They have a love-hate relationship with coaches, fans and athletes. People say that they are out to mess teams up when they are doing well.
Referees can be loved or hated, and occasionally they are both loved and hated during the same event.
Here at Texas A&M University – Commerce, there is a staff member who not only is a referee at the college level with softball, but also is hoping to become a referee in the National Football League.
Edgar Reed is the Assistant Director of Intramural Sports at the Morris Recreation Center. At the age of 27, he is the youngest Division I official in softball.
“I got started officiating really young. I certainly think that if I would have been in my mid-30s when I started, I probably wouldn’t have aspirations to go very far.
I was able to break into softball officiating at 21,” Reed said. “I have worked in the Big 12, SEC, Conference USA and ACC … a lot of different conferences within Division I level. Softball is really where I broke into big college.”
Reed, who grew up in west Texas, would love to have the chance to become an official for college football at the next level.
“Football in west Texas is a way of life, as opposed to other areas where it’s something you do on a Friday night.” He has had some great opportunities as an official.
At the age of 19, Reed got the chance to work a Midland Lee vs. Odessa Permian high school football game, at which the attendance reached 40,000 people.
At 20, he started working Division III and junior college football games with a group of officials from the Permian Basin area.
At the young age of 27, Reed already has 8 seasons of officiating experience.
He says that one of the ways in which he continues to improve is by going to the same camps and clinics every summer for officiating.
“In officiating, it’s all about being seen by the right people,” Reed said.
“A lot of these guys are old hats, and they do the training and hold certain evaluation positions in the NFL and things like that. And they are the major college conference supervisors of officials.”
Based on observation and noticing certain trends, Reed points out that the NFL has started to go with a new trend of getting younger referees, guys that do not necessarily have Division I experience.
All they are concerned with is trainability, appearance, and that they have some experience with a 7 man system. We officiate in a 7 man system in most of the conferences now,” Reed said.
“Last year, there were 7 guys that got picked to referee in the NFL, and they had never worked a Division I game in their lives.
One of them had never worked anything greater than Division III.” Reed says his experience as both a softball official and his position at the Rec Center have helped him stay sharp and on top of things in respect to officiating different sports at different levels.
“Being a softball official helps, because a lot of the conference coordinators and officers see me involved with those things, and so they see my name with football, they already know me a little bit,” Reed said.
“As the intramural director, I am responsible for training all of the new officials, and so it’s been every year that someone asks me a question that I have never heard asked that way, never thought about it that way. So every time we gear up for training, I have to get back to the basics of the rules as opposed to someone who has a traditional job and doesn’t have the opportunity to get to stay involved in this type of training.”
Reed was one of only 16 applicants nationally accepted to an NFL referee camp this summer in Reno, Nev. Reed said that the referee camp “will certainly be a good opportunity and chance to advance for me.”
One of Reed’s ultimate dreams, is “to work big college football for a major conference – the Big 12, Conference USA, Big Ten, Pac 10 – something like that.” He said that most of the major college football referees make it to the NFL.
“I hope that one of these days I’m fortunate enough and able to break into the NFL, and if I do, I won’t ever forget the people here that made it possible,” Reed said.
“I will probably keep moving, and hopefully work the Arena Football League. Then if the NFL Europe continues doing what its doing, hopefully my last stop before the NFL would be working NFL Europe for a season. That is a dream, and if it happens, then great. Still, my big time goal is to work big time ball on Saturdays.”
Reed said that anyone interested in officiating at any level, is to get involved.
“Whether it’s at the city, municipal, Little Dribblers, whatever level,” Reed said. “Any of those things, the more you get involved, the more you learn.”
“As an official, you are a person that people come to when something has happened that people aren’t used to.
We lose a majority of our younger officials because of that. We have created that beast around the intensity and the life and death persona of sports,” Reed said. “Stick with it, and always grow and learn from every situation. Always look at it from both sides of the glasses.”
Reed said that referees are people too.
“We make mistakes, just like others, but it’s the job of the referee to make sure they don’t make habits of making mistakes. Referees, whatever level they are at, are there because they are the best at what they do.”