College football officiating plays a critical role in the game, and often, the crews and officials do not gain the recognition they deserve for doing an extremely difficult job in an efficient manner. That will change in 2024 as officiating crews will honor one of the most impactful officials in the history of the game.
College football officials will don a patch this season memorializing former SEC referee and national coordinator of officials Rogers Redding. Redding passed away in April at the age of 81 after more than 30 years as an on-field official and multiple more as a supervisor.
Who Was Rogers Redding?
Redding spent decades as a football official with the Southwest and Southeastern Conferences before transitioning into roles as a replay official, supervisor of officials for the SEC, a rules editor, and eventually the national coordinator of the CFO, or College Football Officiating, an entity that was founded in 2008.
Redding began his career as a high school official in Texas and worked as a physics professor and college administrator there as well as different institutions in Kentucky and Colorado.
After retiring from on-field duties, Redding continued to contribute to the SEC as a technical advisor, replay official, coordinator of football officials, and finally, the CFO’s national coordinator of officials.
The National Football Foundation recognized Redding with the Outstanding Football Official Award in 2010. He was also awarded the first-ever Legacy Award for officiating in 2019.
Redding had a positive impact both on and off the field as an official and worked hard to organize the proper interpretation of the NCAA rules uniformly across conferences and crews.
Some of his most important work came from recognizing that someone could turn on the TV and immediately know what conference officials were working the game due to their positioning and signaling. Redding worked hard to unify officials in this regard, ensuring that they were all on the same page and presenting a more uniform product.
He also brought more uniformity in the number of officials used on the field. In the past, some conferences would use six-person crews instead of the traditional seven-person ones now seen today.
Redding also stayed true to his roots as a high school official in Texas. He provided a published study guide called The Redding Study Guide to help high school officials learn the NFHS rules.
Redding is survived by his wife, Shirley; four children; and 10 grandchildren.
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