Greater Tulsa Officials Association

Welcome to the Greater Tulsa Officials Association Web Site!

ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL??

The time is drawing near quickly for the GTOA to begin preparing for the upcoming 2009 football season. Our meeting schedule has been set and rules presentations have been assigned. We will return to a 10-meeting schedule this year of which you must attend at least 5 meetings. If you cannot attend 5 meetings, you may submit an exemption request to the Executive Committee for review and approval. If you have not enrolled in the association, registered with the OSSAA or submitted your crew for this year, you need to do so immediately. We only have about 30% of the crews from last year confirmed and we need to get all of the crews solidified.

Our meetings will again be at Thoreau Demonstration Academy and will begin on Monday, July 6th from 6:30pm to 8:00pm. We have purchased a set of updated video clips that we will be looking at this year along with the rules presentations. This film review will improve your game and give you the ability to see the actions of the players and what calls that should and should not be made. We will break down the films as much as we can at each meeting and discuss philosophy on how we want to support certain game situations.

It's going to be a great year and we look forward to seeing each of you in July! Below is the 2009 Letter from the Vice-President:

2009 Letter from the Vice-President
2009 GTOA Polls/Surveys
What is the most important aspect of your pre-season preparation?












 
2009 Important Dates and Changes

Monday, July 6th:
Meetings Begin
Monday, July 20th:
Referees Call
Monday, July 27th:
Committee/Floor Nominations
!! Important Change to State Rules Meeting !!
The ONLY local OSSAA State Rules Meeting will be held on Friday, July 31st at the Southern Hills Marriot beginning at 8:30am. If you do not attend this local meeting, you will have to travel to attend a different meeting, and you MUST attend one to be certified and to meet all state requirements. There will be no more evening meetings as in the past. The OSSAA is only holding 6 state meetings this year and they are regionalized throughout the state. The only other meeting that will be close to Tulsa is in Vinita, OK and will be held on Saturday, August 1st at the Vinita High School Cafeteria.

Monday, August 3rd:
Elections
Monday, August 17th:
Mechanics Review
Monday, August 31st:
GTOA Crew Chief Meeting

BE SURE AND CAREFULLY READ THE LETTER FROM THE VICE-PRESIDENT AS IT WILL EXPLAIN THE CHANGES TAKING PLACE THIS YEAR WITH THE GTOA AND THE OSSAA

GTOA Communication

GTOA Front Page News

GTOA on Facebook (www.facebook.com)
If you are a Facebook user and are familiar with the program, you can connect to the GTOA page on Facebook by logging on to Facebook and searching for "Greater Tulsa Officials Association". You can become a fan of the site and it will appear on your Facebook profile (Facebook accounts are free and you can easily sign up for one at anytime).

We are giving Facebook a trial run to see if members (and others) will use the Facebook site for the GTOA. Facebook is quickly becoming a standard communications tool in every facet of life: personal, business, training, entertainment, etc.

There are discussion boards and forums on the GTOA Facebook page that are moderated, and when you reach the Facebook page, you can simply select the "Discussion" tab at the top. This has been a feature that has been requested by many members and the Facebook discussion boards are free for us to use. We are currently working to provide a discussion/forum board directly on our website and will be using the Facebook discussion as a temporary feature.

Facebook can also be used as a recruiting tool for officials in our area, so be sure to point them to the Facebook page if they are Facebook users.

OSSAA CHANGES TO ON-LINE TESTING
The OSSAA will no longer send "paper and pencil" tests. You will now complete your football test on-line through their website. We are gathering details regarding this change and will distribute them as soon as possible.

RECRUITING
Again this year, we ask that if you know anyone who may be interested in officiating football that you invite them to our local meetings. There may even be more assignments than we had last year and we need to get some good officials in the pipeline to begin bringing them up through the ranks.

WEEKLY WONDER/MONTHLY MARVEL
Chad Craig has retired from the Wonder/Marvel submissions due to him being hired in the C-USA and MIAA. We want to keep this feature active and are asking if any association members would like to pick up the writing and submission for the website. If you are interested, please contact Todd Ragsdale at (918) 237-1119.

GTOA Did you Know?

A11 Offense Information (A11 stands for: "All 11 potentially eligible")
Their have been some concerns regarding the A11 Offense that was presented and discussed this year at the State Rules meetings. So far, to our knowledge, it has not been seen in Oklahoma football. The potential for this offense being used is very high and it might possibly creep into our area very soon. Below is an interesting link covering the A11 Offense and how some coaches are really pushing it to be used to make the football game more dynamic not only at the high school level, but in the NCAA and NFL as well. One interesting note on this piece is that the coaching staff responsible for creating this type of offense had it approved by the NFHS and their local State Athletic Association.

A11 Offense - MSNBC Sports

Many of the current GTOA members are involved in NCAA, WFL & af2 football officiating. Below is a list of members or former members who are officiating at the next level:

GTOA Officials Currently Working the Next Level (former and active)
Joe Pester -
Big 12, Southland, af2
Ethan Rolen -
 Lone Star, KJCCC, KCAC, WFL
Chad Bowers, Scott Gasaway -
 C-USA, af2
Erik Herring -
KJCCC, KCAC, WFL
Gary Calip, Clay Martin -
 C-USA, af2
Barry Stearns -
KJCCC, KCAC, WFL
Dave Thomas -
 MIAA, af2
Terry Rogers -
 KJCC, KCAC, WFL
Scott Johnson, Randy Jeffers - Lone Star, KJCCC
Richard Brown -
 Big 12
Chad Craig -
 C-USA, MIAA, af2
Walter Davenport -
ACC
Jeremy McCurley -
KJCCC, KCAC, WFL, af2
Todd Ragsdale -
 KJCCC, KCAC, WFL
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