With pen and pad at the ready, I walked into my first volleyball officiating class prepared to jot down notes.

But as soon as I stepped into Phoenix College’s gym a referee ordered me to head to a court to help officiate a match.

Gulp.

What happened to the desk and instructor session before throwing me into the fire? It had been more than 20 years since I stumbled through my first and last experience calling a match.

I hear fans and parents are bit more rabid nowadays. No way, Jose, I said to myself about the possibility of experiencing the what-are-you-doing stares.    

So I had two choices, sink or swim. Do they have referee floaties?  

This summer I decided to earn my first stripes as an official to better understand the important role of Arizona’s high school officials and what it takes to become an official. Hopefully, my training will culminate with calling a high school volleyball game.

I picked volleyball, because it’s one of the sports I enjoyed playing while growing up in Southern California. But my time inside the lines didn’t keep me from tripping once again outside of them.

Instead of focusing on the players, as a I usually do while covering matches for azpreps365.com, I zeroed in on the referees on the court I was assigned to and soaked in as much as I could before it was my turn. There are usually four officials on a volleyball court, one on each side of the net and two linesmen.

To keep costs low for schools, which pay the officials, a player from each program is often picked to call lines during high school volleyball matches. The pressure to call lines isn’t as high as what the two officials in the middle face.  

To get my feet wet, I thought I’d try being a linesman first.  

Wrong again.  

Pamela, a veteran volleyball referee, positioned me between two teams filled with incoming high school freshmen. If one of the freshmen would have demanded to overturn a call I originally made, I probably would have caved to the request since I was so green.  

Luckily, Pamela turned out to be my volleyball life preserver on Day 1 as she stood behind me giving me instructions during my first match. Pamela had the perfect temperament to show a dimwit such as myself what to do.

When the match started, my first instinct was to follow the ball, but Pamela turned my head to my area of responsibility, the area around the net. Not following the ball, which I’m not accustomed to of course, and the different hand signals officials use led to a lot of overthinking on my part.

It took me a while to also somewhat learn the order of the hand signals. Because of covering and playing volleyball for so many years, I knew for the most part what the hand signals stood for, but I was unaware of the specific order they are given.

The two officials in the middle also often give the same hand signals after each play simultaneously. Like synchronized swimmers, the very experienced volleyball officials often give well-choreographed performances.

I felt sorry for the referee on the stand I was calling the match with. There was hardly any eye contact between us, and I was constantly a step behind.

Luckily, I didn’t have to blow my whistle much during the match, which is good because the sound coming out of my whistle — imagine a squirrel gasping for air — didn’t exactly demonstrate assertiveness. The setting for the volleyball class turned out to be very educational.

The young teams are aware that new and veteran officials are also training during the matches. There is a classroom component to the training, but it comes after being on the court.

Even if you don't have any sort of volleyball experience, you can sit and watch the matches, but the officials want you to eventually participate. 

On my first day of training, we only had two new volleyball officiating students, including myself. There’s interest in officiating volleyball, but the instructors decided to cancel the classroom portion on this day until more veteran and first-year officials were present.

Cutting my first day short gave me time to head home and watch Steph Curry and LeBron James duke it out during an NBA Finals game.

But I wound up watching the referees as much as the players.