High school employee is teacher by day, official by Friday night
Guidance counselor Mike McCann sits at his desk during his day job. Friday nights, McCann puts on a black and white uniform to referee high school football games. McCann was a football coach at his old school before becoming a referee while working for Westside. Photo by Sam Frankel
Though Westside’s own high school football team has ended its run of playing on Friday nights, there is still one individual at Westside who still take the turf on Friday nights: guidance counselor Mike McCann. Of course, McCann takes the field for a different reason. He doesn’t get sacks or toss touchdown passes; he makes calls and plays an important role in the athletic scheme. McCann is an official, a referee.
Of course, McCann hasn’t always worn the black and white stripes of the normal referee. His passion for the game started before coming to Westside.
“When I taught high school, I used to be a football coach at my previous high school,” McCann said. “I was looking for a way to get back in [at Westside] and I did some research and thought maybe football officiating was the way to go, so I could be in the game but not have the commitment of being a coach. That’s really the story.”
McCann, now in his 12th year of officiating, has refereed games of all levels and schools. He has even been a part of sub-varsity Westside events due to a conflict of interest. Fortunately, McCann realizes to be a referee, it doesn’t matter who’s playing, as long as you make the calls.
“As an official, what you always strive for is to call what you see,” McCann said. “So you try not to think about who’s playing or if you like the team or if the coach is on you about something. You just want to officiate what’s on the field.”
McCann does admit, though, sometimes it is nice to know the team you are officiating for.
“Sometimes it’s actually handier when I ref sub-varsity games, particularly Westside games, because I know the players by name,” McCann said. “That way instead of saying, ‘Hey, 85’ I can say, ‘Hey, so-and-so, don’t do that.’”
As the season nears an end and McCann will soon be done sporting the black and white stripes for the year, there will always be stories he can tell of altercations with fans and coaches that can make him look forward to next year.
“At first it, stung me a little bit, but in retrospect I’ve laughed about it because I heard a fan yell out ‘Don’t worry, I was confused the first time I saw football too,” McCann said. “That’s truly the funniest thing that’s happened.”
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