Blowing the whistle - Black referees

Ebony, Feb, 1992 by Douglas C. Lyons

NO one told Leo Miles that calling a National Football League game would be easy. In fact, very little in his background would prepare him for his duties as a professional sports official.

"I remember during my first game that a fight broke out, and I found myself battling in there to separate the players," he recalls. "When I looked around, I didn't see anybody else in there except me. So afterwards I asked them [the other officialsw] what did they do when the players fought? They said, 'Stand back and take numbers.'"

Playing the part of Solomon in sports has been a simple matter, but a lot has changed since Miles' first season in the NFL. As a league supervisor of officials, he now holds one of the top officiating positions in sports. He also has more company in calling the games. There are currently about 200 Black officials who blow the whistle in professional and Division I college sports.

Blacks hold 25 of the 215 officiating positions in major league baseball, the NBA and the NFL. Professional boxing has only six Black referees who officiate championship-level bouts.

Another 150-plus Black referees, field judges, head linesmen and umpires are among the estimated 2,000 officials who call NCAA Division I football as well as men's and women's basketball games.

But African-Americans, as these figures indicate, are still underrepresented in the upper echelon of officiating.

There are only 10 Black officials in the NFL, and only one of them, Johnny Grier, holds the top spot of referee.

Eric Gregg and Charlie Williams of the National League were baseball's only Black umpires for almost 13 years until Charlie Merriweather recently became an alternate in the American League.

The NBA has the largest number of Black officials in professional sports--12.

Women are also scarce in big-time officiating, and are concentrated largely in collegiate women's basketball. Even so, the number of Black women officials can be counted on one hand: two in the Big East, one in the Big Eight and two in the Pac-10 conferences.

"One problem is that women don't have wives," says Agnes Norman, who supervises Big East Conference women basketball officials. "I rarely do overnights. If I have a game in, say, Philadelphia, then I drive [from her home in Washington, D.C.], do the game and return home, because I have to get the kids up the next morning for school. We talk about this to our younger women officials because it is a reality."

Officiating is largely a part-time job, and most referees must juggle their time between the world of sports and their more pedestrian "day" jobs. (Only major league baseball umpires and NBA officials work full-time jobs.)

For example, when Johnny Grier isn't calling NFL games as the league's only Black referee, he can be found working in Washington, D.C., as a telephone company engineer. John Daniels wears two hats as an official. He is a football referee in the Big East Conference and the mayor of New Haven, Conn.

Given the profession's rigors and barriers, why would anyone want to be a sports official anyway?

Money may be one consideration.

Major league baseball umpires and NBA referees earn anywhere from $30,000 to over $100,000 a year, according to National Sports Officials Association estimates. The annual salaries for NFL officials range from $20,000 to $45,000, and referres in NCAA college men's basketball and football earn $350 to $450 per game, almost twice the wages paid to college women's basketball officials, association figures show.

But money isn't the only attraction. Officiating is the perfect way to stay close to the thrills and the action of organized sports. "When I worked as a 9-5 person, I could go in and do my job blindfolded," says baseball umpire Williams. "You can't do this job blindfolded. Once you say 'play ball,' you have no idea what is going to take place, and that's very intriguing to me."

Williams began calling baseball games in 1968 to pay his expenses at California State University at Los Angeles. He continued working high school and college games part-time until 1975 when a supervisor urged him to attend classes for major league umpires. He did and in 1978 was called up to the majors.

Miles is another official who simply enjoys the game. As an NFL supervisor, he assigns officials to upcoming games and sends observers to college games to scout prospective pro officials. On weekends, he relaxes by traveling to an NFL city to work with an officiating crew before and after the game.

It is a nice job for a man who has spent most of his life around football and more than 20 years as an NFL head linesman. "Football means so much to me personally," he says. "It has helped me adjust and become a useful and productive citizen. I relate a lot of that to football."

Calling a game requires that each official has the necessary athletic abilities, common sense, fairness, knowledge of the sport and level-headed temperament. However, the good officials bring something more to the game.