Their coverage area was nearly as long as their name. It spanned from Ripley in the west and Cuba of western Allegany County in the east.

Mark Hammond began football officiating back in 1941 with a game between Medina and Oakfield. He worked hundreds of games during his storied career, including Section VI championship games in what was then Rich Stadium.

He officiated when 6-man football was a thing for the smaller schools in the Southern Tier and beyond.

He served as board interpreter for a time, teaching classes on our family’s front porch on Robin Street in Dunkirk.

Mark Hammond

He had plenty of stories from his 40-plus years of football officiating. With football season arriving, it seems fitting to pass on a couple of favorites.

During each fall, he would routinely ref three games on any given weekend: Friday night, Saturday afternoon and Saturday night.

That made for several loads of muddy laundry for the start of the work week.

As senior official he would be designated as referee, the man in charge of what usually was a four-man crew.

My dad would lead a Dunkirk-based foursome often consisting of Dunkirk High guidance counselor Howard Brown, city recreation director and coach Donald Rozumalski and multi-talented athlete Joe DeAngelo.

Don “Potsy” Rozumalski

One Saturday night they were driving back from Salamanca, Olean or points farther east. It was starting to snow, making the notoriously poorly marked Cattaraugus County backroads more difficult to navigate than normal.

Per usual, they were looking for the various landmarks that were invaluable on the long road home.

Coach Don “Potsy” Rozumalski was riding shotgun for my dad and was asked to roll down his window to help spot the elusive, now snow-covered structures in the worsening weather.

When he did, the quartet was stunned when a cow stuck its head through the open car window and mooed.

I worked summers at the JFK Pool in Wright Park, and the universally liked and admired “Potsy” was my immediate boss. When asked, he laughingly confirmed the cow incident was genuine.

The second tale involves a new high school varsity coach who had devised three “trick” plays for his season opener and coaching debut.

He corralled my dad as referee before the game to alert him of the special plays.

One was a tackle-eligible play and another a screen pass. Both were considered rare back in the 1950s.

The third play would come on the opening kickoff. By design, the player who fielded the kickoff would retreat to become part of a team huddle. The ball would then be legally handed back to a designated speedster and everyone in the huddle would then scatter.

My dad would have to be close by to confirm the handoff was backward and therefore legal.

The play was designed to confuse the defense. It didn’t work.

The first defender to arrive on the scene post-scatter immediately tackled the ball carrier inside the 10-yard line.

Later on, the tackle-eligible play worked perfectly, succeeding for a substantial gain. However, the anxious teen playing the tackle position moved a little before the ball was snapped. The ensuing 5-yard penalty wiped out the big gain.

The coach saved his final surprise play for late in what was a scoreless game.

He called the screen pass and things started well. The offensive line pretended to block the four onrushing defensive linemen and then let them loose on their quarterback.

The quarterback retreated, as planned, and then tossed a pass toward a halfback with a handful of linemen waiting to block.

Unfortunately, the slowest defender was in perfect position to intercept the pass. He now had three burly blockers to take out the quarterback and easily scored the game-winning touchdown.

So much for “trick” plays.

——

Bill Hammond is a former EVENING OBSERVER sports editor.