Gerald Austin: Cut by the NFL

Gerry Austin is a local man; can't believe the way the NFL handled this...

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The NFL decides game over for Austin
Monday, May. 19, 2008 3:00 am
Gerald Austin
Age: 67
Resides: Summerfield
Background: 31 years in school administration; 26 years as an NFL official, 18 as a referee; officiated ACC football games and basketball games for nine years.

Employment: Founder of The Austin Group, a leadership training and strategic planning firm; currently coordinator of officials for Conference USA.
Education: Western Carolina University (bachelor's and masters); UNCG (doctorate).

Notable: Worked three Super Bowls (1995, 97 and 99); also officiated 1977 Orange Bowl and 1978 Liberty Bowl. Won NFL's Art McNally Award 2006, for exemplary professionalism, leadership and commitment to sportsmanship on and off the field.

Family: Wife, Sylvia; six children; eight grandchildren.

Referee No. 34 has worn his jersey for the final time. Gerald Austin has retired.

He didn't want to, but the NFL has a funny way of telling its officials they're no longer needed.

"I got a letter," Austin said.

It came to his house in Summerfield, and he knew what it was before he opened the envelope. He'd had an inkling that this was coming down. As the senior official in the entire league, Austin knew his days were numbered.

"I had the big target on my back," he said. "I understand the league's position. They have to maintain a continuity of turnover. It's what keeps the league fresh. I saw it over and over again for 26 years."

He walks away with his head up at age 67, one of the best officials of his generation, still in good health, still with the eyes of a hawk, still grading out among the top referees in the league. And still with Philip Rivers' shrill voice ringing in his ears.

Austin's last game was the AFC divisional playoff game between San Diego and Indianapolis, a bitter standoff between two of the best teams in the league, a hotly contested game that saw tempers boil over and players and coaches chasing officials off the field at halftime. That was when Rivers, the San Diego quarterback who played at N.C. State, flipped the ball to Austin as the teams headed to the locker rooms. The television cameras caught Austin jerking his head back around as Rivers began to run off.

"I told him, 'Philip, you don't want to do that again,' " Austin said.

When it ended, and Rivers' team had won the game, the traditional gesture of giving the game ball to the winning quarterback didn't transpire.

"The umpire got the ball," Austin said. "We didn't tell anybody. It's a $1,500 fine. We took the ball with us, and the crew signed it. I've got that ball now."

Austin knows exactly what he's going to be doing on the first Sunday of the NFL season this fall. He's going to be watching television.

"It's probably a good thing there's not a stadium nearby," he said. "I might just put that uniform back on and crash the gate."

He's been walking through the gates since he first walked into old McCormick Field back in Asheville when he was just a kid. He was 11 years old and vending hot dogs, but even then he seemed to know what he wanted to do. At the age of 23, he was made commissioner of Little League baseball for the city of Asheville.

"They couldn't get anybody else to do it," he said.

There were problems. Umpires were impossible to find. Coaches were out of control. The city was about to revoke the charter allowing the league to use the city fields.

"My second week on the job I had a coach chase off an umpire with a baseball bat," Austin said. "So I had my work cut out for me."

He found a sponsor and hired some high school boys to be his umpires for $2 a game. One was a teenage kid from Swannanoa named Williams.

"Roy was a sophomore I think," Austin said. "He was a good boy. I made him head umpire. He wanted out halfway through the season. He stuck it out, though. He told me at the end of the year not to ask him to do it again."

Austin, who grew up in Woodfin just outside of Asheville, would go to Western Carolina, where he got his bachelor's and his masters, then later earned a doctorate at UNCG. He would form the leadership training firm Austin Group, work high school then ACC basketball and football games before getting the call from the NFL. For eight years he wore the black hats of the various side judges and back judges and umpires, then 18 years ago got the call to wear one of the white hats. There's a limited number of them, and it's a numbers game. He knows his entry into the tight circle of head referees meant someone else had to go.

That irony came full circle last week when the NFL ended his career as a league official.

"I understand the nature of the business," he said.

That's referee talk. He's not happy about it one bit. His wife Sylvia keeps telling him it's not the end of the world.

"She keeps telling me 'You're going to survive'," he said.

And he will. Old referees don't stop officiating when they come and take the white hat. They steal the last football and keep watching the game with razor eyes and rapier wit and just daring somebody to dispute their word. Austin will continue to train young officials, continue to serve as the supervisor of officials for Conference USA, keep watching games and waiting for the phone to ring.

The league talked to him about moving to New York and working in the office there five days a week. But with six kids, one in high school, and eight grandchildren, he knew he'd have to go alone. And he wasn't about to do that.

He thinks he'll stay here a while, keeping one eye on his family and one on his businesses and looking at the white hat and football he stole with the eyes in the back of his head.

Austin was one of the best referees we ever saw, and his colleagues honestly believed he could see everything. But the league saw it differently, as it's wont to do, and referee No. 34 quietly retired Thursday afternoon. Quietly and grudgingly.