ROCKLEDGE -- I'd like to say my head is swimming.

But it isn't.

It's sinking.

It is sinking under an avalanche of information and sensory perceptions and decisions to be made in fractioned seconds.

I am wearing a shirt with stripes on it, and the stripes are vertical, not circular. Yet that is the way many football fans see the officials, as if they had circular stripes on the back of their shirts.

In the form of a bull's-eye, you know.

I've seen those fans. Maybe you have, too. They are at every high school football game from Atlantic to Pacific. They vent and scream and curse and threaten, spitting out words as their neck veins bulge.

To those people, I have but one thing to say.

Wear the shirt.

I did.

It was only for a scrimmage, a preseason scrimmage at Rockledge High School. But it was enough. I went home with a headache and a greater appreciation for the men (and occasional woman) we have come to call the zebras.

Zebras?

I have a better word.

Special.

I have always had a distant admiration for officials, umpires, referees . . . whatever the sport may be (save for figure skating). Back in the '70s, when I attended Brevard Community College, I had a side job umpiring softball games. I went to classes, took seminars, passed tests and umpired my share of games. It was hard work, and we're talking about slow-pitch softball.

Football is another matter entirely.

I have marveled when a 50-yard pass is thrown downfield and running lockstep with the receiver and defender is the official. Or when a long touchdown run is scored and there is the official, dutifully standing sentry right there at the goal line, ready to fling both arms in the air. There is a pass play at the sidelines. The receiver catches the ball. Was he in bounds, or out? On top of the scene is the official, examining it all.

They make it all look so easy. Effortless. When officials do their job well is also when we don't notice them at all, sort of like an offensive lineman.

And now I have a greater appreciation as to just how hard all of that is to do.

Before the scrimmage, Rockledge head coach Chuck Wood met us on the sidelines. He showed us his playbook so we could get a feel for what he was trying to accomplish that afternoon. Jay Beardall, a veteran at this, scanned the playbook like an accountant would scan a tax form. Me? I looked at it like I was trying to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics, nodding knowingly, faking it.

That afternoon, I worked all corners of the field. I started at line judge with Beardall and ended with at referee with Wally Wildenradt, who is a veteran of 30-plus years doing this.

There is a litany of things to keep on top of, beginning, of course, with the rules. There also are formations to watch, eligible and ineligible receivers to note. What down is it? What's the distance? How many ticks are left on the time clock? Are chin straps on, mouthpieces in? Does each side have the required 11 players? Where do you spot the ball after a play? What's forward progress? If the play goes here, then I go there. Or do I?

I've got a hundred things running through my head, but I am clear about one thing, and that is the running back who is heading straight for me. I recalled what Beardall told me, which is to move with the play while backpedaling, keeping a buffer.

But then I made the mistake I'm told most rookie officials make. I watched the ball carrier.

Well, wouldn't you?

Wherever he went a mob followed, and he was coming right for me. Coolly, I kept my eye on him, backpedaled smoothly and steadily, watching the play unfold and culminate, while I stayed just out of harm's way. I felt pretty good about that until I saw Beardall's yellow flag laying on the ground like a question mark.

"What's that for?" I asked.

An illegal block.

An illegal block! Who had a chance to see what the blockers were doing when there was tsunami of football humanity bearing down on you?

Beardall smiled, and then he uttered the most telling words I heard all afternoon.

"It takes about three years of doing this before things start slowing down and you really see things."

Three years?

How was I going to do it in three hours?

Obviously, that wasn't going to happen. But I did pick up other pearls.

I was told that KIK was an important acronym. "That means know your keys," Clayton Roberts, a linesman, explained.

If you do, you can almost anticipate what happens. When you get good at it, at least they tell me so, you can almost see things before they happen.

Another bit of advice: Get your mechanics down and the rules will follow. It takes time, though. Years.

So I go with the flow, except the flow is about to get a lot more intense.

My next assignment was shadowing Warren Kugelmann just behind the line of scrimmage, as an umpire, standing a step behind the linebackers.

I can't imagine what this would be like in the NFL. But I do know that high school kids are frightening enough. The ball was snapped and players darted and collided every which way. As the play unfolded, I felt like the eye of a hurricane.

"You have to be careful because running backs will try to use you as a pick," Kugelmann said.

Great.

Each play had that same chaotic feel. It was like being inside a blender and trying to avoid getting chopped up. And, at the same time, you still have to keep up with every nuance and detail that arrives with each play. I'd forget the down. I'd forget to count the number of players, making sure there were 11. Plays were happening so fast I was more concerned with staying the heck out of the way rather than making sure I could see, and cite, an infraction.

I'm sure it wasn't hard to detect that I was an interloper.

An officiating crew is really the third team on the field. They work in concert, communicating both verbally and with hand signals. They are like dance partners who never touch. If you step here, I'll move there. If you watch this, then I'll keep an eye that.

"You might have a great game," Beardall explained, "but if one of the guys in the crew doesn't, then the whole crew didn't."

Officials come from all walks of life and they officiate mostly for the love of it. Pay is nominal -- $44 a game plus $7 travel money. There are yearly tests and seminars with required attendance. Evaluation is constant -- from above, and from each other.

After Rockledge High's afternoon scrimmage, that's exactly what they did. They huddled and talked a language only they could understand, going over what went well and what could be improved, analyzing what situations arose and how they were handled.

I listened, and marveled.

Then it came time to give the shirt back.

I did, perhaps a little too eagerly.