Welcome
July 20th, 2006
To: Interested Official
Subject: Welcome
Thank you for expressing an interest in officiating high school and youth football in the local area. As you might have read in the article this past December in the Pensacola News Journal, the number of qualified football officials has been steadily decreasing in the past several years. This is not only a local problem, but has been reported nationwide. Therefore, we are searching for people like you to replace our dwindling numbers. There are several reasons for the dwindling numbers, some of which were mentioned in the newspaper article. It is a tough job, and takes a special type of person to last. But, before I scare you off, allow me to tell you a little bit about us.
Five Flags Football Officials Association is one of two football officials associations in the Escambia/Santa Rosa area. Southeast Football Officials Association of Pensacola is the other. Five Flags schedules officials for the local youth league, and Southeast schedules officials for local high school games. The two associations work together on scheduling games and training officials. Generally, with a few exceptions, most of our officials are members of both associations. We conduct our meetings jointly, once a week, usually beginning sometime in the early summer. You will be notified when and where these meetings will take place. These meetings are for the purpose of providing the necessary classroom and field training that must take place before putting you out on the field in a real game situation. Currently, the season starts sometime in late August. This is when your training will start paying off. The local youth football games are played on Saturdays, and usually you will be scheduled to work between 3 to 5 games on a Saturday. These games pay approximately $25 per game; they play four 8 minute quarters, with the exception of the oldest group which plays 10 minute quarters. The games last about 1-½ hours on an average. Currently, the local high school games pay $60 per game for a varsity game, and $46 for JV and Freshman games. JV and Freshman games are generally played on Thursday evenings in our area, and there is a possibility of you getting on the field for some of these games in your first year. Varsity games are usually played on Friday nights. It should be your goal to work these games, and the job you do on Saturdays and Thursdays will determine when you achieve this goal.
Please review the information here online we have provided and email us.