Episode 4: Talking Flag Football Officiating with DJ Doss

Triangle Treasure Hunt: On today's episode of the High School Ref Show, we bring out one of my longtime friends in the officiating world, DJ Doss. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia and has a long time high school sports official and now is transitioning into college officiating as well as college assigning for flag football. We're going to reminisce about our days up and coming in collegiate intramurals, traveling to regional and national tournaments together. Talk about where flag football is at now in the high school, college and officiating world and talk about how high school sports and high school officiating is going in the state of Georgia. You're not going to want to miss this episode. And if you do find this episode valuable, please click that subscribe button. thank you again to DJ for coming on the show. It was great to catch up with him. Talk all things officiating at lots of different levels and even talk about some flag football, which is probably the fastest growing sport among high school athletes across the country. I'm curious, comment down below. How is high school flag football going in your state? Are most of the schools already playing? Is it sanctioned? Is it a pilot program? And how are the officials doing? We'd also love to hear any comments that you have by commenting down below. Without further ado, let's get to DJ. Is it a fully fledged training program for our high school flag officials? Are things just getting off the ground? Curious to know in the comments. As always, if you enjoyed the show, please leave a like, subscribe, and leave a comment. I will see you next time on the High School Ref Show. Until then, good luck in your games.
Ben Strunk: right. Well, I'm here with DJ Doss. DJ, thank you for coming on the show. you and I go back a long time. We both came up officiating in college and intramurals and then in extramurals, right? At tournaments for ⁓ basketball and football. And we spent a lot of time traveling to different universities, spending the weekend there, refing a bunch of games together, know, chatting about officiating, going to the socials after. We room together, I think. I know we traveled down to nationals together in Pensacola. you know, we spent a long time, a long time as college students officiating with each other. So it's super exciting for me to catch up with you and have you on the show.
DJ Doss: Same here, yeah, excited to chat about, relive the glory days, I guess, if you will. Yeah, definitely talk about the intramural days, extramural days, and I mean, even our careers, you know, we're kind of parallel all the way up through our professional careers post-college days.
Ben Strunk: Yeah, yeah. So as you said, we both were in campus recreation for a long time and now both out of it. But so, DJ, tell us, I know you've done 10 years now, I think, of high school officiating is what you were telling me and ⁓ in football and then you've done some basketball. I know in the past you said you've done some some soccer and some baseball and and other sports. You know, I think as we all, especially in the campus rec world, we kind of get our feet wet in a lot of things. But so tell us it's been 10 years right of high school, but I do think this is your last year doing doing high school sports. Is that right?
DJ Doss: Yeah, ⁓ last year doing high school ⁓ and I think it's something that all officials deal with. It's kind of the same as I love basketball, probably my favorite sport to officiate hands down. I get the most pleasure out of it, but I was a little bit better at football. I just kind of fit in a little bit better and picked up the game a little bit better. ⁓ And so it kind of came to a point where you had to make a decision because like your other guests have talked about. There's a serious time commitment. And so there's really nearly no off season for football and that off season is overlapped by basketball. And so, know, in the personal life had to kind of pick one there. ⁓ And then for football been successful with college football, fortunately. And so between the time commitment there and navigating politics on both sides, you know, it just kind of ended up being that it was time to make the move and, you know, kind of put myself. first in my time first and focus in very specifically on college football on the officiating side. So it's been a great run, it's been a great experience and I wouldn't trade it for the world for all the high school experience that I got with football here.
Ben Strunk: Well, I'd like to start by kind of taking it backward to the origin story of you officiating. So can you tell us like, did you, what was the first time you ever blew a whistle on the courts or on the field and why and how'd you get into it and what got you started?
DJ Doss: Yeah, it's so interesting. my dad definitely instilled a work ethic in me from a young age. ⁓ And what he wanted when I went to Virginia Tech was for me to go get a job. And so he told me to go work at UPS. Like that was the big thing at the time was go to UPS. Well, if you know much about Virginia Tech, Blacksburg is kind of siloed. Like it's in between Roanoke and really nothing else in Southwest Virginia. Um, so the closest job was over 30 minutes away to drive and as a freshman in college, that wasn't really what I wanted to do. So I ended up, um, applying to an intramural sports official job. Go out there for soccer. wanted to make a little extra money soccer being not the sport that I need to officiate much at all. Um, but it ended up being the first one that I worked and I was, I was official of the week because I picked up all the shifts that were available and went out there and just. busted my behind. Not very good, but I tried, I learned quick. And so that just kind of solidified it for me from there was I'm working in real sports.
Ben Strunk: Well, I love that you really instilled one of our tenets of good officiating, right? Is that availability is really one of your best traits. So I love that that's what made you official of the week. you started Virginia Tech doing intramurals. What, you know, at what point were you like, okay, I really enjoy officiating. It's not just a way to make a little bit of cash. I know. I know back then it was even less cash. think when I started in intramurals, we made $6.50 an hour, I think, was my starting pay. I'm sure you were similar. Yeah. So you were doing that as a student, making some extra money. When did the switch flip that, hey, I really enjoy doing this?
DJ Doss: Whatever minimum wage was, I'm sure that's it was. You know, it's funny you say that kind of being retrospective, think immediately I knew that I loved it, but I don't think I fully understood how much I loved it. The camaraderie is what's been so great about officiating, especially on the football side. But for intramural sports as a staff, and I think this was true for almost any intramural sports staff I ever interacted with, there's a very strong sense of camaraderie because you were just like in officiating, you're another team. ⁓ You're a unified front. And so you know, on the field, off the field, on the court, off the court. A lot of really good people that I made really good connections with coming up through Virginia Tech. It actually took some things being kind of funky with my education that like I didn't think I was gonna have to go get a master's and then senior year they pulled the rug and hey, you actually gotta go get a master's to get supported to be a teacher. And I was like, well, if I gotta go get a master's, might as well go get a free one with Intramural Sports. And so that led me down to Tampa for the two years down there, kept us close. then, you know, following that, Kennesaw State, I ended up there deciding that, you know, sticking with that was what I wanted to do long-term between some things going on personally and professionally. just made sense for me to make the move into in real sports. But yeah, knew immediately that I loved it because of the camaraderie. And that's always been true no matter where I was officiating.
Ben Strunk: And I think you at Virginia Tech and I was at Ohio University and I think both of our institutions were very strong in officiating, strong intramural sports programs. And to your point, we had students that really enjoyed officiating and we had like this strong, just kind of packed of people that really... Like we talked about rules, we talked about mechanics, we challenged each other, we watched each other's games. And that camaraderie and that community of students, I think is really special. And I know that's not the case. It was on every college campus. knowing you and hearing about your experience at Virginia Tech, I think it was somewhat similar to what we had at OU. And I think we're both products of that. I think to your point, I know I probably would not be. officiating today if I didn't have that same kind of college experience where I was excited to go out to the fields at the court every night because I was going to be there with my friends and you know was going to want to try and get better every night because my friends and my were pushing me along on that that whole way so I think that's that's kind of cool to hear and you know I think we have a definite shared experience there and I know we also kind of had that shared experience with intramural level taking that to the next step of traveling to tournaments and I'm curious if you could talk a little bit about that like what you know maybe just even first kind of describe what the the regional tournaments and national tournaments are for for collegiate intramurals and then you know maybe how that played a play the factor in your growth as an official.
DJ Doss: Yeah, absolutely. I'm going to hype up one of your own episodes. Definitely go listen to Scott Flickinger's if you haven't to learn a little bit more about the NERSA Championship Series. He does a great job explaining what it means and what it is. As you were saying things there, it also made me think about the fact that you've got to create a culture and that culture has to be around, you know, the camaraderie, but it also has to be around wanting to get better and to learn and to improve. And so I still talk to... person that was leading things at Ohio when you were there, Nick Bregatti. I talked to him constantly, even today, about things. ⁓ You know, I had a lot of strong people, Ben Smith, Jen Rezag, Jeff Foutthouse, that really laid the foundation for me. And part of that foundation with them, especially all of those people that I mentioned, is the amount of energy that they poured into extramurals and being able to connect with, ⁓ you know, people like Flick and Bregatti at extramural tournaments and learn from them there. ⁓ I think Flick did a good job explaining what it brings to the table of, I've heard from these two people and I know that they're great, but these people that I'm talking to now provide in a way that resonates with me a little bit better than the folks that I'm hearing it from on a day-to-day basis. So what they are, Little Pockets, NERSA as a whole, know, sponsoring schools and universities to host these regional events. so most of the time that particular site has students that are working and helping lead this large scale tournament. It was even bigger when you and I were doing it of, you know, we're talking 70 ish teams probably traveling into a regional site to play some pool play in flag football or basketball and move towards a playoff bracket. But all kind of coming into their little regional sites and then those winners of those tournaments or people that get at large bids for teams going to. play at the national level. And for us, we were also fortunate in that we really had two kind of things going at once with ACIS and NERSA back in the day. So we really had a lot more opportunity. But from an official's perspective, the great thing about it was getting to hear from other people, getting to network, learn from those people. I think everybody stole from you attitude, effort, and I think actions was the one I just saw popped up on my feed from yesterday that you and I had talked about.
Ben Strunk: Thank
DJ Doss: That was the powerful part of it, think. Beyond the camaraderie and the networking was just meeting other people and hearing different perspectives.
Ben Strunk: Yeah, I think it also gave us something to aspire to, right? The first, I the first tournament that I went to, it was my first year officiating flag football. I wasn't very good. I went to Ohio State for a regional. I think I, don't think I worked the last day. I, know, I, but I saw the officials that, you know, got those championship games, that got the all tournament bids. And, you know, I could see that they were way better than I was. And. it made me, know, my competitive nature, a lot of us, you know, in the sports world, even as officials have that little bit of competitive nature to us, you know, it made me want to aspire to get better, to become that alternative and official to get that bid to go to the nationals to go further. And so I think that was cool from the officiating, you know, realm that we had that because I think a lot of times in the high school world, yes, we get assignments to go to playoffs or state championships and we have that competitive mindset, but it's a little different because we don't get nearly as much feedback as we did at those regional national tournaments where every game you have an evaluator coming out to give you feedback and tell you things to work on. And I think that that environment just really bred, you know, us wanting to achieve and challenging us more and more to really be the best that we can be. And I think that's one of the reasons that we've seen so many nurse collegiate officials do really well at the collegiate level and the professional level like yourself at the collegiate level and it really go far because that amount of feedback and being able to take constructive feedback and implement it into your game is something that we were bred to do very early in our officiating careers. Would you agree with that?
DJ Doss: Yeah, I totally agree. These were tournaments, right? And so tournaments are microcosms of a season. You're compacting a season into a really tiny little weekend. And so for us, I think the thing that sticks out to me is we were taught how to, like the perspective to have when people are succeeding and you're not. Right? So yeah, I see this person succeeding and are you asking yourself, why not me? Or are you asking why them?
Ben Strunk: Thank
DJ Doss: What is it that they're doing that I'm not doing that I need to put in my game? And so being able to, cause that was the problem for me. I am a lot better at taking feedback now in my life because of officiating. Cause I was not when I first got to Virginia Tech and the people I mentioned, Ben Smith and Jen Rizak would be glad to tell you that I was not good at it when I was younger. I didn't think I did any wrong. I thought I knew it all. And I definitely, definitely did not. And so.
Ben Strunk: You
DJ Doss: Like the perfect story to that is the Maryland Regional for me, because I went all four years that I was an undergrad. In my first year, I was not very good. And I was wearing stuff at the basketball tournament that like, there's no reason that I should be wearing that. Like it's not the right uniform. Fast forward to the end of it. And I'm an all tournament official for both the basketball and flag football regionals in my senior year because I learned and grew from that tournament. ⁓ But I think a lot of it is knowing how to take feedback, but also perspective of. Are you upset because somebody else got it and so now you're jealous and the envy is taking over? Or are you doing this in a way where you're learning and getting better and putting yourself in a position to succeed?
Ben Strunk: Yeah. You mentioned the attitude and effort ⁓ model that I've used for a long time. It's actually the first time I've said it on the podcast. I've held back. I've held back a lot here. But you know, what you just said is exactly it, right? Like there's so many things that we have absolutely no control over. And especially in the officiating world and our assignments are that, right? And you know, all the only things we have control over is
DJ Doss: I had to lay it out for you.
Ben Strunk: our attitude and that goes into how we accept failure or how we accept disappointment and you know, are we able to then go cheer on our friends that got those games and then we also have control over our effort and it's okay. Well, I now see where the bar is and to your point, it's okay. Why didn't I get those games and what am I going to do? And then not only what am I going to do, but am I going to put in the effort to get to that bar? And you know, I think Those who are listening to the show, watching the show that have not heard the attitude and efforts spiel for me before, you'll probably get this just about every other episode the rest of the way through. So there you go. There's the introduction. I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to that. So I know we are good.
DJ Doss: Glad to be here today. I'm glad to be that. ⁓ Yeah. ⁓ no, you're good. was, I was just going to say, yeah, I mean, that's, that's what we can control. That's, that's what I've, I've clung to. And, like I said, you just learned so much from, from those tournaments, being able to be reflective and, and, and have that perspective, I think are two important things I took away.
Ben Strunk: So we spent a lot of time at the tournaments and then as you mentioned earlier, we both went into campus recreation for our career and. We're both in that for a long time and, you know, leading intramural programs at different universities. And I'm curious, you know, when you became a professional in campus recreation and you're on the opposite side of the room teaching all of those officials, you know, I'm curious, what were some of the things that you would tell your new officials or student officials to kind of help them grow in their refereeing.
DJ Doss: Yeah, I think the first thing that I did and shout out to Brooke Turner, who was at Kennesaw State before I was, put together such a strong program with such great infrastructure. so running the leagues was easy when I got there. For me, my strength was always in developing officials. And so that's what I got to bring to the table. And so it made Kennesaw a very well-rounded program by the time I was there and then leaving. My focus was kind of like we started with. My first order of business was create a strong culture where good students are hired. ⁓ One of the things that was being done there before I got there, which was not the case when I was at South Florida and Virginia Tech, is really big schools. You didn't really do much of an interview process. We took warm bodies. We just needed as many people as we could get. ⁓ Not so much the case at Kennesaw State. would actually come in, ⁓ sit down, talk to a hiring person. talk to myself, you talk to our graduate assistant. ⁓ So that was the very first part of it is we're priming you for ⁓ a job. Like this is truly ⁓ just your transferable skills that we're to talk about. It's actually ⁓ the day to day, keeping up with schedule, navigating your payroll, going through an interview process. ⁓ attending your required meetings on a week to week basis. Those were things that we were doing every week. ⁓ So right off the rip, that was something I thought was super impactful and has resonated in my life with officiating at all times. I'm better at a lot of things in my life. I already talked about feedback and receiving that. I'm better at a lot of things because of officiating. So transferable skills that they're going to come along inherently, but being able to provide structure was one of the first things, structure and culture.
Ben Strunk: Yeah. So for your own officiating, you when you got to that professional level, obviously now you have a full-time job. Unlike, you know, when we were in college, I know we both, I think, did high school and such in college, but it was, know, we're, we get to control our class schedules and be able to have some flexibility in our time. But then you get into campus recreation, you have a full-time job. And I'm curious, how, how have you managed your full-time work, you know, and then you're increasingly busy officiating schedule over the years, right? Doing high school and then transitioning and doing a bunch of college sports as well. What has that looked like? How have you managed to balance all of that?
DJ Doss: Yeah, it was definitely different at every level. ⁓ As a student, ⁓ just the time management part of it, that wasn't so difficult, right? ⁓ You're not. held to a class. So like if you needed to slip out a little bit early on a class, that's fine as long as there wasn't a test. So it's really knowing what was important and then working your schedule with that. So like you said, it was easy to work high school as a student. Grad assistant, definitely encouraged when I was at South Florida, like go get that experience, do that, take our students with you to get them that experience, make our program better. At Kennesaw State, a little bit different, a little bit different of a culture. there was support of like, yes, we recognize that it's gonna help and you're gonna provide some pathways for your students, but you've definitely gotta hit these thresholds for hours. And if it's a programming day, so Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday for most intramural programs, you're not working. I want you there at night on site or at least available and ready to take a call. ⁓ So gradually was able to pick that up. ⁓ And then a lot of time to be able to decompress on Saturdays and Sundays because ⁓ in Atlanta, and we're lucky in this, we have a lot of football daily. ⁓ We have middle school tackle football that you can work from Monday through Saturday. ⁓ And then we have, of course, your JVs and your middle, like your ninth grade games on sometimes Wednesday and Thursday, varsity Friday, and sometimes Saturday. So football every day of the week. So, you know, was able to get some more games in that way, fortunately, but was a little bit stricter. ⁓ Now I'm outside of the field, so I got a manager that's pretty flexible and it's more about if you're taking care of what you're supposed to be taking care of and you're hitting your numbers and you're communicative, then we'll work to make it all work for everybody.
Ben Strunk: Yeah, I mean, it's it's so important to have that relationship. And one of the things I took from what you just said is having that relationship with your supervisor in that role so that they have an understanding of of what your schedule looks like. But also, you know, I think it was always important, I think, for me, whether it was whether it was me and my supervisor or coordinators that would come in to work at NC State under me. and ⁓ having that conversation upfront, right? Like, hey, I'm taking this role. ⁓ Before we all commit to this, I want you to know that this is what my schedule looks like. And I want to make sure that we have an understanding, mutual understanding of what is OK and what is not OK when it comes to either leaving an hour early to get to a game or what are those non-negotiables, what are those things I can't miss, and making sure that we have those conversations. I think oftentimes we get in trouble where we don't have those conversations up front. And all of a sudden we get into basketball season for some even high school officials and they're leaving early every Tuesday and Friday or whatever it is. And then all of a sudden, oh, we have a serious problem at work. Maybe they don't come back the next season because the supervisor finds out. So, okay, well, let's jump to some rapid fire questions here.
DJ Doss: For sure. For sure. I like it.
Ben Strunk: All right, so question one, what is the most unique thing that you keep in your officiating bag?
DJ Doss: You know, I thought a little bit about this one because ⁓ Flick's dryer sheet answer was great, by the way. ⁓ I don't know that I necessarily have something that's super unique, but one thing that I've always taken with me at every level is to be the person that's easy to be relied upon. So I have like two of everything in my bag. So I've got an extra of almost literally everything. I'll bring an extra radio. I've got a red beanie in my ⁓ NCAA football officiating bag so that if my red hat doesn't have a hat, they've got a red hat to wear. So it's a little bit of everything to be prepared for the worst case scenario.
Ben Strunk: Nice, okay. Yeah, it's been interesting hearing different answers. You some people are a little more superstitious and have, you know, some unique piece with that and then others have a little more personal and, you know, I think yours is a little more practical. ⁓ So I like that. All right, number two, what is the coolest location that you've officiated at?
DJ Doss: We get to do the bends a pretty good bit in Atlanta. The Falcons are super supportive of flag football as a whole. So they hosted the NAIA national championships for a while for flag. they're, Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. But I think the coolest though probably would have to be Allegiant Stadium. So, you know, next to brand new stadium in Las Vegas.
Ben Strunk: So Mercedes-Benz, stay with it.
DJ Doss: First time the Pro Bowl is being held as a flag football game and so I get to be out there with some other guys from intramural sports coming up. And so being out there on that field was really cool.
Ben Strunk: Yeah, we're gonna we're come back to that here. ⁓ Is there one call good or bad that sticks with you to this day?
DJ Doss: You You know it's the last play, right? It's always the last one. We had a tough play in our semifinal game this past year, ⁓ and so that's probably the one that sticks with me, because that's the last game. This was top of mind, and it's one that I want to learn from and not make the same mistake again. But it wasn't a big mistake. It was just a good learning moment. ⁓ The one that I think is probably the funniest that sticks with me is I was I was still doing high school in Tampa when I was down in South Florida. I was doing a JV game. I had a guard come down. He's probably about, you know, five foot five on a good day. He's a fairly short guard. And this other team had this kid that was probably like six, eight, six, nine. And so if this coach were to hear it, would know exactly. So guard comes down, this bigger kid for their age, clean block up top. I hit the whistle. And it's not like... football as we know, you can't pick it up. I've blown my whistle. You got to stick with it. So I take it to the table. And as I'm getting to the table, I got to go by this coach. He's letting me have it. And I report. I'm like, give me a sec, coach. Report. Turn around. He said, man, that looked like a whole lot of ball up here. I said, man, it looked like a whole lot of ball down there. He said, what? I that was a clean block, coach. I kicked the heck out of that one. That's my fault.
Ben Strunk: Hahaha
DJ Doss: They always say like, what's a coach gonna say? And he said, just don't do it again. I said, yes, sir.
Ben Strunk: Nice. I like that. Yeah, the those are always the ones you're right because basketball is different than football. But when you blow that whistle and you're like, why did I blow that whistle? Like the ones were like, you know, immediately. Oh crap, I blew that call. But yeah, I like how you handled it. That was that was good. But then they always say, right, you can say that once. Coach, can't say that to a coach.
DJ Doss: Once. One ticket.
Ben Strunk: Alright, next one. What's the rule that, I guess, since you do multiple sports, you pick your sport here. ⁓ What's the rule that you most wish that fans understood?
DJ Doss: You know, I thought a little bit about this type of question. I don't know that there's like one rule that I point to and say, man, I wish people knew this better. It's more of like, I wish that people as fans understood that there's more than just the black and white rule and that there is some philosophy that goes into making a decision because you hear it on social media all the time, right? If a referee doesn't make the call, that's obvious. It's black and white. How'd you miss that? And then when they do, it's like, ⁓ you're being too tiki-tack, leave it alone. We don't want you, we're not coming to see you. And it's trying to find that middle ground. And that's what we're always trying to do. If we're good officials is we're always trying to find that perfect middle ground and it's hard to find. ⁓ And that would be the thing that I wish that fans understood is that, yeah, we're going to make mistakes, but it's because we're trying to officiate in the gray and not the black and
Ben Strunk: When I think it, to me, I think about, okay, fans want us to get it right. Coaches want us to get it right. Well, who decides what's right? You know, like to your point, like these plays are not black and white. you know, I think even if you put, you know, I'm sure that you've maybe go on some of the officiating forums and such on social media, but if you put a play up there,
DJ Doss: Right.
Ben Strunk: even amongst officials, you know, you're going to get 17 different calls that these are all officials that are commenting on this. So it's, know, we all, yes, we always say we want to get plays, right. Get plays, right. But I don't think we always recognize that there might not be a right. There's just, you know, an opinion.
DJ Doss: It's also just like we see on media everywhere, and I know you got another one, but it's out of context, right? So like I saw one today that was like, the player deserve to get teched up because it was a pretty quick taunt. And I was like, I don't know the rest of the game. She could have been warned twice or three times already, and then she got the tech. So we see these little snippets out of social media too, and they're like, oh, how did we miss this? Well, go back and look at the other five plays and...
Ben Strunk: Right. Right.
DJ Doss: that might help you understand how we got to the one that you pulled out to put on social media.
Ben Strunk: Right, All right, last one. What is the hardest rule to officiate?
DJ Doss: ⁓ I love football and football is not the easiest sport in the world and I would say that to anybody. ⁓ I tend to agree that the top two most difficult plays to officiate are travels and out of bounds in basketball. I think those are two of the most difficult.
Ben Strunk: Okay. Yeah, I mean, they happen so fast. It's so fast.
DJ Doss: So fast and especially because without a bounds in basketball or soccer any sport where it's the last touch, that's just, it's so hard to see that, you know, that little bit of a touch. you're, trying to think big picture. And so that's why it's one of the replays in the NBA is because they go so quickly and it's so hard to see. ⁓ it's, it's tough to officiate and get a hundred percent right. And travels, I'm not going to talk about the NBA with travels, but I mean,
Ben Strunk: Mm-hmm.
DJ Doss: Just trying to get that right in real time and not take away good plays is tough. And you definitely wanna be wrong by letting a travel go more than getting it when it shouldn't be there and not take away good basketball.
Ben Strunk: Well, so far the traveling, traveling seems to be the consensus thus far on the hardest. I think you're, you're right in line there. All right. Well, I'd love to talk to the DJ about some flag football stuff and you and I both have a lot of experience in flag football ⁓ on campus. And then, you know, more recently also high school and you know, for you college level. I love that it's, it's such a growing sport, right? There's, there's now high school. flag football in lots of states around the country. There's a lot more states that have pilot programs. That's, I guess that's technically what we have here in North Carolina. We're kind of waiting on it to get sanctioned here. You're in Georgia. I know they've had it sanctioned there, I think for a while now, right? Six years now. How so I know you got started with flag football in intramural during intramural sports, but I guess what first kind of drew you to that sport?
DJ Doss: Yeah, going on six years. Quick success. A lot of fun though. mean, the people playing the game were more fun. It's definitely a sport that I think you can be a little bit more cerebral about in an officiating lens. Like it gives you the time to see it, process it, make a decision. So I think that's something that I bring to the table with football. I'm a little bit analytical. I was definitely always the rules guy, I always have been. So that's why.
Ben Strunk: Yeah, fair enough.
DJ Doss: cling to Nick Brigati, the penultimate rules guy. But I think that's where my strength was is flag football is such a rule-driven sport and there's a lot to navigate there. And so I think that's why I've always been good. Basketball is a rule-driven sport too, but there are a lot of obscure rules and they're obscure for a reason. You just don't ever really see them very often. So it's always good to have somebody that knows how to handle crazy situations, but. with football, it's rule after rule that comes into play every down. And so I think that's where I found my success with flag and fell in love with it.
Ben Strunk: ⁓ Spent a lot of time in intramurals at Virginia Tech and then at UCF doing flag football. Ended up being a clinician for flag football at regional national tournaments. And then I also wanted to touch on the Nersa flag football rule book and the editorial board that I know we both served on. I don't remember if we were on at the same time. I think we might've missed each other, but, ⁓ and then we were both, we were both on the board at one point. ⁓ But I think it's unique because, you know, for those who don't know, the editorial boards are the ones that essentially write and edit rule books, right? So the National Federation of High School Sports, you know, they have ⁓ rules committees, editorial board that work on each sports rule book. And the NURSA flag football book has been really the rule set for flag football for collegiate intramurals, as well as for a number of states doing high school football for decades now. in our world being in campus recreation and coming up and working these tournaments, we had the opportunity to serve on the rule book committee. And then I think you ended up being ⁓ one of the leaders of that committee as well. So I wonder if you can kind of talk about what that experience was like.
DJ Doss: Yeah, absolutely. Before I dive into that, I can't go past without giving you a hard time about saying UCF because my USF alums would give me a hard time. You said UCF and so my fiance will be happy you said UCS since that's where she's from, but I'm going to stick with USF. Bulls. I have a little segment. ⁓ for sure.
Ben Strunk: Did I say UCF? I know it's UCF. Oh, God. What? There's too many acronyms. There's too many acronyms down there. I went to UF, so I only had two letters to worry about. I three letters, I don't understand.
DJ Doss: That's right. We just added one for you. Yeah. But no, the editorial board was such a cool experience to be able to see the inner workings. Like you said, you get the rule book as an official and you're like, oh, these guys, sometimes they don't know what they're doing. And then you get there and you're like, oh man, there's so much that goes into this. think one of the things that was super eye-opening for me was we had a coach on the editorial staff and I'll shout out all the people on this podcast. Josh Saunders is one of the best flag football minds I've ever interacted with. And what he brought to the table for those discussions of why the rule makes sense or doesn't make sense from a player's perspective. It's like, man, I'm thinking about it, you for us as professional staff, first things first, I'm thinking about it from a safety perspective, right? So there's always the argument about triple threats versus popper flags and... Nersa always leaned towards triple threats because it was safer. You're not going to get your fingers caught in a belt that doesn't give. ⁓ But the popper flags are so much more popular with the players because they allow you to be more athletic and more dynamic. So it's this balancing act. And that's what Josh brought to the table for the editorial board, which was really cool for us. ⁓ Beyond that, it's a panel of people, right? So a lot of people have to get together and put their minds together and... ⁓ you know, come to an agreement on things. It's almost like an act of Congress at times of like, we've got to get everybody aligned on wanting to move forward with this. I think the biggest thing when I was on there, to your point, I don't know that, I think we may have overlapped for a year. I was the mechanics manual editor, so a little bit more focused on that, but still had hands with the rules. I think the biggest thing we were talking about was the play clock. But for us in particular, it was, we've got to understand how the play clock affects the players and the pace of the game and the safety of the game and now the timing of the game and how long the game is going to take. And now, ⁓ let's add in this other piece of what do you do about the mechanics of it? Who's going to handle the play clock now, now that it's different, especially if it's, you know, if we're going to do the 40 second play clock, does it need to now sit with the back judge who doesn't have to run around and get pucks and set things? And there are just so many layers to deciding to make a change to a rule. So I'd hate to think about what it looks like for the NFL and all the things that they talk about because it's a big act of Congress for them too.
Ben Strunk: Yeah, yeah, as you mentioned, there's different stakeholders. And I think one of the unique things that I found serving on that committee was the conversation of trying to align the flag football book with the tackle football book and, know, whether it should be aligned. And, you know, there's obviously a lot of similarities between flag football and tackle football, but there's there's a lot of differences, too. So when you know, the NFHS would make rules changes for their tackle football book would then should we mirror those in flag or not? And are there reasons to, you know, to or not? And then also, you know, a bigger picture. Well, is the high school book mirroring what they do in college or is college mirroring high school or college mirroring the NFL? And it's it was just so interesting to me being a part of some of those discussions of You know, it really is a big picture like steering committee for the sport, right? And in flag football specifically, we're having a lot of those conversations right now because there's USA flag football. There's NERSA flag football. There's now a new NFHS high school flag football rule book. And they're all different, right? USA is very different from what we do at NERSA or NFHS. But USA I think is,
DJ Doss: Yeah.
Ben Strunk: probably what's going to be at the Olympics. is, you know, that's what you see when you officiated the game with the Pro Bowl, which we're going to get to. But the, so it's, there's all these different rule sets out there. Players are playing a tournament one weekend in this rule set. The next weekend, there's a different rule set because they're doing a different way of this, you know, this location. And it's just, I would love if we could eventually get to a uniform rule set. I don't know if that will ever happen, but.
DJ Doss: Mm. Mm.
Ben Strunk: Being on that editorial board definitely gave me a lot of just understanding and patience, honestly, for there are lots of stakeholders. There's so many things that go into how a rule gets changed more so than just us as officials thinking, well, why don't we just do this? This seems so easy. Just make this change. Why haven't they done that already? There's just so much more that goes into it.
DJ Doss: Right. Yeah, and that's just the rules, right? We talked about philosophy earlier and who's to say that like the thing that we were dealing with with flag football at the college level and that's growing like wildfire ⁓ is, you know, the philosophy and what they were talking about was a little bit different in the KCAC in the Midwest than it was in the Sun Conference in the East. And as this sport continues to grow, you're going to start to see more consistency. But like you said, All these people that have done flag football and officiated flag football for so long, I there people doing it well before us that are still doing it that didn't even touch NERSA. They just were doing adult recreation leagues. It turned into more like travel type teams and they had their own rule set. ⁓ The closer we can get to a unified rule set, the better. But like you said, it's the stakeholders. is what is the purpose of the game? And so that's why with the NFL, their rules are so different than college. And there are some things that college just doesn't want to do that the NFL does. The NFL is an entertainment business. College is kind of working its way there, but it's a little bit different overall end result versus high school. And that was one of the things that we talked about with the editorial board, bringing it kind of full circle with that is,
Ben Strunk: you
DJ Doss: We wanted to make the NFHS changes from our perspective for the officials, right? So that they could then go work high school football and be in a good position and know a lot of the rules. But also even just for the players, right? They can come off of playing tackle football when they were in high school. And then when they get to college and they're not playing on the varsity team, they're playing intramural sports in their spare time because they're going to go be a doctor later on in life.
Ben Strunk: Right.
DJ Doss: They know the rules a little bit though, because it's the rules that they were used to playing when they were playing tackle football. So there were multiple stakeholders that needed that and that's why it made sense for us at the time. So it's all about who's involved and what the overall end result is in making a decision.
Ben Strunk: Yeah. So you mentioned your opportunity to go officiate the NFL players for flag football. Can you tell us a little bit more about how that happened?
DJ Doss: Yeah, I mean a lot about relationships ⁓ was fortunate that NFL flag kind of leaned on Nersa folks pretty heavily early on because they knew that that we were strong buttoned up people that really knew the game and knew the rules and the rules were fairly similar, but not exactly. So I created a great connection there and ⁓ Tom Leneve was really leading it at the time. ⁓ And so. One of the first things I got to do was the Super Bowl came to Atlanta. And so I got to go work some flag football stuff there. ⁓ Not a play that stuck with me, but the first thing that I thought about when you mentioned this was I remember Tyreek Hill was a celebrity for one of the games and he caught a ball on the complete other side of the field for me. And I'm like five yards from the end zone. So I just kind of jogged down. And then when I turned back around and like whipped my head back, he is Literally almost next to me in the span of like three or four seconds. It's how fast this guy was So I was like, ⁓ yeah If I ever thought I was doing some like high level stuff like this guy's a next level athlete And that's kind of what we got with the the flag football and in the Pro Bowl It was the first year doing it which was super cool The players kind of embraced it. It was like this full gauntlet So when they used to do they've got the video of Peyton Manning and his shorts throwing the thing in Hawaii They did similar stuff to that that day too and so we helped with that. But just being able to be a part of that and know what that was about. Like it was it was more than just not getting the players injured. It was more than just, you know, trying to put something there. There's also the visibility of the game and just how important it is for men and women alike, but especially for. at that time in particular, young girls coming up in high school and into college and knowing that they have a space and this is on the national level. And now at the Olympic level, like you alluded to, like this sport is growing like wildfire and you have a place. If you're passionate about it, go pursue it because you're gonna have space for it.
Ben Strunk: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're seeing here more and more that our, our high school, know, standout players in, the triangle here are now getting college scholarships. And, and we have a lot of these collegiate leagues that are starting up and, know, some, are the are playing games. Others are starting here the next year or two. I think we just saw, I can't remember the school, the one of the, one of the division one schools just, just picked up. you know, the first varsity women's flag football sport here sanctioned it here not long ago. So, I mean, we're only going to see this grow and grow even more. Can you talk about in Georgia, you where you're at, at the high school level, what, what, know, the officiating for flag football looks like, how the sports kind of is growing there?
DJ Doss: Yeah, I'll segue back down because I think the team you're talking about is Nebraska.
Ben Strunk: That's right. I thought it was a big 10, but I couldn't remember which one.
DJ Doss: Yeah, so Nebraska picked it up and they hired, I think, both Sour Sisters and they were at Ottawa, who's won five straight with the NAIA. So college flags really picking up. There's a great newsletter about collegiate women's flag football and Every week I'm getting multiple emails about this school sanctioning it and this school sanctioning it. I'm fortunate to be leading the Southern states when they sanction it coming next year. So get to lead and train officials again, which I loved doing when I was at Kennesaw State. So kind of full circle moment there too. ⁓ But for Georgia and for high school, again, the Falcons did a lot of work upfront, like Arthur Blank and his team. All the kudos in the world to them. ⁓ They funded like the pilot program, like you're saying you're kind of seeding it this year. They did that with just Gwinnett County because Gwinnett County highest populated county in Georgia, I think. so tons of opportunities to get the game going. And it was it was loved so much in that one year that it immediately became a varsity sport. Lo and behold, that year was the year of COVID. So 2019 seeded, loved it, is going to be great. 2020. Oh, man, we're going to do it. But what do we do about the pandemic? And we still had like 150 schools that still adopted it. We still play tackle football. Everybody remembers wearing the mask with the whistle on your mask or the electric whistle or whatever. ⁓ And so we still were able to fortunately sanction it, got 150 schools. Now we're at like 350, 400, something like that. Like nearly every school has ⁓ a team. ⁓ The teams are really getting better quickly, which is awesome to see. I remember in Florida, it really felt like you had the teams that were really good and then the teams really weren't and there wasn't much change. That's changed over the past few years for Florida, but Georgia in particular, it's just like the teams that were in the state championship year one weren't necessarily always back in year two and it's constantly changing, which is cool to see from a team perspective. Aficiating wise, I think we're still learning and getting better. We tried to do the camp where you have to go to a playoff camp to be eligible. And I think we tried to get onto that a little bit too early, because we were cutting out really good intramural officials who hadn't decided in May that they were going to work flag football for high school. But then come August, and they're in school, and they're going to go to Georgia Tech coming in from out of state. And so they love to work flag football. Well, now they don't get that opportunity, because they didn't get to go to camp. So we tried to jump the gun on that a little bit too quick, I think, but now we need something like that to really sharpen up our officiating and raise the floor, if you will, for officiating with flag.
Ben Strunk: Well, I know here in North Carolina, one of the benefits of flag football is that the flag football games are generally played like Monday through Wednesday, and we don't have as much like our middle school football here is generally Wednesday, sometimes Thursdays before the JV games. But we don't we don't tend to have a lot of tackle football Monday, Tuesday and really even the Wednesday. So the flag football really takes the place of that for officials, right? So. You know, it's nice for our tackle officials to then be able to get on the field more, especially our newer tackle officials, to get on the field more days a week and do some flag football earlier in the week and their tackle football later in the week. It sounds like in Georgia, you all have a much more spread out schedule of tackle football at the, at least the middle school and youth levels, it sounds like. So I'm curious, how much crossover are you getting between tackle football officials and flag football? Is there a lot or are they kind of two distinct groups?
DJ Doss: It's a lot still. It's a lot. ⁓ We have the folks that are coming in that just had this intramural background or specifically like adult rec league. And so they know the game. They want to do it at a higher level and be involved or, know, they saw these these young girls playing in rec league and want to see them as they continue to get better. ⁓ But we we time it up pretty well. So like our JV season will end early October in Georgia. ⁓ And so once you get past it, like I think it's like early to mid October. So once you get around that time, the Thursday's flip from JV games and ninth grade games to flag football games. And so flag tends to be Tuesday, Thursday and this like multiple schools traveling to one site. So you usually got three games in a night.
Ben Strunk: Gotcha. Yeah, we're doing the same kind of triple, ⁓ triple headers at schools here. That seems to work well. I really like those, like that aspect of it too, because you end up having multiple teams. it just, you also have multiple fan bases in the stadium at the same time too. So you end up with kind of a cool feel of, you know, a lot of people in the stadium. ⁓
DJ Doss: Yeah, best bang for everybody's buck. Everybody gets to see a whole lot of flag football officials are all in one site. Two teams travel and knock out two games instead of one. So it works out well for everybody.
Ben Strunk: Awesome. Well, I enjoy talking to flag football. Let's let's jump into our last game here. So this is called whistle or play on. So again, I'm going to give you a little prompt here of, you know, maybe a controversial ish topic in officiating and give us a whistle to say whistle or if you want to try and blow whistle, you can't say whistle. And ⁓ if if you you think that's something that shouldn't be part of our repertoire. or play on if either you agree with it or didn't rise to the level of a foul call here. So the first one is giving feedback to a partner after the game.
DJ Doss: Definitely, that's a play on, I think it's gotta be done the right way. And I've seen it both ways, right? I've seen the person that comes in and the feedback is really just them griping at the person because they didn't think they did a good job. versus the feedback that we were talking about earlier where it's like, I'm telling you these things to hopefully help you get better and I want you to give me some feedback about how I can get better. So if it's that two-way mutual street with the right reasons, I'm definitely play on. But if it's just to vent and gripe, I've seen that too and that's no fun for anybody.
Ben Strunk: Yeah, yeah, we were talking about it with the feedback level we got at tournaments. Again, that's one thing I wish we got more of at the high school level. I'm sure you probably get a little more in college, but you know, we don't we don't ever get that feedback after game. So it's to me, it's super important that we have that conversation. And yeah, we're all just trying to get better at the end.
DJ Doss: Definitely get it in college. love to see. We're fortunate in that ⁓ our high school association here in Atlanta, or second biggest kind of goes back and forth every year. And so we have some really good, really strong officials and so on. Light nights, ⁓ the training director before me and then I did some training director work and really helped kind of push it forward a little bit further. We did some evaluators going out on site and actually evaluating and then going back and looking at film to say. Yeah, what I thought I saw from the stands, this is what it looked like. Let's think about this. ⁓ So we leaned into that a little bit in high school, but I know that we are the exception and not the norm. And would love to see more of that at high school level because we definitely get it at college.
Ben Strunk: Yeah, for sure. All right, number two, patting a coach on the back after a conversation.
DJ Doss: ⁓ It is a foul that I'm sometimes guilty of. Man, with basketball it's so easy because they're right there to just give them a little pat. ⁓ Football, we're so much more extended and I think football, the emotions and the contact is already there. So I try not to make any contact as much as I can help it. ⁓ But I think when it's done the right way, right, if the coach engages with me, I'll engage him back. To me, that's fine.
Ben Strunk: Yeah.
DJ Doss: which it's all about perspective at the end of the day.
Ben Strunk: Alright, number three, asking the home athletic director for a hot dog after the game.
DJ Doss: ⁓ man, hot dog. ⁓ Really, really, really, really anything. I'm going foul on that one. I'm going to go back to our attitude and effort and things we can control. That's a thing we can control. If you're worried about the food aspect, bring yourself a little snack. ⁓ I'm the person that I don't think I need to bother them for anything. If they offer it, I'm glad to take it. Right. ⁓
Ben Strunk: cheeseburger or whatever.
DJ Doss: David Hudson was one of the most influential people in my career down here in Atlanta for high school officiating. ⁓ Meant a lot to me and he always used to say, don't leave anything that they leave you because you want to make sure that they know that it's actually being used. ⁓ Right? So it's appreciated and it's used and it's not going to waste by leaving it. Don't, don't rob them, but, take something to make sure that you're showing your appreciation for them making that effort. ⁓ I'll always do that, but I won't ask, even if it's water, even if it's as simple as water. I won't ask unless I really need it. And if it's an expectation from a higher level, so I'm pretty sure for our college association, the expectation is that waters at the least are given. That's something we put in a game report, not go make a fuss about it with the AD.
Ben Strunk: Yeah. All right. Number four, carpooling to games together.
DJ Doss: Always depends on the crew, right? ⁓ No, definitely play on. That's where the camaraderie comes in and some of the best conversations are on those four five hour drives back from Savannah to Atlanta or Columbia to Atlanta.
Ben Strunk: that's one of the things at the college level, I think you get a little more chance to do right. I mean, in high school, you get to playoff. So if you're going out of region, you have a little bit longer car rides. I mean, around here, you still might drive an hour, hour and 15 to a game. But yeah, I think at the college level, that's probably a little more common. All right.
DJ Doss: for sure. Same here, we would carpool in high school, but that's because in Atlanta, you'll drive an hour to go five miles. So we'll get in the car together so we got somebody to talk to for that hour in traffic.
Ben Strunk: All right, last one. This is probably the most controversial one. Facial hair for officials.
DJ Doss: Yeah, I'm going to go foul. ⁓ I won't ever keep a beard on the field for anything. It's just been instilled in me coming up. And for me, was always, again, controlling what you can control. I can control that I'm clean shaven. And nobody is ever going to tell you that they have a problem with you being clean shaven and why don't you have a beard. But somebody will tell you, why do you have a beard and you're not clean shaven? I've always, in my off season, I grow a beard. But once we get to football time, like you see right now, camp season's here and I'm clean shaven. So I don't leave any excuse for anybody to take me off of something.
Ben Strunk: I'm a little disappointed we didn't do the interview like two weeks ago. We could have seen the little scruff on there. All right. ⁓ Well, DJ, I appreciate you coming on for sure. are a few questions I'd love to add on here at the end. know, one of the reasons for doing this show is to talk about, you know, what the high school experience is different areas of the country.
DJ Doss: Could've seen a little sprout.
Ben Strunk: and you're in Georgia, we're neighboring states, but we're still a little ways away here. I'm curious, what does the landscape look like in Georgia for high school officials? How are we doing on numbers, pay, ⁓ any other challenges, concerns that you guys are seeing out there?
DJ Doss: Yeah, we're fortunate. GHSA supports its officials at the highest level. I think off of the most recent research that they did across the country, I think Georgia was in the top three for pay for their officials. Football is king in Georgia. ⁓ Georgia, I would stack up to Texas of just how important it is. Like it's not at that level, but we're probably the closest thing behind it. outside of maybe like Florida and California. So lots of super talented athletes. And because of that, it prompts a lot of investment into the infrastructure and officials are part of that. So ⁓ like I noticed, think South Carolina and North Carolina and even Virginia, a lot of five person crews, we work seven, nearly every Friday. ⁓ Buford just rolled out this huge like college level stadium as a high school. Like that's the investment that's here in Georgia. And so that carries a higher expectation for officials. And so a lot more people on the field, ⁓ a lot more people on the sidelines and up in the box helping out with clocks and that kind of thing. What I will say though is it still straps us for numbers. So there are times where we could work seven and we're only doing six because we just don't have that seventh person to fill in and the school wants it, but we just don't have it. So I would venture to guess that that's probably even true for places in pockets in North Carolina, because there are great teams in North Carolina and great athletes there too. ⁓ And I'm sure they'd love to see seven on the field to have even more angles and more calls get made correctly. So we're still strapped for people. It's just a different type of strapped.
Ben Strunk: Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. I didn't realize you all were doing seven for for everything. know we do five here in North Carolina. think I think it's probably a challenge in some of our areas to get to five. So, yeah, I think it would be I'm curious. It would be interesting if they could do seven here, if we would have how that would do on numbers, because I don't think we'd get there. But It is curious. I'm so I'm happy to hear that, you know, first words out of your mouth are GSA, sorry, GHSA. We can tell acronym is not my strong suit. GHSA is, it really supports you, right, as as officials. I'm curious. So ⁓ is that when you say like they're supporting you, obviously, you know, is that pay? Like what are the what are kind of the things that come to mind that make you say that?
DJ Doss: Me either, it's okay. Yeah, I mean, probably a little bit slightly skewed too in that football, again, it's king here. Basketball is great, baseball is great, but they heavily invest in football. It's always a top priority for them, but they show face a lot. ⁓ They take our feedback a lot. So getting to sit on one of the boards here for our high school association as a training director, also made me the like the second vice president. I got to go to some off season stuff where we would sit down with leadership from GHSA and talk about what their plans were, what's coming up, some rule changes that they already knew about from NFHS, talking about trainings and camps and getting a standard training across the state. They invest in people to do weekly training videos to send out to the whole state. So there's a lot of investment of just getting again, raising the floor like I was talking about for flag, we're gonna work towards that because I've seen GHSA do it for other sports. So the support is the pay for sure, but also outside of that just investing in us as officials to get better.
Ben Strunk: We talk about what can we do to find solutions for... We want our officials to be better. We want them to be better trained. We want them to have higher quality. We also want to have higher expectations of them. Well, how do we invest in their training? And so I think like hearing that, it's cool to hear that the state in some way is supporting those types of training efforts that are outside of just the... you know, the state exam or the state, ⁓ you know, the little state PowerPoint that we do at the beginning of the season to talk about rules changes. ⁓ cause I, I think we also at times are like hoarders of information in officiating and you know, so each local clinic, each assigner, each, you know, we're all doing, a lot of us are doing different training, creating different training materials, but to have that centralized. that's going out to every official in the state that this is what we expect and what we want to have happen. don't know if that's common practice around the country. It's not in North Carolina, I can tell you that. So ⁓ that is cool to hear that there's some level of support coming from the state to make that happen.
DJ Doss: Yeah, and the state's done a good job. In a way, it's been a little bit reactive at times of like something controversial happened in a state championship game and now we need to go insert this. But at least they did something right instead of just saying, ⁓ well, it happens. It's high school. It's high school officials mistakes happen. ⁓ I remember when I first got into tackle here because it was where I started tackle. We had a controversial catch no catch play and then the next season. we had a document that was circulated statewide constantly of what is deemed a catch and not a catch. So a la Des Bryant, like this is what we deem as a catch and not a catch. And now the coaches know, now the admins know, now the referees know, so now the players should know. ⁓ Same with ⁓ two years ago, national news, unfortunate, we had an incorrect touchdown called it that impacted a state championship game. the next year, we're rolling out replay and we test replay in other games before we get there. And we make sure that replay is done in the correct way in our state championship games now. I think it's George's focus has been on do the best that they can for the student athlete. And they recognize that part of that is it's got to be good officials. And so they've invested in that and made sure that they do things the right way.
Ben Strunk: Well, it sounds like that catch no catch doctrine should be sent out to the NFL, college, announcers, commentary, like, because there's still lots of questions about that sound like they solved it. So maybe we should get that out a little more widespread.
DJ Doss: Well, I think they solved it in that it's pretty much the same thing as what college has now too of surviving the ground and all that. does anybody know what a catch is anymore?
Ben Strunk: Yeah. Right. ⁓ So I'm curious, DJ, is there one thing, you know, it sounds like there's a lot of positive going on in Georgia. Is there one thing tomorrow that, you know, if you have the ability that you could fix or change within high school sports in Georgia?
DJ Doss: Hmm, that's a good question. Yeah, I hate to go back to like how fortunate we are. ⁓ Like the first thing at Kennesaw State was if you verbally assault an official, it's a misdemeanor, could be a felony. Like Georgia as a whole takes their sports officiating pretty seriously and protects sports officials. So like so many things around that are taken care of. So if I were to go back and point at one thing, it is how we continue to raise the floor. Like, yeah, we're doing this. A, to your point, how do we support other states? One of the things that we're doing is Arthur, Arthur Blank has some, some stake in like Montana. And so Montana and Georgia have worked pretty closely with their flag football to, help raise, raise their, their floor, if you will, for players and for officials. How can we do that with other states? Like, how can we help the states that are in a tighter spot like North Carolina? Who shouldn't be right? Like Charlotte, Raleigh, big cities, lots of great athletes that come out of those areas. We, we shouldn't have to, to struggle, you know, with, the officiating side of the house. And so what can we do as a state to provide some of those resources that we've created and say, lean on some of this? ⁓ I think about the people that are like maybe like in Augusta in Georgia. Could they go and work in South Carolina and help out South Carolina and vice versa? Because we get so particular about, well, you can only be in this association in this state and this association in this state. So we all need more people. But at the end of the day, raising the floor is gonna be more important and getting those people interested and getting them bought in and keeping them around. So to me, like how can we help other states and how can we continue to raise the floor in every sport?
Ben Strunk: ⁓ Well, so you've officiated for high school sports 10 plus years, and then you've been doing flag football longer than that. So I'm curious at this point, what brings you back every season? What is it that you love about officiating that continues to have you put two sets of stripes in your bag for every game that you do?
DJ Doss: Yeah, indeed two sets of stripes, two pants, two everything. ⁓ The camaraderie is definitely part of it, right? My best friend is also somebody who's been on my crew for the past two years. ⁓ And so that part is already there. Like I get to have those relationships. And so it's my way of getting to spend time with them and have a trip with them. on top of that, we have to work, but the work's pretty cool. ⁓ So. That's part of it. And I think there's a level of meeting new people, seeing new things, interacting. I love interacting with coaches. I used to hate it, now I love it. Of like being able to push myself to communicate better as a person with all these people that I'm working with. ⁓ But the cherry on top is I don't care whether you're working a JV game, a high school game. a division two football game or the division one national championship, every game has the opportunity to seize greatness, to see something really spectacular and cool happen or something that's not in the rules. And now as the rules guy, I get to go back and say, Hey guys, what in the world was this and how do we deal with it? So to me, that's the fun part is like we always talked about with intramurals when we were in professional roles was like no days ever the same. It's true even as an official, no game is ever the same. It's always so different. And so that novelty and that ability to have to be able to pivot and adjust, but also see greatness, I think is really cool.
Ben Strunk: Well, DJ, this has been awesome. I do have one final question for you and then we'll wrap up here. So we spend a lot of time doing pre-games as officials. get to the sites early and such. Is there one thing that maybe when you're a crew chief that you say to your crew before you're about to head out on the field at the court?
DJ Doss: I like it. ⁓ All credit to Joel and Bede. ⁓ No, not really, but trust the process was a thing in officiating well before Joel said it in Philadelphia. ⁓ Trust the process and trust your mechanics. ⁓ We always joked, especially as a mechanics manual editor of Barbosa, mechanics are more like guidelines. Like, yeah, they're there. They're there to help you. And so that doesn't mean that it's going to be cookie cutter fit every single time in every single game. ⁓ So trust the process, trust your mechanics, trust your partners and do those things together. Get the obvious stuff and then sort out the smaller stuff as it comes up. Those are the things that I like to lean on because like we were talking about earlier, the one thing I love fans to know is the gray area. But what we can't do is afford to miss the obvious. We don't want to miss the stuff that everybody knows should be a foul. ⁓ I want to be on Instagram if I'm going to be on it because I truly did miss something obvious. If it's gray, yeah, we all have to sort through that. But the obvious, let's get the obvious stuff right ⁓ and the rest of the game will fall into place.
Ben Strunk: Yeah. Awesome. Well, words of wisdom. ⁓ Thank you again. DJs, you know, great catching up. Thank you for doing the show and excited to see where your officiating career takes you and good luck in your future games.
DJ Doss: Yeah, thanks for having me on. ⁓ Pretty cool for me to be the one dropping the words of wisdom this time. It's usually you with the ⁓ attitude, effort, and action. So my turn. But yeah, really enjoyed it. Thanks for having me.
Ben Strunk: I'm Awesome.