{"id":29852,"date":"2024-01-07T23:09:55","date_gmt":"2024-01-08T06:09:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/hall-of-fame-official-arlo-robb-continues-to-promote-the-profession\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T01:05:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:05:10","slug":"hall-of-fame-official-arlo-robb-continues-to-promote-the-profession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/hall-of-fame-official-arlo-robb-continues-to-promote-the-profession\/","title":{"rendered":"Hall of Fame official Arlo Robb continues to promote the profession"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mancos
Mancos alum Arlo Robb earned induction into the Colorado Football Officials Association Hall of Fame in 2018 in recognition of his 47 years of service as a high school football official.
\nCourtesy photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Perched at the top row of the bleachers at Bluejay Field this past autumn, Mancos Class of 1962 alum Arlo Robb stoically watched as the Bluejays marched up and down the field during their run to the program\u2019s first football state title.<\/p>\n

While proud of his alma mater\u2019s achievements, it\u2019d be hard to draw Robb\u2019s attention away from his primary focus \u2013 tracking the movements and decisions of the five-man officiating crew. With pen in hand, Robb annotates the arbitration decisions on his evaluation form, providing vital information for the ongoing growth of officials across the region.<\/p>\n

\"After
After getting his start in officiating in the 1960s, Arlo Robb oversaw games over a five-decade span in both football and basketball \u2013 and continues to serve the profession as an official evaluator.
\nPhoto courtesy of Arlo Robb<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"To
To go along with 47 years as a football official, Arlo Robb spent 45 seasons working area basketball games, and continues to serve as an evaluator for local high school officials.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Arlo Robb\n<\/p>

Robb is all too familiar with receiving the feedback \u2013 he\u2019s heard plenty \u2013 both constructive and inane \u2013 over his five-decade career donning stripes in both football and basketball. Now, having retired from officiating itself, Robb can still offer his two cents to help promote the game, as he works in the midst of his fifth year as a high school football and basketball official evaluator for CHSAA.<\/p>\n

After heading to college following his multisport career at MHS, Robb enrolled in an officiating course at Ricks College in Rexburg, Idaho as part of the physical education curriculum.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe guys who were in the \u2018Sports Officiating\u2019 class were also playing intramural sports, so we would take turns competing, while others would officiate, then vice versa,\u201d reflected Robb, \u201cso we could see both sides of the whole deal \u2013 and I got four hours of college credit!\u201d<\/p>\n

After returning to southwest Colorado, Robb stuck with it, with officials Ralph Haynie and Don Karraker, who had called many of Robb\u2019s games from his playing days, encouraging him to take the high school officiating exam. Robb passed with flying colors, and earned an assignment to a varsity game in his first ever high school contest.<\/p>\n

Now, 47 years later, Robb\u2019s resume includes thousands of contests across Colorado and Utah, including over 40 postseason games, two all-state games and a state championship.<\/p>\n

Among those countless afternoons and evenings under the Friday night lights, the state championship game \u2013 a 2013 1A title tilt between Paonia and Centauri \u2013 serves as a standout in his memory.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce you get to that level, the kids are well-coached, they know what their job is,\u201d said Robb of the 32-24 thriller in which Paonia won their first title in over 50 years, \u201cand I knew when I walked off that it was the best game I\u2019d ever had in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for witnessing his alma mater capture the 2023 state title \u2013 \u201cit\u2019s really cool,\u201d said Robb, \u201cthose kids went to summer camp and the weight room \u2013 and that whole group was really strong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Throughout his career, Robb adjusted to numerous changes on both the gridiron and hardwood, including the innovation of the three-point line in basketball, as well as the introduction of 8-man football as a regular fixture on the Western Slope in the early 2000s.<\/p>\n

\u201cEight-man is a faster game,\u201d said Robb of the adjustment, \u201cand as an umpire, you\u2019re keeping track of who\u2019s an eligible receiver because the ball can go anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

His travels took him to playing surfaces in the middle of hayfields, railroad boxcars used as makeshift press boxes, and scoreboard operators balanced on top of forklifts. Robb eschewed the idea of leaving rural Colorado to get opportunities at the collegiate level, opting to stay put \u2013 even when his assignments sent him all across the state. His work balance between employment for the Colorado Department of Transportation for 33 years allowed him evening availability to go call games across southwest Colorado and southeast Utah.<\/p>\n

His journeys would often having him cross state lines on back-to-back days, including calling postseason games in Utah on one night, then turn around and officiating a Colorado state playoff game the next.<\/p>\n

Still, he treated the contests the same with his focus and preparation \u2013 \u201cI always graded myself on how I felt I performed each night on the court,\u201d said Robb, \u201cand each game was a new opportunity \u2013 I\u2019d have to go to the gym and let the game come to me \u2013 because you\u2019re always having to adjust to all the different things that can happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Balancing the management of hostile environments and unpredictable games came down to some core elements for Robb. \u201cKnowing the rule book is critical,\u201d he said, \u201cand being able to block out all the external noise.\u201d With a laugh he added, \u201cI will miss the times when someone yells out \u2018Three seconds!\u2019 when the ball is on the rim.\u201d<\/p>\n

Deservedly, Robb was inducted into the Colorado Football Officials Association Hall of Fame in 2018 \u2013 the first year of his eligibility for induction.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never did any of it for the money,\u201d said Robb, remembering his first game checks totaling fifteen dollars, \u201cbut I always enjoyed seeing kids grow from seventh and eighth grade up through high school, and see how they improved, not only with their skill, but also their attitude and work ethic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fully recognizing the underappreciated role that officials play in keeping youth athletics afloat, Robb is coaching the next generation of officials stepping in to fill his cleats, hoping that they bring the same level of passion for the game that he brought to the area for the past half-century.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

evaluates next generation after five-decade career<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29853,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,83,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-29852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-mancos","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29852"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29852\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80886,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29852\/revisions\/80886"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29852"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=29852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}