Quick Guide to ALL the Roller Derby Officiating Positions

[Updated May 19, 2015 to reflect the January 2015 WFTDA ruleset and officiating standard practices, and the March 2015 track layout guide. Oh yeah, and to fix all some of my mistakes and add in a few new ones.]

A fully staffed WFTDA flat-track roller derby game requires at least 18 volunteer officials to run, and that’s not counting track crew and announcers.  Each one of these people plays a core part in ensuring that safe, fair gameplay occurs.  This document will summarize each of the officiating positions.  

Pro tip: Every league does things a little differently; treat this guide as just a rough start.  Unless something is actually violating the rules, plan to roll with whatever the host league / host ref crew prefers.  

Obligatory first post

I'm the head referee of South Coast Roller Derby, and I'm also a professor of biology at Orange Coast College.  The two of these combine to cause me to addictively create training documents, share them, and run small ref clinics at my home league.  I'm nowhere near experienced enough to really be doing all this, but hey, I enjoy it :)

Take everything I say with a giant grain of salt.  I'm just a new head ref in a small league who wants to help out; that's all!

I also do photography, but it's taken a back seat to derby.  And I love to cook.  Yay me.

[Update: South Coast Roller Derby merged with SoCal Derby in May 2014, at which point I became a member of SoCal Derby's officiating crew.  In September 2014 I transferred to Angel City Derby Girls, joining their officiating crew (Parks and REFreation).]