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WOA Summer Camp Announced

The WOA Football Officials Summer Camp will be held at Central Washington University in Ellensberg on Monday June 25th and Tuesday Junee 26th. EFOA has some scholarship funds available for first time attendees. The cost is $130 per person (scholarship recipients have the amount of their scholarship refunded when they attend the camp). If you are interested in attending, you can download the registration form by clicking here. Then return the completed form along with a check for $130 made out to EFOA to Dave Krajcar.

We have a limited number of slots available, priority is given to those who have not attended before and are closest to promotion to varsity level. Priority registration ends May 15 and then it is first come, first served. Contact Dave Krajcar if you have any questions by clicking here.

Associaton News

May 12, 2012 - Upcoming Board Meeting
The next EFOA Board meeting will be held this Thursday, 5/17/12, at 6pm at City Hall in Battleground. Because the meeting is after the building has closed, if you are attending, when you arrive on site, please call John at 360-635-1010 to be admitted. The agenda has been posted on the Inside Scoop tab under the Board Meetings item. Please note that the open comment period is now at the beginning of the meeting.

May 1, 2012 - Assigning Secretary Position Opening
EFOA President John Williams announced that the position of Assigning Secretary is now posted and officially open. He further explained that "Due to the recent bylaw change with the assignor moving to a contract basis, the board determined that it would open the position to see the level of interest. However, it should be understood that by posting this position is not indicative of any dissatisfaction with the current assignor by the board."

The position is officially open today and will close May 15. It is anticipated the process will be complete by August.

You can read the position announcement by clicking here. You can view the position description by clicking here.

Apr 22, 2012 - Board Minutes Posted
The board minutes from this Thursday's meeting have been posted and can be viewed using the Inside Scoop tab under the board meetings item.

Apr 8, 2012 - EFOA Spring Training Sessions Announced
Rick Langeland, EFOA Board Member in charge of Training, has released the schedule for the upcoming Spring training sessions. There will be four sessions on April 14, April 21, May 5 and May 19. All sessions begin at 8am and end at 9:30. They will be held in room 312 at Mt. View HS. Topics include Rule 2, pre-snap keys, penalty enforcement, and breakout sessions. While the sessions are geared towards the intermediate and apprentice level officials, all are invited. At the conclusion of these sessions, there will be some scrimmages in June to work. You can contact Rick Langeland for further information through email by clicking here.

Apr 4, 2012 - NFHS Releases POE for 2012
The National Federation of High Schools (NFHS) has released the football points of emphasis (POE) for 2012. It includes watching for illegal helmet contact, wearing of improper uniforms, and illegal blocking below the waist. Also included is illegal shifts by the quarterback when he goes under center and receives a quick snap or a back is in motion and the QB goes under center. Since going under center is a shift, both of these examples would be fouls and should be called. You can read the full article by clicking here.

Feb 19, 2012 - Proposed Mechanic Change
If you read the proposed rule changes in the article below, you will see a fairly significant change in the free kick rules. From now on, members of the kicking team will not be allowed to contact any receiver team member until the ball has broken the plane of the receiving team’s restraining line, or until the kicker is legally allowed to recover the kick. This will prevent kickers from just "blowing up" the receiving team players.

As a corollary to the rule change, NFHS has also proposed a mechanics change to support this new rule. In the proposed mechanic, the Back Judge is the only official who stays unchanged. The Head Linesman and Umpire are both on the receiver's LOS, the Line Judge is on the 10 yard line, and the Referee is on the goal line at the numbers on the HL side. This will give the responsibility for checking for the rule compliance to the 3 up officials. Once the kick can be receovered by K, the U and HL would help by coming down field and the LJ and R would come upfield to box in the play.

The WOA Committee that is compiling the state official's manual is looking at this change and several others to become a part of the state manual due to be published in July.

Feb 9, 2012 - 2012 NFHS Rule Changes
The new rule changes for 2012 have been announced by the NFHS. There are some fairly significant ones for the new season including a change on passes. From now on, the receiver must get one foot inbounds and control the pass. If he is pushed out while in the air, the pass is now incomplete. Also, if a player's helmet comes off (any player, not just the runner), he must sit out one play.

There were eight changes in all, and you can view the press release by clicking here

Feb 3, 2012 - EFOA Scholarship Awarded
Earlier today, Matt Meister, EFOA Board member and sportsmanship coordinator, went to Fort Vancouver HS and presented the school with the EFOA 2011 Sportsmanship Award during their winter sports assembly. He also presented Jordan Vela with our Evans-Luce Scholarship. More details on Jordan are available under the accolades tab on this website.

The sportsmanship award and the scholarship award are pictured on the left. (click the picture to enlarge)

Feb 1, 2012 - Super Bowl Picks
Well, the EFOA officials didn't do to good on picking the eventual super bowl teams. Let's see if they can do better with the game itself. Be sure and visit the election page and make your choices.

Jan 26, 2012 - WOA Mechanics Manual
[By John Williams] Recently the WOA office requested volunteers to serve on a committee to create an officials manual to incorporate state mechanics with the NFHS. This state manual will replace the NFHS manual next year. Dave Krajcar was selected to work on the committee with officials from around the state. Congratulations to Dave and good luck.

Dec 15, 2011 - NFHS Football Rules Questionaire
You are invited to take the NFHS 2011 Football Rules Questionaire online by clicking here. The questionaire allows you to vote on some of the rule changes made this year and some that are proposed for next year. Anyone is welcome to take the survey and you must complete it by January 6, 2012.

Dec 14, 2011 - John Bardin and WOA Newsletter
The December edition of the WOA newsletter is available online on the WOA Website. You can view it by clicking here. On the last page of the newsletter, our own John Bardin is pictured along with two other members of his crew working this year's 4A Semi in the Tacoma Dome.

Nov 25, 2011 - Barricklow to go to state!
Phil Barricklow is going to work the 1B semi-final game today in Moses Lake. He is a late replacement for John Pellerin who had to pull out yesterday due to his wife's condition (see scoops for info). Phil, thanks for filling in. We know you will represent us well,

Nov 21, 2011 - EFOA Served Teams to Tacoma
This year we had the most playoff games of any year to work. The first week of playoffs, we had 5 games and the second week we had two home games and 3 road games. The last week of locally played games, we had 4 more making a total of 12 games - a record for sure!

And now Skyview has advanced to the Saturday night 4A semi-final in the Tacoma Dome and Camas will play in the 3A final Friday night, also in the Dome. And our own John Bardin will be the back judge in the Skyview game and Rick Gilbert will be the white hat in the Camas game! And if Camas wins, they will be joined by Matt Meister as line judge in the 3A Final on TV! Congrats to all our state officials (Rick, John, Matt, Tom, Wayne, John) and let's root for Skyview and Camas!

Nov 19, 2011 - EFOA End of Year Awards
Congratulations to Matt Meister for being named the 2011 Golden Whistle Award Winner for the 2011 season. This award is give to the most outstanding varsity official based on his on-field performance and is selected by a vote of all officials. Contratulations Matt!

The most improved official was Mark Allen and the Rookie of the Year was Heath Powell. Both of these awards are selected by the training staff.

Also at the end of year pizza event, Rick Langeland, Board member for Training, announced the promotion of Doug Kretz, Todd Bingham, Jerry Nye, and Mat Allen to the Varsity level of officiating. Congratulations guys on your well earned promotions.

President John Williams selected Tom Vaughn to receive the 2011 President's Award for his hard work on establishing the EFOA Hall of Fame.

More information on these promotions and awards is available on the Accolades tab of the web site.

Nov 2, 2011 - More Promotions
Congratulations to Roger Frazier, Darrin Leggett, Mike Lindsley, and Jim Vanderpool on their promotion to Intermediate level official. Rick Langeland, at tonight's general membership meeting, made the announcement.

Congratulations, guys! Well done.

Oct 24, 2011 - EFOA STATE OFFICIALS
EFOA received 6 slots in the state football tournament for our officials. The board selected the following officials to work these slots:

• John Pellerin 1B semi as Head Linesman
• Wayne Goddard 1A semi as Umpire
• Rick Gilbert 3A semi as Referee
• John Bardin 4A semi as Back Judge
• Matt Meister 3A final as Line
• Tom Vaughn 1B final as Referee

Congratulations guys! We know you will do well at state!

Oct 6, 2011 - General Meeting Video Clips
At last night's general meeting, John Williams showed some video clips from recent games. Because we met in the media center, not everyone could see the video very well. We have loaded them onto the website and you can see them by clicking here. They are in one file in Windows media format and may take a minute to load as the file is large. Each play is shown twice.

Oct 5, 2011 - 2011 Sportsmanship Winner - Fort Vancouver HS
By an overwhelming vote of the EFOA members at our meeting tonight, Fort Vancouver High School, in Vancouver, Washington was selected as the school with the outstanding display of sportsmanship this season. They will be featured on our commemerative coin for next year and one lucky player will receive a $1,000 college scholarship. Congratulations to the Fort Vancouver Players and Athletic Staff for a job well done!

Oct 5, 2011 - Promotions - Kemp & Krabbenhoft
Congratulations to Ben Kemp and Eric Krabbenhoft on their promotions from Apprentice level to Intermediate level. Rick Langeland, board member in charge of training, announced their promotions at the general meeting earlier this evening. This is the second round of promotions this year and shows our members are moving up! Congratulations Ben and Eric!