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See Real Refs Get Standing Ovation Before First NFL Game Back

Sep. 28, 2012 7:19am Jonathon M. Seidl

Real referees get standing ovation at Browns Ravens game

Referee Gene Steratore, right, and back judge Bob Waggoner, left, look around the field before an NFL football game between the Baltimore Ravens and Cleveland Browns in Baltimore, Thursday, Sept. 27, 2012. Credit: AP

BALTIMORE (AP) — No one is complaining that the refs cost the Cleveland Browns the game. That mere fact is a major victory for the NFL and the seven-man crew led by referee Gene Steratore, who brought official harmony back to the nation’s most popular league.

Cheered from the moment they walked onto the field, the men in stripes ran a smooth and efficient game Thursday night as the NFL’s lockout of officials came to an end with the Baltimore Ravens’ 23-16 win over the Browns.

“To just be applauded by 50,000 people prior to anything happening, it was something that kind of chokes you up,” Steratore said. “It was a very special feeling.”

Sure, there were calls that made both sides unhappy. Browns coach Pat Shurmur drew an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for arguing an intentional grounding call, and Ravens left tackle Michael Oher could be heard raising all kinds of beef about a holding call.

But, overall, the officials kept the game in control, curtailing the chippy play and choppy pace – not to mention the inconsistent calls – that had marred the three weeks of games with replacement officials.

“It was great to have those guys back,” Ravens running back Ray Rice said. “It looked like they knew what they were doing.”

An agreement to end the lockout was reached late Wednesday after marathon negotiations, two days after a “Monday Night Football” finish brought debate over the use of the replacements to a fevered pitch nationwide.

That game ended when a 24-yard desperation pass on the last play was ruled a touchdown – even though replays appeared to show it should have been an interception – giving the Seattle Seahawks a disputed 14-12 victory over the Green Bay Packers.

The stage was set for something eerily similar Thursday. A fourth-down unnecessary roughness penalty on Baltimore’s Paul Kruger – a good call, given the way he shoved Cleveland’s Joe Thomas after the whistle – gave the Browns one final play from the 18-yard line.

But Brandon Weeden’s 18-yard pass sailed high as time expired. No controversial ending this time.

“I thought they handled (the game) great,” Cleveland coach Pat Shurmur said. “I had all the confidence in the world that this was going to be officiated in the right way.”

Referee Gene Steratore, left, talks with Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh before an NFL football game between the Ravens and the Cleveland Browns in Baltimore, Thursday, Sept. 27, 2012. Credit: AP

The newfound love for the refs was evident all evening.

About an hour before kickoff, they made their first appearance on the field and heard cheers from the early arrivals. A few minutes later, Steratore was shaking hands with Shurmur near midfield and getting a hug from Ravens face-of-the-franchise Ray Lewis at the 30-yard line.

Later, when the crew returned, they received a standing ovation and doffed their caps to the crowd. One fan held up a sign that read: “Finally! We get to yell at real refs! Welcome back!”

“It was very chaotic with the replacement refs,” said Karen Riley, a 44-year-old fan wearing a Rice jersey. “They couldn’t control the players on either side. There were bad calls, constantly, and in some cases refs making different calls at the same time.”

When Steratore then turned on his microphone to greet the captains for the pre-game coin toss, the crowd heard him say: “Good evening, men. It’s good to be back.”

The stadium erupted in a roar.

“You know we always pride ourselves in being a face without a name,” Steratore, a 10-year league veteran, told The Associated Press about an hour before kickoff. “This will be a little different, but I don’t expect it to last too long. And that’s the goal – is that we can let them get through that portion of this. It’s happy to be back, it’s happy to be appreciated. But then as soon as the game starts, it’s happy to disappear again and let the entertainers entertain.”

The deal to end the lockout is only tentative – it must be ratified by 51 percent of the union’s 121 members in a vote scheduled for Friday and Saturday in Dallas – but both sides nevertheless went forward with the plan to have the regulars back for Thursday’s game.

So Steratore hustled to Baltimore, making the 3 1/2-hour drive Thursday morning from his home in the Pittsburgh area. He’s usually in place the day before a game, but none of his regular pregame meetings had to be changed because the Browns-Ravens game was at night.

“We’ve had a few weeks to actually realize that this was the first September that I was home for multiple Saturdays and Sundays for almost 30 years of my life, continuously. … It just feels completely different,” Steratore said. “To be away from something that is involved with this level of professional sport, just to come back and feel that again, it doesn’t take long to realize why you were missing it as much as you were missing it.”

Steratore, who is a basketball official in the Big East Conference among others, also was fully aware he would be jeered the first time his crew made a questionable call – just like always.

“Without a question,” he said. “I’ve been yelled at by my own children many times, so this won’t be any different.”

Sure enough, the same fans that cheered the coin toss let out a full chorus of boos when line judge Jeff Seeman tossed his yellow flag some 20 yards to whistle Baltimore safety Bernard Pollard for a personal foul in the third quarter. Replays showed it was a good call: Pollard led with his helmet to make contact with a defenseless receiver, costing the Ravens 15 yards in a drive that led to a field goal for the Browns.

Steratore’s crew nearly made a misstep in the first quarter, incorrectly spotting the ball by 2 yards after a misapplication of the rules following a holding call on the Browns. But two members of the crew caught the mistake and notified the referee before the next snap. A brief huddle ensued, and the ball was moved to its correct spot.

The crew made it clear it wouldn’t tolerate the extra shoving and yelling after the whistle that had been frequently permitted by the replacements. Offsetting personal fouls were called on Cleveland’s Johnson Bademosi and Baltimore’s James Ihedigbo for extracurricular roughness on a punt return in the first quarter.

Then there was Shurmur’s unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. Replays appeared to validate the grounding call he was trying to contest, and the coach took responsibility for his loss of temper.

“I can’t do that,” Shurmur said. “It’s an emotional game, and I got to make sure I keep my emotions in check.”

There were 18 penalties called in the game, mostly the familiar calls for holding and false start. There were two rare – and indisputable – whistles for fair catch interference on punt returns, and a hands-to-the-face call on Baltimore’s Kelechi Osemele was so obvious that it drew three flags.

The league’s new agreement with the officials runs for eight years. Commissioner Roger Goodell acknowledged the ending of the Seahawks-Packers game “may have pushed the parties further along” in the talks.

“Obviously when you go through something like this it is painful for everybody,” Goodell said. “Most importantly, it is painful for our fans. We are sorry to have to put our fans through that, but it is something that in the short term you sometimes have to do to make sure you get the right kind of deal for the long term and make sure you continue to grow the game.”

The dispute even made its way to the campaign trail, with President Barack Obama’s spokesman, Jay Carney, calling Thursday “a great day for America.”

“The president’s very pleased that the two sides have come together,” Carney said.

—

AP Sports Writer Rachel Cohen and AP Pro Football Writer Barry Wilner in New York, AP Pro Football Writer Howard Fendrich in Washington, and AP Sports Writer David Ginsburg in Baltimore contributed to this report.

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Comments (22)

Eblaze44
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 3:58pm
Here is one of the TRUE problems with America – the country can go to HELL, but God forbid we don’t get our FOOTBALL fix. I wonder if that’s how the Roman’s felt about the “games” in their stadium while Nero burned Rome.

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RAMJR
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 12:18pm
The replacement refs had players & coaches getting in their faces. Did they blow some calls? Yep, sure did, but if anyone thinks the same won’t happen, soon enough, by the ‘official’ officials, who are union & trained with dollars paid by those who go to the game & the revenue from television & cable, their a fool.
remember what it was like before instant replay, & these same ‘officials’? They blew lots of calls, & being a ticket holder, I remember many times watching the replays the joke of the officiating that went on.
Are they better trained? Yep, but they better be.
Now, what you don’t see, is what was negotiated behind closed doors. What will it cost those who go to the game. Increasing in parking, increase in ticket prices, increase in NFL apparel?
Hey, I’m happy someone has a job because of football, but the big picture is this is going to transfer into more unions striking and making others pay. Teachers, auto workers, government, etc.
Other sports are lining up to get theirs as we speak.
It is great to have a distraction away from the immorality, lies & liars of the value of this government & those attached at the hip to this administration.
The first thing I see before the Atlanta Falcons kick off, is a huge picture of Samuel Jackson, the celebrity mascot of the Atlanta Falcons, say “Rise Up”.
When I think of who he is & what he stands with, those words seem even more appropriate to the value of those words coming out of his mouth. RISE UP!

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Brainmuffin
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 12:18pm
NFL fan. Modern day buffoon.

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jungle J
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 11:37am
It is so confusing that people care so much to have truth at the sporting events but then teach their children to lie and steal and vote the dishonest in as judges. Only the sane understand. Rabid sports fans are the trojan horse in America at war.

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G-WHIZ
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 10:53am
The “replacements” were THROWN-OUT of their previous “positions” for being completely incompitent…NO knowledge of the game they were reffereeing! I wonder whom was the one who did the “reccommemding” of these hacks?? As a gradeschool-kid, I had some birth-defects in my feet so I could not run-far or do some of the needed runnuing in many of the gym-games durring class. The kids voted me as refferree since I didn’t need to really “play” the games. I did not know much about the intricacies of the games, but the oter kids and teacher respected my “calls” (most of them were correct!). By-the-way, I got at least a [C] on the grades each period.

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republic2011
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 10:46am
Hmmm… Anyone absolutely sure the replacement refs didn’t bungle their calls so badly on purpose to help their buddies get their Union dispute fast tracked? In this day and age, I would believe anything.

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mike551
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 9:14am
If I got $160,000 to a high of $210,000 for a part time job I would get a special feeling too. Unions intimidate and fleece yet another corporation. Yea. IMPEACH THE MUSLIM OBAMA NOW!!! WAKE THE HELL UP AMERICA!!!

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- Nepenthe
  Posted on September 28, 2012 at 9:39am
  Hahahahahahahahaha intimidate and fleece?!?!?! Hahahahahahahahaha the level that some people have become inhinged in regards to the super-wealthy is truly remarkable. Each team could have given a measely $100,000 each, for the year, and that would have satistifed all of the demands of the refs. That is less than 1% of the total profit each team brings in. How you could posibly believe that the words ‘intimidation’ and ‘fleecing’ are appropriate is beyond me.
  
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- Xplorer
  Posted on September 28, 2012 at 10:58am
  @Nepenthe
  
  Glad you look at the end profit, have you no consideration what was invested? I am not standing up for NFL as anyone working for them makes more in a contract than I have created with my small business in a year. but still, I am so sick and tired of people just looking at the “profit” instead of what was invested to create that profit. 1% here, 1% there, whatever, Get a life.
  
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- Nepenthe
  Posted on September 28, 2012 at 11:32am
  Get a life? By taking home the tiniest fraction less than what they would have, the owners could have ended this before it began.
  
  Report this comment
Gonzo
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 9:08am
I’m glad they’re back, but it’s sad to think that more men in this country feel more personally effected by a NFL ref strike than the Presidential election. If Obama is reelected, it’s a failure of American manhood.

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- imsteph
  Posted on September 28, 2012 at 9:43am
  my thoughts exactly…
  saw the headline and gagged.
  
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- Nepenthe
  Posted on September 28, 2012 at 2:03pm
  There was no NFL ref strike.
  
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Rayblue
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 9:01am
People cheer for stupider stuff than that.
Give standing ovations for truly awful reasons over and over again.
If they want to pay more out of the pocket for the same old calls then by all means let’em.

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ares338
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 7:54am
Standing ovation? What the he11 for? For using extortion like the rest of the thug unionists. Now we have overpaid sniveling refs to go along with the overpaid sniveling athletes! I have tuned out pro football. What a racket!

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blanco5
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 7:46am
Wow, America, we need to seriously rethink our heroes. Standing ovation—-really????

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chershaw8
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 7:37am
The fans won’t be standing long when the league asks owners of teams to pony up for the ref’s union deal. 50 bucks more a ticket….you don’t think the owners will take the hit do you?

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- Nepenthe
  Posted on September 28, 2012 at 2:06pm
  They could lower the price of tickets by 50$ and still could have easily covered the cost of what was being asked by the ref union and still take home more money in a year than the vast majority of people will see in their lifetime.
  
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RJJinGadsden
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 7:34am
How long will it take for this bunch to start being booed again? Eventually, they will be back to their old standards of just being slightly better than their former replacements.

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- bpodlesnik
  Posted on September 28, 2012 at 8:15am
  I give it a week, maybe two.
  
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- RJJinGadsden
  Posted on September 28, 2012 at 8:27am
  BPODLESNIK, My, aren’t you the optimistic one today! LOL, actually I hope you are right, but it will happen again soon enough.
  
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- mcmeador
  Posted on September 28, 2012 at 8:42am
  Haha, that’s exactly what I was thinking. People made such a big deal about the bad calls the replacement refs were making like the real refs are perfect. Being a stand-in just put them under a higher degree of scrutiny. Sure, they might have made some amateur mistakes, but I feel like all the fuss was a bit exaggerated.
  
  I also found it ironic that people were upset with their bad calls and turning their anger toward the NFL for their supposed greed and lack of professionalism when the NFL was actually trying to put policies in place that would make the real refs accountable for their performance, and the real refs were fighting it!
  
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