Well, it is football season now, and I am about out of baseball stories.

But I have lots of football ones.

My first football game ever was a varsity football game at Alpena. I think it was 1974, and Alpena was playing Grand Rapids Central.

After reading Jere Bey’s column last week, I’m sure that, if he reads this, he will remember the game.

Back then, it was unheard of for anyone to get to officiate a Class A varsity game for your first game ever, but I had been officiating baseball and basketball for four years, so I wasn’t a total rookie.

The Saginaw Official’s Association assigned the officials for that game, and they couldn’t find four veteran officials who could get off work early enough or who wanted to drive all the way to Alpena from Saginaw for a game, so I got drafted.

Back then, it was a four-man crew, and I was the line judge.

We dressed in the school locker room and got a golf cart ride to the field. As we arrived on the field, it began to rain. After getting rained on the entire game AND with the incident I am going to describe, one might wonder why I ever refereed another football game.

Another item: Back then, chain gangs did not use a clip on the chain to mark a yard line. It is required now so that, should the chains get moved by mistake, they can be replaced to the proper location. That becomes a critical part of this story.

It was about two minutes until halftime in a scoreless tie. Grand Rapids had the ball on their own 28-yard line. It was fourth down and short yardage for a first down. With the rain, Grand Rapids wisely (so we thought) decided to punt.

My job was to go back with the punt returner.

For reasons unknown, the Grand Rapids punter did not kick the ball but decided to run around right end (my sideline to cover) in an attempt to gain the first down.

From my vantage point 40 yards away, he didn’t gain much and was chased out of bounds into the Alpena bench area. I remember thinking, “HELP!”

I didn’t want to mark the spot where he went out of bounds from 40 yards away. Thankfully, our umpire, Joe, came running over and threw down his cap on the muddy field (oh, yes, we marked spots with our caps back then, not the bean bags of today).

I said to myself, “Good job, Joe. That is right where I thought the runner went out.”

Then the fun (???) began.

Joe followed the ball carrier into the Alpena bench, as he should have, to avoid any issues. He retrieved the ball, turned back to the field, and hesitated to let the players clear.

At that point, referee Phil saw where Joe was standing and thought he was marking the spot where the runner had gone out of bounds, so he signaled first down Grand Rapids. The chain gang picked up the stakes and started to move.

Then Joe went BACK to his cap to the real end of the run.

Now, since the chains had already moved (and there was no way to accurately replace them), we had no way to positively decide if it really was a first down for Grand Rapids or Alpena’s ball.

It seemed like we discussed things for half an hour (I’m sure it was only five or six minutes), talking to each other and to both coaches.

Finally, our head linesman and I, almost together, said, “Wait a minute. We measured for a first down before the previous play. Grand Rapids was about a yard short of the 30-yard line and they were a foot short of a first down. Now, they are almost two yards short of the 30-yard line. It is Alpena’s ball.”

Referee Phil signaled first down Alpena.

Of course, that resulted in a tirade from the Grand Rapids coaches and thunderous boos from the Grand Rapids stands.

Alpena proceeded to take the ball on that possession and score the first points of the game seconds before halftime.

Boos rained down on us from the Grand Rapids fans as we left the field at halftime.

That Alpena touchdown set the stage for the remainder of the game. The rain continued the entire second half and Alpena won the game.

After that controversy, needless to say, the Saginaw Official’s Association never received any more Alpena games to assign officials.

Les Miller, of Hubbard Lake, has retired after 53 years officiating multiple sports around Michigan. He can be reached at theoldref@yahoo.com.