn't do us any good if you have one consistent interpretation of pass interference, but the guy you're working with has a completely different one. Both guys might be consistent in their own realm, but not be consistent as a crew. ... When that happens, we drive coaches nuts, players nuts and fans nuts; and we lose credibility."
Michalek, a former college official who works as an umpire in the NFL where he has officiated since 2002, provided another example of how officials can do a better job in running the game for players and coaches.
"We're on the field with elite athletes," Michalek said while emphasizing conditioning. "They're still 26 years old every year. Their average age stays the same, but mine goes up every year."
Better officiating leads to better football, which is something all the attendees of the Youth Football Summit could agree is a goal that they share.
Story courtesy of Red Line Editorial, Inc.