Official (American Football)
In American football, an official is a person who has responsibility in enforcing the rules and maintaining the order of the game.
During professional and college football games, seven officials operate on the field. Arena football, high school football, and other levels of football have other officiating systems.
Football officials are commonly referred to as referees, but each position has specific duties and a specific name: referee, umpire, head linesman, line judge, back judge, side judge, and field judge. Because the referee is responsible for the general supervision of the game, the position is sometimes referred to as head referee.
Read more about Official (American Football): Equipment, Uniform, Officiating Systems, Positions and Responsibilities, History
Famous quotes containing the word official:
“We were that generation called “silent,” but we were silent neither, as some thought, because we shared the period’s official optimism nor, as others thought, because we feared its official repression. We were silent because the exhilaration of social action seemed to many of us just one more way of escaping the personal, of masking for a while that dread of the meaningless which was man’s fate.”
—Joan Didion (b. 1935)