She can be hard to spot through the crowd of bulky, shoulder-padded football players ― but if you look close enough, she’s there and she’s the one calling the shots.
Caroline Caplinger is the only female on-field referee for tackle football in the Northeast Georgia Officials Association (NEGOA). On Friday night, Oct. 16, she served as the line judge for the backyard brawl between Prince Avenue Christian and Athens Academy, which the Wolverines won 56-7. The rest of the on-field crew were men.
“I love it, because … it keeps you busy,” Caplinger said of being a line judge. “Every second, you have to be thinking of something. I love those dead ball penalties, like false starts, encroachments, everything like that. You also have closer communication with the coach, which is always somewhere I’m trying to grow. … It kind of challenges me to know more because you’re constantly getting asked questions.”
Caplinger, 26, got her start in officiating in her home state of Florida as a college student. Originally from Tampa, Caplinger attended the University of Central Florida in Orlando, getting her bachelor’s degree in health sciences. While a Golden Knight, she, like most other college kids, needed a job. So, she turned to officiating at the intramural sports level.
Caplinger officiated games for flag football, basketball, dodgeball and volleyball at UCF before she returned to the place where it all began, ground zero: Florida high schools.
Caplinger played flag football while she was a high school student herself. She’d been a competitive gymnast from the ages of 2-15 before she made the switch, feeling unhappy and wanting to try something new. At an open house, a coach mentioned to her that she should try flag football.
Lucky for her, Florida is the gold standard for flag football. The Sunshine State was the first to sanction the sport, back in 2003. On May 5, USA Today's Alyce Brown reported that 25 states, including Washington D.C., have sanctioned the sport; Georgia was the third state to do so in 2019, while Nevada was the second in 2016.
“It’s just spreading like wildfire across the country,” Caplinger said.
But, in her first game, she tore her ACL.
“For some reason, that was enough to keep me involved in the sport,” Caplinger said. “I was the manager of the team my junior year and then played my senior year and never felt like I was done with it.”
She continued playing flag football for the UCF club team while officiating both intramural sports and high school flag football under the Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA). Then, because it’s all under the same umbrella, she found herself in the booth one Friday night, running the clock for a tackle football game. She was hooked.
When she moved to Athens to attend the University of Georgia for her master’s degree in sports management, her Floridian bosses helped her get into the Georgia officiating game. This is now her fifth year overall, fourth with this crew.
Today, she is a referee for varsity tackle games through the Georgia High School Association (GHSA) in the northeastern part of the state. She also coaches the UGA club flag football team – which is home to North Oconee state champion quarterback Catherine Cooper.
Caplinger still gets nervous putting on the ‘zebra’ stripes. It paints a target on her back, and that’s never something you necessarily want, especially as a woman.
“For the most part, people treat me well,” Caplinger said. “There are always people who won’t, and you can also get treated differently, (as in) sometimes people just don’t even talk to me because they just think I don’t know the answers. I’ve been treated poorly before, but you’ve just got to move on.”
She remembered one game she was working. The stands of that particular stadium are situated so the fans are basically on top of the officials, or so it feels, Caplinger said.
“I heard some sexist comments,” Caplinger said. “Probably that the fans say all the time, but this time they were right in my ear, so I could hear them and I was feeling kind of upset. (Later) I was walking up to the locker room, and this little girl ran up and hugged my leg. She just latched onto me, and it was so random that I was like, ‘OK, there’s a purpose to this.’”
Caplinger is still learning. Truthfully, every referee is; you’re not a good referee if you aren’t, she said. She used to be nervous to throw her flag, unsure if she saw what she saw or wary about the reaction to her call. Some things were easy to pick up, like false starts, but she’s still attuning herself to watching everything, like blocks down the field, and not just the runner who has the ball.
Officiating has always been a side hustle for Caplinger. She recently began a new full-time gig for TMRW Sports and the future professional flag football league that the NFL has kickstarted.
The Atlanta Falcons have been a big part of the growth of flag football in the state, and this season, Mercedes Benz Stadium actually separated the flag football state championships from the football state championships for the first time – all five flag divisions will play on Dec. 8, while the eight football classifications will be divided between Dec. 15-16.
This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: This Georgia grad is the only female football official in the Athens area