Zebras: Unsung and endangered

By Darrell Laurant

Published: September 14, 2008

OK, let’s hear it for the zebras.

No, I’m not talking about the horse-like animals with black and white stripes that are often eaten by lions. The zebras to which I refer are similarly striped, but human. Honest.

They are, of course, football officials. And they have a thankless job, literally.

I’ve probably read thousands of printed accounts of college and pro football games, and I’ve yet to encounter this sentence: “The officiating crew did an excellent job today.”

Which was always OK with Bill Booker.

“What you hope for,” he said, “is not to be noticed.”

Good luck with that, though, because not many people have the ability to anger/disappoint 50,000 people at once — and do it by the simple act of dropping a piece of cloth.

“Your” running back gallops 60 yards for a touchdown, the scoreboard lights up, cheerleaders prance, the crowd goes crazy … but, wait. There is a penalty flag on the field, and the play comes back.

When this happens to your team, the official who made the call is always wrong. That’s a given.

He also obviously favors the other team, probably because he is being paid by them, or is hiding some nefarious relationship with someone in their camp. Oh, yes — and he’s visually impaired.

Altavista resident Booker, a zebra for more than 40 years, learned to shrug it all off. He started out with high school games because he needed money to augment his teacher’s salary, and worked his way up to the Atlantic Coast Conference and handling major college bowl games.

I called Booker and Robin Wood, another longtime college official, because of a play I saw in a televised NFL game recently. A New York Jets’ player caught a short pass in the middle of the field, took two steps and ran smack into the umpire (the official who stands behind the defense).

This reminded me that at least two officials in the college game — the referee and the umpire — are positioned where all the action happens, much like a construction flagman out on the interstate. The players grow ever larger and move from place to place ever faster. Moreover, they wear more armor than the Knights of the Round Table, while the officials (usually mere mortals in size) are unprotected.

“My first year doing college games, I broke my ankle,” said Wood, a Lynchburg businessman whose officiating career roughly paralleled that of his friend Bill Booker. “The back got the ball and started out to his left. I followed him. Then he cut back to his right. I was still following him. It was when he changed directions a third time that he got me.”

As each play unfolds, officials are watching for a myriad of possible infractions, a concentration that sometimes leaves them vulnerable.

“You learn, over the years, how to anticipate what might happen next,” Booker said, “but there are always surprises. I’ve had footballs bounce off me — the official is just considered part of the field, and so it’s still a ‘live’ ball.”

One of his colleagues’ officiating career ended with a concussion that occurred when he was accidentally leveled by a large young man on a mission, and Booker admits, “It makes you think.”

No wonder officials form an unofficial “band of brothers” who share experiences and look out for one another.

“Robin and I hold a golf tournament every year for retired officials,” said Booker. “We’ve done it for years.”

And nobody gets hurt.