I never was never anymore then an average athlete at best, with baseball being my best sport; however, I loved to play, when I got the chance, football. At a whopping 98 pounds and maybe 5 foot tall I played fullback and linebacker for the 2nd team Electra Tiger Cubs. I was back-up to Don Cook who was probably around 140 lbs and at least 5'6" tall and meaner than a snake on the football field. So you can see that unless Don was throwing up on the field, knocked out cold, had some bone protruding from his body, or we were up/down by 30 points, I was not going to see much playing time. Oh I almost forgot, I was on the first team kicking team, which in most cases meant again, very little playing time, (the team has to score to be able to kick more then once in a game). Once I realized that the Dallas Cowboys were probably not going to be looking to me to be their back-up fullback of the future, I turned my interest to other things. One interest that caught my eye early on and stuck with me was officiating sports. I started out officiating Little League baseball at 16 and from then until now I have been physically involved in sports either as an official or a coach. Even today I help my son coach my grandson's baseball team and for the last 13 going on 14 years I have refereed football and I love it. I feel like where God didn't bless me with size, speed, or ability, He did bless me with enough intelligence to understand the sports I love so much and the ability to be discerning in applying the rules of those games.
Officiating baseball became to difficult for my knees and back to take so I have turned all of my officiating attention to football, hence the name change to "Rowland Around and Friday Night Stripes". I started my 14th year of officiating football this year. The primary crew of Wesley Harville (Referee), Todd Self (Umpire), Chuck Winer (Line Judge), Mark Overman (Back Judge) and myself (Linesman), have been together for most of those 13 years. This is a group of Christian men that love the sport of football and I love calling with. On our crew we have three preachers, a minister of music and a deacon so instead of having men's prayer breakfast each week we have prayer football and fellowship a couple times a week. These gentlemen are like brothers to me and when the season has passed, I miss them and look forward to the next season. What I would like to do with my post in the coming weeks is write about some of our adventures on the gridiron. I might even throw out some "rules of the game" sort of stuff and inform you how we, as a crew, interpreted those rules. I left the "Rowland Around" part because I would still like to post some happenings within the Rowland Family adventures. Hope you enjoy what I write and I look forward to your feedback.
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2 comments:
Intelligence is so much better than size. Your love of sports proabably started in those neighborhood games played with Craig and friends. He did not get big enough to play football either. But you guys had heart!
I know it did Lou, and I know the reason Craig, didn't want you playing with us all the time was because you could beat at least half of the neighborhood boys at their own game and I was one of them. Oh those were the days! We had a blast but I much preferred you in your cheerleader role cheering for me especially!
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