The NFL has resolved its officiating problem, but not the one you’re thinking of. While the attention of football fans had been on the strike, a different problem has been brewing for a long time. “There is an epidemic of a lack of qualified officials at the high school and pee-wee league levels of football. We’re using the same officials and not bringing in the younger generation”, says Vanessa Siveris-Streater program coordinator at the NFL’s Football Officiating Academy which is entering its third year. “If we have the problem at the lower levels, eventually we’re going to have it in college and the NFL”. It’s a problem the Officiating Academy is designed to help remedy.
The mission of the Academy is twofold. It started as an effort on the part of the NFL to encourage a younger generation of potential officials but it have since grown into an educational outreach program. Their mission is stated simply, “To broaden pool of officials nationally, while inspiring elevated awareness of officiating and to encourage participants to develop strong social skills through programs focused on building officiating knowledge and character development.”
So far they seem to be succeeding on both fronts. “10 to 15 percent of the young people that take part in this program go on to work on the pee-wee level or High School level”, continues Siveris-Streater. With the program still in its infancy this number is expected to grow. Where there is more immediate success is the affect the program is having as an outreach effort. In New York the Academy has teamed up the NYCHA the New York City Housing Authority. With this collaboration the Academy can boast in having 51 percent of its New York members coming from public housing. The FOA puts an emphasis on not only the rules of football, but on what it takes to be a good official and how you can take those qualities into other aspects of your life.
“The first thing we learned was player safety”, says Erin Jones, a recent graduate of the program entering her first year of college, “Then we starting talking about presence. There is a difference between being ‘here’ and ‘present’ and I take that into education. You can always go to the classroom just to get your attendance, but not know what is going on. You have to put your all into it”. Presence is the first attribute that is discussed in the FOA making up the acronym P.R.I.D.E. (Presence, Read, Integrity, Decisiveness, and Excellence); the program takes students through each word and what it means in terms of being a good official and what it means off the field as well.
One of the few bright spots coming out of the labor strife between the NFL and the officials was the opportunity for Shannon Eastin to become the first ever women to officiate a professional football game in America. Part of the mission of the FOA is to make sure she isn’t the last. The Academy has a program titles W.O.N. or Women Officiating Now. The goal of the WON initiative is to create a pipeline for potential female officials. While all the Academy’s camps and practicums are co-educational, there remains a concerted effort to recruit and encourage young women to enter into the field. FOA is trying to bridge the gap between the lack of young officials nationally with the opportunity for young women to fill that gap. Football fans can rest assured that the next generation of great officials are already being developed around the country.
