It seems that each month now rolls around as fast as the weeks used to. That probably relates more to my age than to the calendar.

I recently learned of the retirement of a couple of former Southeastern Conference football officials.

Joe Delany, who played football at Georgia Tech with my brother, Chick, wrapped up his on-field officiating several years ago but remained with the conference as an observer through the 2008 season.

Joe and I officiated a number of games together, including the 1987 Fiesta Bowl, matching Penn State and Miami for the national championship.

Also retiring is Rocky Goode from Knoxville, Tenn. Rocky, who was a Tennessee linebacker, worked as a referee for several years.

Because his officiating career began after my last year on the field, I did get to observe Rocky and his crew several times.

He and his officiating crew starred in the film “Stripes” a few years ago. It followed the crew during the final season of Bert Ackerman’s officiating career.

Have you noticed that the NCAA is considering adding women’s sand volleyball to the list of sanctioned sports?

A couple of Olympics ago, beach volleyball showed up. Played by both men and women, the question is: Will men’s sand volleyball closely follow?

Since not many Midwestern colleges have a beach nearby, the game will have to be played in large sand boxes.

I can imagine that the NCAA, with its convoluted logic, will allow schools to offer more scholarships for that sport than for college baseball.

I know nothing of proposed rules or officiating for that new sport, and I suppose nobody else does either.

Cathedral’s up-the-river rival St. Aloysius won the state Class 1A baseball championship the other day by sweeping West Union in two games. The second game was won 13-2, ended early by the mercy rule.

I know coach Craig Beesley and his Greenies felt they should have handled St. Al’s Flashes but let their chance get away.

It won’t get any easier for Mississippi’s Class 1A baseball teams. St. Al carries seven seventh-graders on the roster, and several of them play regularly.

I recently read an interesting book about southern college football.

Titled Southern Fried Football, it was written by a man named Tony Barnhart. A former Atlanta sports writer, Barnhart naturally was more familiar with Georgia history, but did enough research to include much about the rest of the South.

Because the book was published in 2000, it did not cover the Eli Manning era at Ole Miss but gave a lot of information about coach Johnny Vaught and Archie Manning, as well as about LSU and Mississippi State.

And, that’s official.

Al Graning writes a monthly column for The Democrat. Contact him at alanward39157@aol.com.