Monday, September 27, 2010

What a Weekend!

I can safely that there is absolutely nothing wrong with my heart! This weekends sports activity was like taking a stress test. The long awaited game between Alabama and my beloved Arkansas Razorback was finally played. The Razorbacks started out great but in the end it was the inability to run the football that spelled our defeat. We jumped out to a large lead and took in all the way into the forth quarter but were unable to sustain a drive and in the end we were unable to stop the nations top two running backs of Alabama. Even though we lost the game, I believe it was a warning shot across the bow of the rest of the schools of the SEC, that the Arkansas Razorback are for real. I can't wait to see how the rest of the season plays out. The rest of the weekend went more my way.

On Saturday afternoon, my Texas Rangers clinched the AL West by defeating the Oakland A's. The Sunday they came back and left little doubt in MLB that they were for real by putting up 16 runs against the A's in the finale. I can't wait to see them in two weeks as they play their first play-off game in 11 years in the Ballpark in Arlington.

And finally, my Dallas Cowboys, showed a flash of what they are capable of by spanking the Houston Texans in their own home. There was great play on both sides of the ball and thank goodness Roy Williams and Tony Romo finally got on the same page. Its can only get better from here!!

Now for my grandchildren, Dallas scored 8 goals Saturday while Skylar and Landry scored 3 each. These 4 dollar Saturdays are getting expensive! The quote of the day comes from my daughter-in-law Lindsey, when she turned to my grandson and said, "Landry Dale, DO NOT put that frog in your pocket!!" I can tell you one thing for sure, that apple didn't fall too far from the tree, that boy is just like my son Jason, I really had to bit my tongue on this one to keep from laughing. Thank you Lord!!

Friday, September 24, 2010

Sad Situation

In the 24 years I have lived in my community, I have watched one of the local high school football teams struggle year in and year out. I think that this school has probably had less then 24 wins in those 24 years on the football field, but I had never seen this team do what they did last night in the game I was officiating in, nor have I ever seen this in nearly 14 years of officiating football. They quit! I'm not saying that they just quit trying to stop the opponent or score, they just quit! With 7 minutes and 42 seconds to go in the 4th quarter and only down by 16 points and driving inside their opponents 40 yard-line, the home team coach walked across the field and told myself and the other coach "we're done". My thought was "coach why don't you just call all the rest of the schools on your schedule and forfeit your season!" "Save the schools money and put into the outstanding band program that the school has!" What a pitty, what do you think this teaches the boys that were on that field last night? "Well boys, in life when your back is against the wall and you're in a loosing situation, just throw in the towel and quit." If I had a boy on that team that would be the last game he would play for that coach. Any thoughts?

Thursday, September 23, 2010

A Change of Plans!


I received an email from my refereeing crew chief this morning that said that my Friday night game had been cancelled. I really hate losing a game but I have to admit I was not looking forward to another long trip to the west side of the state. Another plus side is that will get to go watch two of the best teams in the state battle it out in Conway. Hey, I told you I love this time of year! Surely you didn't think that I would take the whole night away from football! I will also be rested up to go and watch my grandchildren play some soccer Saturday morning.

Also Saturday afternoon, we will celebrate birthday #1 for Princess Kaylee! She is the daughter of my son Jeremy and his wife Stephanie, and she is number 3 in the line of PaPaw's Princesses! The picture on this page is of Kaylee taken not too long ago. She is a real cutie and she looks a lot like her sister Skylar at that age. Anyway, I will try to post some pics of the Princess eating her cake.
After the party it will be time for some serious college football as #10 Arkansas takes on #1 Alabama in Fayetteville!! It should be a great game, I just hope Arkansas can make a game of it, GO HOGS GO!!!




Tuesday, September 21, 2010

What a night!

Last night I white hatted a Jr. Varsity game between to local "power house" schools. The game went great for most of the night. We had three seasoned officials and one that was still a little green. Our crew's first stumble was when the home team was stopped short of the goal line. One of my linesmen signaled appropriately and the other gave the touchdown signal. Upon discussion with both officials it was agreed that the team was indeed short of the goal. The home team coaches went ballistic, but his team scored on the next attempt. I told my green official to explain to him why he had touchdown and why the other official had the runner short of the goal. Basically the explanation should have been "I screwed up" because he didn't see the runner actually cross the goal, he just assumed from the push that the player crossed the goal. The official on the other side actually saw the knee come down before the ball crossed the goal.

The next mistake came in the closing minutes of the ball game when, as a crew we didn't agree on what the down should be. The umpire and I had 4th down and we stopped the clock for change of possession. The two wing guys had 3rd down and tried to keep the clock going. The visiting team coach came running out on the field and began to raise a fit. It was a moment of chaos that I wished would not have happened. When the visiting team coach came out on the field the home team coach want me to flag him and back the team up, which I could have back him up 15 for unsportsmanlike conduct and 5 for delay of game. I chose not the throw the flag since it was our crew that had things screwed up. It was one of those nights that had me asking myself why do I put myself through all of this. The answer I steal from a movie with the same title, "I do it for the love of the game". So I will lick my wounds and jump back in there Thursday night!

Monday, September 20, 2010

You win some you lose some!

As most of you already know I am a big sports fan! You will also know that I am a big Razorback, Dallas Cowboys, and Texas Rangers fan. If you know that then you will also know that I was the roller-coaster ride from hell this weekend. It started out great with the Razorbacks, having a great first half of a game against SEC opponent Georgia Bulldogs. The second half I watched a huge lead dwindle down to nothing with seconds to go in the game. I thought for sure we were headed to OT in their house (not a good situation) this was how they beat us last year. Then our Heisman Candidate QB, Ryan Mallett hit our top receive Childs on a hitch rout for a game winning TD with 11 seconds to go in the game. After the game I watched the Texas Rangers drop their magic number to 6, life was good on Saturday!

Then came Sunday, I started the day out by watching my beloved Cowboys look like a high school team against a team we should have beat easily. I was upset with the play calling and the play in general of Tony Romo. I have been in Romo's corner up to this point, but I am feed up with the whole mess in Dallas right now. Part of the blame I point to Jerry Jones as well. An uncapped salary season and he did nothing to improve our team in the off season. Our offensive line has to be among the worse in the league. Jason Garrett, I loved as a back-up to Troy but he has got to go and I wish that JJ would go ahead and fire Phillips and hire Cower so he can get in here and motivate some folks before this season is a total loss! Finally, on Sunday, I watched the Ranger lose to the last place team in our division.

Sunday was not good, but when I woke up this morning the sun still shined and the birds still sang, looks like it's going to be a great week!! Go Razorbacks, beat Alabama!! Go Rangers, clinch your division!! Go Cowboys, beat Houston!! We live to fight another day!!

In the way of Stripes, I have three games to call this week. The first game is a Jr. Varsity game tonight, the second game is a Jr. High game at North Pulaski, which is less then a mile from my house and finally Friday the last of our long trips to call a game on the Oklahoma border. I love this time of year!!

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Friday night blow-out!

Well Friday night we called a game in West Arkansas, the home team was ranked high in the state polls and the visitors haven't won a game in several years, kind of reminded me of the Electra Tigers teams of the mid-6o's to the early 70's, where victories were few and far between but we always showed alot of heart. The score for our game Friday night was 37-0 and we were on the "mercy clock" before the end of the first half. The second half was scoreless and was considered a victory by the losing team. Those boys showed a lot of heart and never just threw in the towel.

The home school knew how to take care of their referees and and the visiting school. When we arrived for the game they had steak, mIashed taters, green beans and they topped it off cake and from what I understand the visiting school was also fed by the home school; not bad for hospitality. The school was about 2 and a half hours away, which meant I didn't make it to the bed until around 1:30 a.m.. Which leads me to my next problem which was getting up early today in order to make it to the first of three grandchildren's soccer games.
Soccer went great today and cost PaPaw a total of $4.00 before the morning was done. Landry was first with 3 goals scored, followed by Skylar and 3 goals, and finished off with Dallas and 7 goals. Yep, it's not a typo 13 total goals scored by the Rowland grandbabies!! What a day!!

Friday, September 17, 2010

Why I do what I do!

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.