I can’t imagine a better high school football team than the South Panola team I watched whip Oak Grove for the State 5A championship.

They are as big as most college teams and faster than many. They are also quick, fast and very aggressive.

There were five championship games played last week in the MHSAA and four the week before in the MPSA.

That translates into assignments for nine officiating crews, plus alternates, and the honor of continuing to officiate the last weekend of the season means a lot to those officials as a reward for having a good season or career officiating prep football.

My congratulations to all selected for those assignments.

College bowl game officiating assignments will be made this week. Those assignments cannot be made until bowl matchups are determined, since bowl games must be officiated by neutral conference officials.

Most college officials know where they rank within their own conference and can be fairly sure they will or won’t get a bowl game assignment, but the direction of their travel and the date of their games remained a mystery until at least today.

Some will be thrilled and others disappointed they didn’t get a game or a better one.

I was thrilled with my first bowl assignment, the Independence Bowl in Shreveport.

After a couple of more Indy Bowls, I was fortunate to move up to the Liberty Bowl, Citrus Bowl and finally to the Fiesta Bowl after the 1986 season with Penn State facing Miami for the national championship.

Though I was never late for an officiating assignment, I did dream many times about arriving late for a game and with no uniform to boot.

There are a couple of real stories about late arrivals (no arrival at all, for one).

A veteran official from Atlanta was assigned from the SEC as part of a crew to officiate a Tulane game in The Louisiana Superdome.

Misreading his assignment sheet, the official thought he had a night game, so he and his wife had spent the night in Biloxi.

They drove leisurely to New Orleans the next day, and when they had gotten to their room there was a phone call from one of the other officials, suggesting he might want to come on over to the Superdome as they were about ready for the coin toss.

Our official hurriedly dressed, got to the lobby of the hotel (which was right next to the Superdome), and with a policeman running alongside him the official got to the stadium and casually walked to the center of the field where the other officials had gathered before the kickoff.

He greeted everybody, then simply asked, &uot;Have there been any rule changes I need to know about?&uot;

The other official I mentioned had been hunting out west and never showed up for a freshman game assignment.

Back then, both coaches graded each official from zero to a high of 10. This guy got an eight from both coaches.

And that’s official.

Al Graning is a former SEC official and former Natchez resident. He can be reached at

AlanWard39157@aol.com.