There's a lot to understand before becoming a PIAA football official.

You see them make the important calls and throw the flags. But how do they get their careers started?Dan Rossino is both a PIAA and NCAA umpire for softball, and a PIAA official for both football and basketball. Three years ago, he started the Blue Mountain Elite Officials Camp, which aims to educate new officials and sharpen the skills of the veterans. The third annual camp was held on Saturday morning at the Lehighton Football Stadium."Lehighton football coach Tom McCarroll runs a passing camp and brings in a lot of high school teams," said Rossino. "He asked me about officiating it. I came up with this crazy idea to coordinate this professional development of officials, in conjunction with this passing camp."We just had our 20th annual clinic for Blue Mountain Umpires. I thought, why not do this for football? It's the only (football officials) camp of its kind around and it's gotten bigger and better each year. "Sixteen area high school teams participated in passing scrimmages during the camp, which presented a great low-pressure situation for all of the officials to get reps in and learn different perspectives of the game."The information that we went over today, these guys are that much further ahead, it's incredible," Rossino said. "They're also getting seen by 16 coaching staffs from throughout District 2, 3, 4, and 11. There's nothing like actually getting to take what you've learned inside in our film review of the program, to bringing it right outside and do it live in front of talented athletes."College football official Tom Kichline, who has 27 years of experience, teamed up with Rossino to help instruct the group of 36 officials who attended the camp. Kichline also teaches a nine-week class in the Parkland area, which is free of cost."I work at the NCAA level in the Colonial, Ivy, and Patriot leagues," he said. "I love to teach and help the new guys ... We have guys and ladies here who are wearing a hat and carrying a whistle for the first time."And then we have guys who have been doing this for 47 years. There is quite a variety of experience here. You have to try and pick things that are relevant to everybody. Your professionalism is relevant, and how you communicate with coaches is relevant to everybody."Rossino was pleased with the camp's attendance, as it has gone up each year. But the bottom line is, the PIAA is extremely short-staffed with officials."There's a shortage of officials, and I will do whatever I can to recruit and help the PIAA that way," Rossino said. "If we get four or five new officials out of this, that's excellent."I enjoy teaching, educating, and the camaraderie and fellowships. I have people here from Easton to Hazleton. Today, we had the first female official from the Allentown area here, and hopefully we get more females involved. Anybody who is interested, no matter what sport, feel free to call or e-mail me."There were about two dozen newcomers present on Saturday, including 2017 Palmerton graduate Jared Mooney, who was a multi-sport athlete."When you're playing football you don't know all of the rules," Mooney said. "There's so much more to the game. I learned a lot of different techniques and you watch the game with different views. It's great to learn from Tom (Kichline), and just to pick his brain and be around him. He knows so much, and you learn so much from him."Being an official won't happen overnight, as one must pass a 100-question test before stepping on the field to start making the calls. New officials will work their way up until they're comfortable enough to officiate the high school level."There's a process, you don'tjust come in and become a varsity official," Rossino said. "By working the youth games, you're going to have that goofy stuff happen, and you're going to know how to handle it when you have the opportunity to work on Friday nights."Rossino assigns newer officials to the Lehigh Valley Youth League, the Colonial Youth Football League, and the Mountain Valley Youth Football League, where he has the chance to pair up the rookies with some experienced officials.According to Kichline, newer officials have a chance to quickly advance through the ranks, as the PIAA is currently shorthanded."We need officials across the state," said Kichline. "We're short in every sport. If you have interest in becoming an official, now is the time."First-year officials are progressing through the chain very quickly. They're getting high school games as early as their first or second year."