I'm returning from my 12 year-old son's playoff football game. His team was the #1 seed and lost in the second of three rounds.
It's sad to see them lose, but I somehow feel worse for one of the game officials who made a terrible blunder on a call that cost my son's team a touchdown in a game where both teams struggled to even get a first down.

The game was out in Stansbury and whoever painted lines on the field made a mistake and painted the lines for the game about 2 feet to the side of the previously painted lines so there were double boundary stripes on the field.

We had a kid break away on a run to the sideline and had nothing but open field in front of him for what would have been an easy 40 yard TD.
Unfortunately, he stepped on the old, inside line from the previous paint job and the official on that sideline immediately blew the play dead. The kid was 2 feet from the real border, but the whistle ends the play regardless.

Our head coach threw a fit that led to a huge penalty and ended up giving Herriman a short field.

The poor official, who I was irritated with at first, looked absolutely sick. He apologized as much as he could but what was done was done. That was in the first half and the official looked overburdened with guilt the rest of the way.

No one likes officials, right? Right. Regardless, I feel really bad for the guy. The call totally changed the rest of the game that was 6-0 for the opponent until there were about 4 minutes remaining.

Anyway, I don't apologize for the subject line that surely resulted in a disappointing read of my message about football.