We intend for this blog to be interactive and welcome all readers to submit questions.

Stephanie in University Park, Texas writes:

I recently started watching football and noticed that in addition to numbers, some of the referees have different letters on their shirts. Additionally, some of the referees wear white hats, while most wear black hats. Why is this? Why were the officials in the New England game wearing orange and white uniforms?
Well Stephanie, let’s begin with some semantics. Though the term referee is often used to refer to any official on the football field, this usage is incorrect. NFL and collegiate officiating staffs consist of seven officials, including the referee, umpire, head linesman, line judge, field judge, side judge, and back judge. The letters you see on the jerseys correspond to each of these official titles. The referee serves as the head of the officiating crew and wears a white hat to distinguish himself from his compatriots. Each official has a particular part of the field and game they are responsible for watching and officiating.

From 1960 through 1969, the AFL (American Football League) existed as a rival league to the NFL (National Football League). In 1970, a merger between the two leagues was finalized and ten teams joined the NFL: Boston Patriots (now New England Patriots), San Diego Chargers, Oakland Raiders, Denver Broncos, Kansas City Chiefs, Houston Oilers (now Tennessee Titans), Cincinnati Bengals, New York Jets, Buffalo Bills and the Miami Dolphins. In observance of the 50th Anniversary of the AFL, the NFL will honor the league all season long. When teams from the former AFL face one another, the teams will wear their old AFL uniforms and the officiating crews will wear the traditional, orange and white stripped, AFL officials uniform. Since Buffalo and New England both were AFL teams, the officials wore the orange and white uniforms tonight.

If you have a question you would like answered, feel free to e-mail me anytime at jhellis978@gmail.com.