Here’s a case where standing on the sidelines is a weighty job indeed

“Measure what is measurable …” — Galileo

The appointment took a lifetime — 71 years — but when it came I had to remind myself not to let it go to my head. I had been accorded the responsibility of being the “box official” at a Sheldon High School JV football game. This is the person who, instructed by the head linesman, marks where on the field the ball is located and, with an orange and black “box,” shows how many downs the offensive team has left to make a first down or score.

Confession: I had not been heavily recruited; I was a walk-on, though I like to think a “preferred walk-on.” Nobody came to me and told me they’d heard that, as a high school kid, I’d been a decent kids’ flag-football official in Corvallis. And based on that, they wanted me to chip off the barnacles — raise the Titanic, as it were — and see if I could float again.  

What’s more, I had not scored high on a test or won a tryout, beating out two dozen competitive would-be box officials who pined for the position.

No, what happened is I overheard my daughter-in-law — who has a son on the team and oversees such matters — lament that she’d sent out numerous email pleas to parents to help but nobody responded affirmatively. (As in churches and other organizations, 20% of the people do 80% of the work.)

There comes a time in your life when you must step up — well, in this case step sideways for 50 yards in two directions — and say: Count me in. I’ll be your box boy. I’ll be the hallowed purveyor of perspective, so fans know how far their team has come and how far they still have to go.

Given this, the challenge was an extension of what I’d done for most of my life as a columnist and speaker — communicate where we are as a culture and where, ideally, we needed to get?

But the grandeur of the position quickly dissipated when I checked out a YouTube video to familiarize myself with the job.

“In a varsity game, you’re typically working with an experienced chain crew,” the narrator said. “But in a JV or freshman game” — my ears perked up — “oftentimes the chain crew will look like these guys.” And they showed a photo of the two stars of the movie “Napoleon Dynamite” — Napoleon and Pedro.

Ouch.

It wasn’t as if all you needed to succeed at this job was the ability to count to four, walk and chew gum at the same time. (Gum is discouraged because it mucks up the artificial turf, so it’s just “walk, place the stick at the right yard line and count to four.”)

I immediately discerned I had two choices: play down to the geek expectations or raise the bar — or, more precisely, the fluorescent orange “stick.” I boldly chose the latter.

“Box officials” have been used in football since 1912, when the 10-yards-for-a-first-down rule was established. Although an official once turned a wooden box with one of the four numbers on each side, like dice, the game now uses a “card-flip” system. The plastic numbers are at the top of the stick, and you flip to whichever down it is — so players, coaches, fans and fellow officials can see.

A half hour before the game — the video suggested 15 minutes, but I am an arrive-early-and-wait-at-the-gate guy — I showed up, making sure I was not dressed in either team’s school colors. That’s a no-no.

The YouTube video also cautioned us not to wear designer sunglasses; why, I’m not sure. But that was easy for me to do. I rarely pay more than $20 a pair because I always lose them. My last pair, lost while hiking the John Muir Trail, ran me five bucks.

“It is important to remember,” the video said, “that the chain group is part of the officiating group. As an official you can’t cheer, coach or make disparaging remarks about either team.”

I thought I could refrain from such emotion, even if I would allow inner fist pumps should my quarterback grandson, say, complete a pass.

I introduced myself to the head linesman, Jerry, who went over the basics, including how his officiating crew likes to locate the ball, when practical, on the nearest yard-marker. (Technically, on the “Lockney Line,” named for the guy who, in 1954, convinced a Wisconsin high school to put lines, each yard, along the sideline so players, officials and fans could better discern how far the ball had been advanced. Soon, the idea spread nationwide.)

This wasn’t the time to point out that I’m a yard-line purist; it might make it easier for officials to pace off penalty yards if they nudge the spot of the ball backward or forward to get on a yard-line, but I think you should mark the spot where the ball carrier went down, period. I suppose I’m a gridiron literalist.

Alas, I held my tongue. I had not been offered this prestigious position to debate the nuances of officiating, but to communicate down and distance. I reminded myself, loosely quoting Melville in “Moby Dick,” to “Stay at the wheel, Ahab.”

The orange padded stick was heavier than I imagined. However, the challenge, I soon found, wasn’t the stick or getting the spot right — Jerry was a great communicator and encourager — but the commotion on the sidelines.

Mind you, this wasn’t the Super Bowl, just two JV football teams. But players — we were on the visitors’ side — rushed on and off the field like Boston subway riders getting on and off “The T” while late for work. The players and coaches were headed east and west; I was headed north and south. Once, a 225-pound lineman almost T-boned me.

Between that and coaches yelling, players yelling and parents yelling — “Be aggressive!” someone behind me kept screaming with a shrill that threatened to crack helmets — it was easy to get distracted.

For a guy almost as old as either team’s offensive line added together, the energy was a rush and a distraction.

When a returner for the visiting team muffed a second kickoff, a coach bolted onto the field and tongue-lashed the kid with a paraphrased, “How many times are you going to run up and have the ball go over your head, stupid?”

Another time, when his players were bickering amongst themselves, a visiting coach yelled, “Shut the f— up. Look at the scoreboard!” They were trailing by three TDs.

But for the most part, the coaches were civil to their players and to the referees.

“What were my players saying?” a coach asked an official after his team was given a delay of game penalty for yelling “disconcerting signals” to the offense.

“It wasn’t so much what they were saying, but when they were saying it,” the official said. “To obscure the offense’s signals.”

“But what were the exact words?”

“I couldn’t tell you that.”

The two debated this freedom-of-speech issue for perhaps 20 seconds — the game must go on — before the coach returned to the sideline, muttering and shaking his head.

Everything on the sidelines happens fast, particularly with quarterbacks. With the clock ticking, and seconds after they’ve perhaps been flattened by a blitz, they must come to the sideline to get the play call from the offensive coordinator, remember it (something like “Ram West 32 Plunge”), communicate it to their team, check the setup of the defense and run the play. Then repeat.

“Ahhhhhh!”

A player was down, grabbing his leg. It sounded like something from “Saving Private Ryan.”

The intensity of everything was magnified compared to what I’m used to from the stands. Even coaches’ demeanors.

“How can that be pass interference?” yelled a visiting coach who was 30 yards away from the play. “Our guy was facing the quarterback!”

The official who made the call ran over and calmly replied, “He dragged the receiver down by his shirt.”

As the offensive team came to the line of scrimmage, Jerry said, “Coach, I warned you earlier that Number 21 doesn’t have knee pads. If this play starts, it’s a penalty.”

The coach quickly called a timeout.

“Let’s go, boys!” a player shouted. “We are better than these guys!”

“Be aggressive!” yelled that shrill-voiced fan.

“Bob, second down,” Jerry said.

Whoops. For one of two times, I had the wrong down.

As a box official, the more effective the offense is, the more difficult your job is. You might need to sprint more than half the field to get to the next location.

“Coming through,” I’d yell to players and coaches, who are supposed to give us a 6-foot swath between the sidelines and where they stand.

Late in the game my phone buzzed. My wife Sally, on a quilt trip to Amish country and Washington, D.C., had sent me a photo of her standing in front of the White House.

I checked it out during a timeout, then quickly sent a text to her and made a quick phone call to Roger, a guitar-playing friend who was coming over later for a jam session — I play the box drum, sort of — to let him know the game was running late and we needed to push back our start time.

“And it appears the box official is consulting with the replay booth on something,” I imagined a TV announcer saying.

But, of course, there was no such announcer and no such statement. Just me, committing a cardinal sin that YouTube had pointed out was bad form: cellphone usage.

You’re better than this, I told myself in a post-game pep talk.

I resolved to up my game the next time out, when I once again return to the sidelines, hold the box and become football’s purveyor of perspective.