Sidelines and Bloodlines

by Ryan McGee

  I said, “I don’t know, man. I guess I’m just that fast.”

  But all of that being said. Even the good guys have bad days.

  As Dad tells that story, we are in his home in Charlotte, North Carolina. These days he lives only a few miles away from me, and Sam lives at almost the precise halfway point between us. It’s the first time since those days in the 1980s that we have all lived in the same place.

  He is talking about interacting with coaches on the sideline and how he always worked hard to adhere to another of Mr. Norval Neve’s oft-repeated commandments of officiating advice.

  Dad

  He would say, “You will get in more trouble for what you say on the sideline than what you call in the game.”

  I would be lying if I said I always stuck to that rule. But I certainly always tried to.

  There are two rooms here in Dad’s house that are decorated almost exclusively in sports memorabilia. One is his personal collection of baseball stuff. I call it McCooperstown. The other is the TV room, where he now spends many of his college football Saturdays, watching games between four walls that are covered in mementos from his own days on the field. In the houses of my youth, his walls were covered with the pennants of the nearly 150 different teams he shared the field with. His current collection is more modest, though that’s a relative term.

  There are so many commemorative coins, flipped before so many games gone by. There is a stack of program covers from those games. Dad used to have those covers photographed and put into framed collages depicting each season’s schedule, but he quit doing that after a while because “when you start something like that, you don’t expect to do it for 30 years.”

  There are ring and watch display boxes packed with jewelry engraved with the logos of games ranging from the Plymouth Holiday Bowl and Sega Las Vegas Bowl to the classic red Rose Bowl emblem, set in gold. Wherever Dad wears it, it’s a showstopper.

  But the space that always grabs the attention of visitors is what I have always called the Wall of Screaming. It’s a series of framed photos purchased from newspaper photographers around the nation, images we spotted on Sunday mornings at airport newsstands while waiting to fly back from games, or, in later years, on university websites. Many of them are big moments. Standing at the goal line as Penn State’s Curtis Enis hauls in a touchdown against USC in the Kickoff Classic at the Meadowlands in ’96. Laughing it up with Frank Howard at Clemson in ’86. Standing with the Florida State captains moments before marching to midfield for the coin toss at the inaugural ACC Championship Game in ’05. Eyeballing a diving catch by Georgia Tech’s James Johnson vs. archrival Georgia in the game they call “Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate.”

  However, the best photos are of the angry coaches.

  There’s Joe Morrison, the man who built South Carolina into something other than an also-ran, who introduced the Gamecocks’ black jerseys and their 2001: A Space Odyssey stadium entrance, on the sideline during the Clemson game of ’84. “Old Dependable” is screaming, his jaw unhinged, and appears to be pointing directly at Dad, who appears to be totally ignoring the coach.

  The caption that accompanied that photo in the Sunday morning paper read: Coach Joe Morrison explains his point of view to a less than interested official.

  Dad

  I don’t think he’s even actually yelling at me, but the camera angle sure makes it look like he is, doesn’t it? I don’t know. Maybe he was. What I do remember about that game was that I had to get the South Carolina captains for the coin toss, but no one knew who the captains were because Morrison picked them game-by-game. They told me I needed to ask him, and they walked me down to a door under the stadium. I opened it, and there was Joe Morrison, sitting totally alone on a folding chair in the middle of an empty concrete room. There was one light bulb hanging right over him, like a spotlight, and the room was full of smoke. He was sitting there, basically in the dark, chain smoking like crazy before the game.

  “Uh…Coach, I need to know who your captains are…”

  There’s Lou Holtz, coaching in that same game 15 years later, finishing up his first year at South Carolina with an 0–11 record and a 31–21 loss to Clemson. In this photo, Dad is walking toward Holtz, likely delivering yet another dose of bad news at the end of a season full of it. The coach has his arms folded and his face buried in one hand.

  Dad

  South Carolina was actually in that game way longer than anyone expected them to be. I hadn’t seen Lou in a few years, and when he spotted me during the pregame, he laughed said, “Jerry, I’m 0–10 and I need a friend so badly I’m going to hug an official.”

  Several years ago, I showed a copy of the photo to Holtz. He said, “I wasn’t mad at your father at that moment. I am pretty sure what I was thinking was, ‘Now, where exactly am I going to take my wife, Beth, on vacation once this season is finally over?’”

  The most notable photo on the Wall of Screaming was taken in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on October 6, 2006, when Duke visited Alabama. Crimson Tide head coach Mike Shula is standing, at most, two feet off the back of Dad’s head, his mouth wide open and his hand extended to underline the point he’s so angrily exclaiming. Once again, Dad seems to be purposely ignoring it, looking toward the scoreboard clock as he fills out his penalty card with the details of the foul that Shula is so unhappy about.

  Alabama won that game 30–14, the third-from-last win of Shula’s four-year Tuscaloosa tenure. Six weeks later, he was fired. They replaced him with some guy named Nick Saban.

  Dad

  When I look at that picture, what I think about is the amount of pressure these coaches are under. When Mike Shula was unloading on me that night, he probably already knew he was finished. It’s a reminder that you never truly know what’s going on with a coach behind closed doors.

  The reality is that over 404 games of college football officiating, almost all of it on the sideline, I only remember a very few times when a coach truly just flipped out on me. And looking back, like Shula that night, there was almost always something else behind it.

  Take, for instance, Jim Young. During Young’s 17 years as head coach at Arizona, Purdue, and Army, he was universally considered one of the truly good guys of college football. So, Dad was shocked on September 27, 1986, when Wake Forest traveled to West Point and his experience on Young’s sideline at Michie Stadium was a cacophony of cuss words. The Black Knights were favored in the game by a couple of touchdowns, but instead were trailing the Demon Deacons early en route to a blowout upset loss.

  There was a bad call late in the second quarter, a defensive pass interference flag on the other side of the field. Those officials were too far away to hear Young, so he aimed his anger at the field judge, the ref who was most easily at his disposal. He stalked Dad up and down the sideline, screaming over and over again, “You have already f--ked up this entire game!”

  Sam

  I think football fans assume an official is out there just looking for a reason to throw his penalty flag, but the good ones have the complete opposite approach. Typically, if a player draws an unsportsmanlike penalty, or even something like a holding, there’s a really good chance the official has already warned them about it at least once. Keep that up, and we’re going to have to flag you.

  Anyone who doesn’t believe that needs to do what we have always done, and really watch how a good sideline official reacts to a coach who has spent a ridiculous amount of time in the game screaming, yelling, and complaining. The official will walk away from a coach like that. They will warn him directly. They will even go to other people on the sideline and say, “Hey, someone needs to calm him down before he draws an unsportsmanlike.” If it keeps it up after that, there is going to be a penalty. Or, if he breaks the golden rule.

  Ah yes, the golden rule. When it comes to flagging a coach with a personal foul, the guideline is very simple. You only unfurl the yellow
napkin when their rants have become personal. For example: “That’s was the stupidest goddamn call I’ve ever seen!” is okay. But “You are stupidest goddamn human being I have ever seen!” is not. If you need a more detailed illustration, please watch the film Bull Durham and the scene where Crash Davis calls the umpire the one name he knows you can never call an umpire, because he’s trying to get thrown out of the game and perhaps get his teammates to finally become fired-up and focused.

  Jim Young kept railing, and it was getting worse. Dad went to the Army assistant coaches and asked them to tell their boss to cool off, because he didn’t want to flag the supposed nicest man in football. They told Dad no way, he was on his own.

  Dad

  The clock is ticking down to the end of the first half, and he is just getting louder and louder. I’m watching the clock thinking, Okay, we’re going to be saved by the bell here. Then, with about 38 seconds remaining, Young leaned right into my ear and screamed, “You guys are just a bunch of goddamn sonsofbitches, aren’t you?!” I threw my flag. Personal foul, 15 yards.

  I went in to the white hat, Bob Cooper, and he said, “What in the hell have you done? That’s probably the nicest head coach in America.”

  I said, “Well, I flagged him.”

  Bob said, “Why? What did he say?”

  “He called me a goddamn sonofabitch.”

  Bob said, “Well, you are a goddamn sonofabitch.”

  I told Bob, “Well, he said you were a goddamn sonofabitch, too.”

  Bob said, “Well, then give me that damn football…” and he marked off the 15-yard penalty.

  Nearly a decade later, Dad was back at Michie Stadium for a Rutgers-Army matchup, as part of a Big East officiating crew. As that crew held their pregame meeting, in walked Jim Young, now retired as a football coach but still omnipresent in West Point as a living legend. Young introduced himself to the room.

  Dad

  When I said my name, he said, “You know, there used to be a McGee who officiated in the ACC.” I told him, yeah, I know. It was me. He said, “You are the only official who ever flagged me during a game.”

  I asked him, “Well, did you deserve it?” And Coach Young said, “Oh, hell yes; the only mistake you made was that you didn’t flag me five minutes earlier. Sorry about that, I was just trying to do something to wake my team up.”

  Just like Crash Davis.

  One night at Virginia, George Welch started riding Dr. Earnest Benson, a veteran ACC official who was also a longtime educator at Albany State. Welch wouldn’t stop. He, too, had gotten personal, saying something about Dr. Benson’s relationship with his mother. So, Benson threw his flag: unsportsmanlike conduct, Virginia.

  When the crew gathered midfield to discuss the penalty, someone asked, “Ernie, where’s your flag?” When they all turned back toward the sideline to see if it was on the turf, they spotted Welch, who was still stomping up and down that sideline…unaware that Dr. Benson’s yellow penalty flag was sitting on his shoulder.

  Dad

  Another night at Virginia, Booker had a pass interference penalty against UVA during what was already a really bad night. A few minutes later, there was a TV timeout and I walked by Booker there on the Virginia sideline. He said, “Did I get that call right?” I told him, “Yes, it was a great guess.” So, he smiled at me, tobacco sticking all out of his teeth and said, “Well, kiss me.”

  I just lost it laughing, right there on the field.

  The next week we got our evaluation from Coach Welch and he wrote: “I’m getting my ass handed to me and McGee thinks it’s funny.”

  Dad wasn’t laughing at Welch. But he was laughing at Syracuse head coach Paul Pasqualoni, who got so lathered up emotionally that he also got himself lathered up literally.

  Dad

  I said, “Paul, you have to calm down. There are TV cameras on us right now and you are slobbering all over yourself.”

  Some of the worst offenders weren’t coaches at all. Ask any sideline official who worked a Miami Hurricanes game during the Jimmy Johnson era and they will tell you that the famously vocal head coach was never the foulest-mouthed man on The U sideline. It was the priest he always had there with him. The biggest mouth in the 1990 Orange Bowl wasn’t that priest, but it was a Catholic. A Notre Dame reserve started stalking Dad along the sideline to shout his profanity-drenched complaints.

  Sam

  His white jersey was completely clean, just pristine. Clearly, he hadn’t played, because we’d gotten to go down on the field the day before and realized it wasn’t a field at all. It was dirt that was spray-painted green, so green paint got all over anyone who had been in the game. Hell, he might not have played all season.

  Dad turned to him and said, “Son, do you really want to have to tell your grandchildren that you got thrown out of an Orange Bowl that you never even played in?”

  But the headliners were and forever shall be the head coaches, especially the smart ones.

  The 1986 regular season finale for Virginia Tech was a massive game for the Hokies, and for a couple of reasons. Bill Dooley was in his ninth and final season in Blacksburg, and a win against Vanderbilt at home would mean an invitation to the Peach Bowl in Atlanta on New Year’s Eve. But Tech was struggling against the one-win Commodores. An early pass interference against Virginia Tech set Dooley off, immediately convinced that the SEC half of the split crew was out to screw over independent Virginia Tech. Then, when Dad and Booker didn’t call a penalty against Vandy that Dooley believed they should have, he officially moved into meltdown status. The f-bombs were loud and frequent for a solid 10 minutes.

  Booker and McGee, self-professed Bill Dooley admirers, finally agreed that enough was enough. Dad tossed his flag at Dooley’s feet. Unsportsmanlike, 15 yards. Dooley froze and looked down at the flag. He couldn’t believe it.

  When Dad received his grades from the game, Bill Dooley had given him a 10 out of 10, but added on the comments line: “Jerry McGee cannot take constructive criticism.”

  Dad

  I think back on those earliest conversations with Monte Kiffin at NC State. He was desperate to make it work, and came close to winning some big games. But he was fired not too long after that talk that we had in the locker room.

  There is so much pressure on these coaches. Some guys thrive on that. But I think, even for them, it’s hard for them to have any fun. Especially now versus back when I started.

  In August 2016, I was in attendance for our annual summer preseason ESPN college football seminar. Every ESPN college football anchor, reporter, and analyst from TV, radio, the website, you name it, along with all of our producers, editors, and other bosses, we were all sitting in rows in one giant hotel ballroom. I found myself residing with the rules experts, a group of retired officials, as well as a couple of the conference and national coordinators, all there to answer any rules questions from the room. I sat next to Doug Rhoads, Dad’s longtime crewmate. I had known him since I was a kid. He had just retired as the coordinator for the ACC and had joined ESPN to be an at-game rules analyst.

  During the officials’ panel Q&A session in front of the very large room, Rhoads suddenly found himself in a heated discussion with Al Groh, former longtime ACC coach (UNC, Wake Forest, Virginia, Georgia Tech) who had become an ESPN color analyst. Groh, apparently unhappy with the tone of the officiating panel, grabbed a hot microphone and started calling out the refs onstage, specifically addressing Rhoads. “You make these calls on the field, and there’s no consequence for you! You get a call wrong in a big game, and it might cost me my job…DOUG!”

  Rhoads, a former FBI agent and always the coolest guy in the room, smiled back at Groh and tried to defuse the situation. It worked, sort of. Groh left the room. When the session ended and Rhoads sat back down next to me, he leaned in and whispered, “You’re probably the only guy in this room who knows this is about the 100t
h time Al and I have had a disagreement in front of a big crowd. That had nothing to do with today. I’m pretty sure he’s still mad about a flag I had against him at Wake Forest in 1986.” Then he winked. “It’s pretty cool having a history like we do, isn’t it? Not me and Al. Me and you.”

  You never know what exactly is going through a coach’s mind or how long that thought (or grudge) might stick there, as they are constantly reshuffling their internal lists of that moment’s priorities, while also constantly conjuring up new concerns, anything that might prevent them from winning that day’s football game.

  For example, take that 1990 Orange Bowl, the one that started with Lou Holtz’s mystical all-knowing “where’s the family sitting?” trick. The day before, there was a meeting held between representatives of Notre Dame; Colorado; NBC Sports, the producers of the halftime show; Orange Bowl executives; and the operators of the Orange Bowl Stadium, who gathered to discuss timing, spacing, ground rules, and any concerns about all of the above.

  Sam

  That field was terrible. It was like a painted fairway you’d find at a bad municipal golf course. This the biggest game of Dad’s life. For the national championship. Our whole lives we’d wanted to see the Orange Bowl, with the Super Bowls and Miami Hurricanes games and all of those legendary games with Miami and Nebraska and Oklahoma we grew up watching.

  We got to go into the stadium and walked around, taking pictures. We even got to see Notre Dame wrapping up their final practice.

  But the place was a dump. It was cool. It was historic. But it was in bad shape. When we walked off the field, we had sand and green stuff all over our shoes. So, in my mind, when Dad comes out of this big logistics meeting that he has to attend, I’m thinking that the coaches of the two teams will have just raised hell about this terrible playing field. But that’s not what they were worried about.