Sidelines and Bloodlines

by Ryan McGee

  I took the final list to Dad, and this is what he had to say.

  Dad

  “Who was the best player you shared the field with?”

  When Julius Peppers was playing defensive end at North Carolina, it just wasn’t fair. I never saw an athlete dominate an entire playing field like he did. And he played a little basketball, too.

  On offense, Bo Jackson at Auburn. He was just on a different level than anyone else. Bo was the guy who walked out there and the entire stadium followed everything he did and everywhere he went, whether they were rooting for Auburn or not. Rocket Ismail at Notre Dame was like that, too. In the 1990 Orange Bowl he scored on a reverse and I have never seen anyone turn the corner and change gears like he did. He just blew right by everyone, including me.

  But I also have to break it down into categories. I was with the wide receivers and defensive backs most of the time. Calvin Johnson at Georgia Tech and Herman Moore at Virginia were amazing at wide receiver. At DB, Dre Bly at North Carolina, Donnell Woolford at Clemson, and Deion Sanders at Florida State. And I have always said that if there was one minute remaining in the game and you could give me any quarterback to hand the ball and say, “We have to win this game,” that would be Charlie Ward from Florida State. He was the best I ever shared a field with at moving his team down the field.

  Dad

  “Who was the fastest player you ever saw?”

  We had a game at West Virginia in 1992, and the Mountaineers had the ball deep in their own territory. I think they were at the 22-yard line, so I was out at around 45. At the snap, this little wide receiver came downfield, right at me. I immediately started backing up. I was moving pretty good and had a big head start. By now I was on the other half of the field, at the 40, and he caught it at the 45, right in front of me. I was running as hard as I could run, but when he hit the goal line, I was way back at the 18. I had been beaten before, by five yards or something, but I felt like an idiot signaling touchdown running along nearly 20 yards behind the guy. He ran 45 yards in the time it took me to run 20.

  Walking back up the sideline, I asked West Virginia head coach Don Nehlen, “Who the hell is that guy?”

  He said, “That’s James Jett. He just won a gold medal at the Barcelona Olympics three months ago.”

  Dad

  “What are the worst field conditions and worst weather you ever had to deal with?”

  In 2002, we had a big nationally televised Thursday night game, Florida State at Louisville, and Tropical Storm Isidore just sat on the stadium all night. But the field was amazing. The game went into overtime and it was the biggest win Louisville had ever had to that point. I remember the kid who scored the winning touchdown splashing around in a huge mud puddle in the end zone.

  A few weeks later, we were at Charleston Southern in the rain and that field was not amazing. The water started pooling up all over the place. It was so bad that in some spots you couldn’t see the sideline at all. The line would disappear into the water and come out again way downfield, so you would have to connect the dots as to where you thought the out-of-bounds line was. We had a punt that was rolling toward the end zone, but then it landed in a giant pool of water just short of the goal line and splashed to a stop. We were about to whistle the ball dead, but Virgil Valdez said, “Wait! It might float into the end zone!” When the game was over my white pants were so brown with mud that I just threw them away and left.

  But the worst field conditions ever were at Penn State, of all places. It was Rutgers at Penn State and they had just installed a brand-new field, but there had been a ton of rain and the roots of the sod never took hold. It was like being on bad shag carpet. Every time you would try to make a turn and set your foot, it would buckle underneath you, coming up in sections of five or six feet at the time. The poor linemen couldn’t block. They couldn’t get traction. Every timeout a bunch of guys from the grounds crew would run out there with these poles and try to tamp it down. The next morning, my ankles have never been that sore. And this is a legendary agriculture school!

  Sam

  Let’s not forget that Duke-Rutgers game at the Meadowlands in ’87. Imagine all of that rain from Louisville or Charleston Southern, but then imagine it’s about 30 degrees colder. It was raining so hard that it was coming into the tops of everyone’s shoes, like someone was pouring ice water over your feet. The craziest part was that the fans left the seats and all stood under the lip of the upper deck, so you couldn’t see them. Something would happen in the game and a cheer would go up, but the stadium looked empty. It was so weird.

  Dad and the crew kept trying to fill out their penalty cards, but it was raining so hard the paper would just fall apart. So, they grab me and tell me I’m going to have to fill it out for them. At first, I would just write blind under my poncho. Ultimately, I ended up standing in the tunnel. There would be a penalty and I would run out there and one of the officials would shout over, “Holding on No. 78!” and I would run back up in the tunnel to write it down.

  I turned 14 that week. I know people were like, “Why are the referees yelling stuff to that kid and why is he writing it down? Is he working on a school paper or something?”

  Dad

  The New York Giants had a game there the next day, and the CBS Sports TV guys were staying at our hotel. Before the game we were all dressed in the lobby ready to leave, and we heard this guy laughing at us. “You have to go referee a game out there in this?!” He couldn’t stop laughing. It was John Madden.

  Dad

  “What did you do when you had to go to the bathroom during a game?”

  I never had an issue with that. But one day, one of my crewmates did. It was a small college game back in the 1970s, I don’t even remember where, but we had a guy back then who was notorious for going out the night before games. In our pregame meeting he looked terrible, clearly hungover. He said to us, “Boys, I’m not sure I can go out there today.” But we told him he had to. We weren’t going to work the game with four guys.

  Late in the first half, he was kind of gripping his stomach. He looked green. He was in a bad way. During a timeout he said to us, “Man, I really have to get to halftime so I can get to the bathroom.” But there were a couple of timeouts and a couple of penalties and it took forever. He kept looking at the clock like, Dammit, I’m not going to make it.

  Finally, with time still on the clock, he tells us he can’t wait and he heads for the locker room, walking straight down the middle of the field, all by himself. The crowd sees him. He started walking a little more briskly, a little bowlegged, and the fans realize what’s happening. This ref needs to get to the toilet. The walk turns into a jog. The crowd starts cheering. The jog turns into an all-out sprint and now the crowd is going nuts. He’s going to make it!

  Then, all of the sudden, he just stops, like right at the goal line, and freezes. It’s too late. He’s going. Now the crowd can’t decide if they should cheer, laugh, or boo.

  He did not officiate the second half with us. When the game was over, he was long gone.

  Dad

  “What’s the biggest regular season game you ever officiated?”

  I still think maybe the biggest regular season game in the history of the ACC was Georgia Tech at Virginia, ­November 3, 1990. Virginia was ranked No. 1 for the first time ever. ­Georgia Tech was ranked 16th. You had Shawn Moore throwing to Herman Moore for Virginia, and both of those guys were being mentioned as Heisman candidates. I was in the defensive backfield with Ken Swilling from Georgia Tech, who was one of the greatest defensive players I’ve ever seen. Tech kicked a field goal with seven seconds remaining to win 41–38 and then went on to win a share of the national championship. I’ve never been in a stadium with more energy than that one.

  But what I remember most about that day was that we were in the locker room, having our pregame meeting, and we’d already had a really intense meeti
ng the night before. We were all totally focused. Then one of the guys from Virginia came in and said, “Well, great news, guys. It looks like we won’t have to cancel the game.”

  Won’t have to cancel the game? What the hell was he talking about?

  The night before, someone had broken into Scott Stadium and set the field on fire. They had scorched a whole section of the Astroturf at the 50-yard line and the grounds crew scrambled to cut out that section and stitched it up with some spare turf they had stored at the baseball stadium.

  We had been so focused on our pregame Friday night and Saturday morning, we had no idea.

  Sam

  Virginia still had a chance to be a top-five team, but quarterback Shawn Moore injured his passing hand two weeks later against Maryland and they lost again. People all over the country, and friends at my school, were like, “He must have hurt his hand when it hit someone during the game.” I would say, no, he hurt when was mad about a play and he slammed his fist on that artificial turf. They would go, “Yeah, well, how do you know that?” I said because I was standing on the sideline, like 20 feet from him, when he did it!

  Dad

  “What’s the craziest game you ever officiated?”

  Navy at North Texas, November 10, 2007. Navy won 74–62 and there was no overtime. It set the FBS record for points scored in a regulation game, and that record stood for nearly a decade. We knew it was going to be crazy because Navy was ranked last in the nation in passing defense and North Texas was ranked first in passing offense, but Navy was ranked first in the nation in rushing offense and North Texas was ranked second-to-last in the nation in rushing defense.

  They basically played an entire football game in just the second quarter. We had 10 kickoffs in that quarter. Ten! The score in that quarter alone was 35–28. A North Texas receiver had five touchdown catches in one game. After a while, it was so ridiculous we were just laughing as we ran down the sideline. I was on the North Texas sideline and they kept yelling, “Keep going, Doc!” Then the turning point of the game was, of all things, a safety. Navy took a two-point lead on a safety, North Texas kicked off, and Navy ran that kick back for a touchdown.

  The night before the game we had eaten dinner at a great steakhouse. We said, “Man, after the game tomorrow night we’re coming back here and having a nice meal.” But we were so exhausted we were all laid up at the hotel with beer and pizza, icing our knees and ankles.

  Dad

  “What’s the best quote you ever heard from a player?”

  In the early 1980s, Clemson had a wide receiver named Keith Jennings. His brother was Stanford Jennings, who played in the NFL forever with the Bengals. Keith was huge, like 6-foot-4, 230 pounds. One day at NC State, like on the first play of the game, he caught a pass and a defensive back had the play read perfectly, but Jennings just lowered his shoulder and completely ran through the guy. It was like he had tackled the guy instead of the other way around. After the play, Jennings helped the guy up, and as he did, he said to him, “I’m pretty good, ain’t I?”

  Dad

  “What’s the best prank you ever pulled or saw pulled?”

  Terry Monk is an all-timer as a referee. He was the white hat with us in the ’97 Rose Bowl. One year he worked the Independence Bowl, when it was the Poulan Weed Eater Independence Bowl (the greatest bowl sponsor name there’s ever been).

  They had a room set up at the hotel in Shreveport for the officials where they could meet and hang out, and Poulan had decorated it with Weed Eater boxes. They were empty boxes, just for display. One of the officials came in late, so Terry and those guys decided to punish him for it. When he got there, they all told him that when they checked in, they had all gotten free Weed Eaters. He was mad. He hadn’t gotten one! Even on the field right after the coin toss, Terry said, “Does anyone have anything to say before we kick this off?” And the guy was pouting. “Yeah, I still haven’t gotten my damn Weed Eater.”

  The next day, there’s a box waiting for him at checkout. It’s a Poulan Weed Eater box. He was so excited, but the box was big and heavy. He put his family in one cab to the airport and he had to get another cab just for himself and this box. He paid extra to check it on the plane, but whatever, he was really excited.

  He got home and when opened it up, the box was just jammed full of trash. They had taken one of those display boxes, filled it up with whatever they could find in the room, and taped it up.

  So, young officials out there, what’s the lesson? Don’t be late.

  Dad

  “What’s the best conversation you had with a player during a game?”

  My favorite was actually right before a game. That 1990 Orange Bowl just felt so gigantic. National championship on the line, a couple dozen future NFL players in the game. I remember we were sitting in the locker room and a voice said, “Have a great game, guys!” It was O.J. Simpson, who was a sideline reporter for NBC that night. Franco Harris and Bill Walsh stopped to wish us luck, too.

  I got the captains from Notre Dame for the coin toss and one of them was the quarterback, Tony Rice. He was a little nervous, and so was I. As we walked out of the tunnel onto the field, I said to him, “Where you from, Rice?” I already knew the answer. He told me he was a little town in Upstate South Carolina called Woodruff. I told him that I lived near there, that I worked at Furman University and that my sons went to a rival school to his, Travelers Rest High School.

  “Tony Rice, what in the world is a guy from Woodruff, South Carolina, and a guy from Travelers Rest doing here, walking onto the field at the Orange Bowl?”

  We laughed all the way to the 50-yard line.

  Dad

  “Who was the most famous person you met on the sideline?”

  I used to love keeping my eye out to see who was on the sidelines. At Miami there were always a ton of former great players hanging around. Jim Kelly, Bernie Kosar, Vinnie Testeverde, Michael Irvin, whichever NFL guys had the weekend off, it seemed like they were always on the sideline at Miami. Burt Reynolds, who played at Florida State and lived in Tallahassee, was always at FSU and always giving us grief, but in a joking way. Adam Sandler and all of those guys, when they were working on the The Longest Yard remake with Burt, they were around. At Temple, Bill Cosby used to reach out and steal our penalty flags. Someone would reach for their flag off their belt and it wouldn’t be there. He’d be on the sideline, holding it in his hand.

  But I’ve never seen anyone more excited to be at a college football game than George Lucas, of Star Wars fame. He was grand marshal of the Rose Parade in 2007 and when it was time for the coin toss, here he came, marching out to midfield, saying, “Isn’t this great?!” He had Darth Vader with him and everything.

  Ryan

  I am a Star Wars nut. Never before had I been jealous of Dad’s football experiences, but that day I was. I was watching on TV at home 3,000 miles from Pasadena, and could see Dad and the crew chatting it up with Lucas and Vader. The phone rang. It was my best friend from high school. He said, “Finally, we have verification of what we’ve always known. The refs are totally from the Dark Side of the Force.”

  Dad

  “Why did you never move up to the NFL?”

  I never wanted to. The way you ask that question is the same way most people ask it, but it’s not accurate. To me, and to a lot of us, the NFL wasn’t a move up. We loved college football. Now, I had a lot of colleagues who moved on to the NFL, and that’s what they wanted to do—especially when I was in the Big East, where so many of those guys had grown up in the northeast, where the NFL was always king. And I have loved watching so many of my friends working the NFL postseason and Super Bowls.

  There were windows when I could have done it. But I also had my day jobs, which were taking up more and more time, and Hannah and the boys. Every NFL weekend is multiple nights, there is frequent cross-country travel, and with preseason games, the
season lasts so long.

  I have so much admiration for NFL officials, but they are not necessarily the best refs in the country. They are the best of those who wanted to be in the NFL.

  The NFL is the dream for a lot of officials. It was never mine.

  Dad

  “Who was the craziest fan you ever had to deal with?”

  We’d had a very clean game at South Carolina. No controversial calls. Big difference in the score. Zero issues. None. As soon as the game was over, we were hustled into a van at Williams-Brice Stadium, still in in uniform, and we’re trying to back out and we can’t leave.

  There was one woman who was standing behind the van, slapping the window with one hand and just screaming at us. “You damned cheating SOBs!” Just over and over, screaming at us. She was so skinny, she looked like a skeleton, and she had a cigarette hanging off her lip, barely hanging on. And in the hand that she wasn’t using to smack the van, she was holding a baby.

  Dad

  “What’s the craziest thing anyone ever threw onto the field?”

  Thankfully, this didn’t happen much. I was always a little worried about that. But we were so far away from the stands, it wasn’t usually a problem. There was one time we had an official who had to leave a game because he was hit by a coin that someone had thrown from the stands and it hit him in the calf. That might not sound like much, but if someone has fired that thing from the upper deck and it hits you, that’s really dangerous. We had a guy hit with a liquor bottle at Georgia Tech.

  But as for crazy, the only time someone topped the high school chain crew who threw all their markers onto the field over my head, it was from the student section at Boston College. There was a routine incomplete pass play, no contact or anything, and a penalty flag came sailing over my head and landed right on the exact spot where the play had happened. Referee Walter Davenport came over. “Jerry, what you got?” I said, “Walter, I don’t have a damn thing. That flag came in from the stands.”

  Walter got on the microphone and warned the crowd about throwing objects onto the field, but the Boston College coaches and I couldn’t stop laughing about it. I walked over in front of the student section and I held both flags in my hands, looking at one and then the other. Then I just shrugged and stuck them both in my pockets. The students thought that was pretty funny.