NFL: Locked out

Richard Dunn

When the NFL season opens Sunday, Laird Hayes and his colleagues

will not be on football fields around the country blowing whistles and

throwing yellow flags.

Instead, the locked-out NFL officials will be doing other things for a

change, perhaps contemplating their future during the season’s first

weekend.

With replacements in line to replace the regular officials, who

rejected the NFL’s latest contract offer Thursday of a 60% pay increase,

veterans like Hayes hope the two sides can reach an agreement by the

second week of the season.

For Hayes, a side judge entering his seventh year as an NFL official,

rather than working a game Sunday he’ll be watching his 10-year-old son, Andy, play Junior All-American football for the Newport-Mesa Seahawks

against the Inglewood Jets at Bonita Creek Park in Newport Beach.

“Last year I saw two football games out of eight,” said Hayes, whose

NFL traveling schedule keeps him away from home about 25 weekends a year.

During Labor Day weekend, and the final week of NFL exhibition games,

Hayes spend two of three days surfing with his son at 28th Street in

Newport, another rarity this time of year.

But, while Hayes is enjoying more time with his family, the lock-out

is taking its toll. It’s hard for Hayes and his fellow referees to hear

and read the comments of NFL owners, players and coaches through the

media.

“A lot of what you’re reading in the general press is just not true,”

Hayes said, referring to early reports about NFL Europe and Arena League

officials working as replacements. “There are no (replacements) from NFL

Europe. None. And Art Modell, the Baltimore Ravens owner, said in Sports

Illustrated, ‘We’re prepared (to lock-out the officials). Now, if we lose

our beer vendors, then you’ve got a problem.’ Part of me laughs, but part

of me gets upset. I found that (quote) very offensive.”

Airline pilots have Federal Aviation Administration rules saying they

can’t drink alcohol eight hours or less before a flight; for NFL

referees, it’s 36 hours. Former FBI investigators interrogate every inch

of their personal lives before the NFL hires them. The NFL trains its

officials not to fight back at irate coaches on the sideline, different

than, say, how baseball umpires react in arguments.

The point is, Hayes and his colleagues feel they’re “the best

officials in pro sports ... you never see an NFL guy get confrontational.

We’re trained not to ... I don’t expect these (replacements) to be very

good. There are way too many differences, too many nuances.”

Perhaps a television news replay of a bad call will get the league

rushing back to the negotiating table next week.

What Hayes and others from the rank and file want is fairness and a

degree of equality on par with the other three major sports’ officials.

It’s not about the number of games each sport plays, Hayes argues,

it’s about time, which, he says, is 40 hours a week during the season,

plus a three-day clinic and a variety of other tests and time-consuming

endeavors throughout the year, all of which make up more than what the

NFL is calling the refs: “Full-time seasonal.”

“We’re specialized,” Hayes said. “You’ve got to know the rules inside

and out. The rules in pro football are so different than in college or

high school. There are only 119 NFL officials, and the (NFL) rules are

way too complicated for any of the (replacements) to know ... there’s a

gag order on the coaches (not to argue with the fill-in refs).”

Ten replacements are from Hayes’ old college conference, the Pac 10,

which irks him to no end. But 45 others stayed behind and wouldn’t cross

the line when the NFL invited them to work and get an NFL moment’s glory.

“These guys are working a college game on Saturday, then working a

game the next day, and there’s no way these (replacements) know all the

complex NFL rules, which we spend countless hours studying and

analyzing,” said Hayes, a longtime Orange Coast College teacher and men’s

soccer coach.

The NFL, the richest of the four major sports, has offered to increase

officials’ salaries (which range from $25,000 for newcomers to $100,000

for top veterans) by 40% this year and another 100% in 2003. The NFL

Referees Association’s counterproposal asks for a 400% increase.

NFL rookies, however, earn only $21,465, while first-year officials in

other major sports earn much more (baseball $105,707; basketball

$115,000; and hockey $93,000).

“I choose to do this -- nobody put a gun to my head and said to become

an NFL official,” Hayes said. “But when I find out others are making 400%

more ... then something’s got to change.”

Hayes, who turns 52 on Oct. 3, has a vested interest in the

negotiations with seemingly at least another 10 years ahead of him on the

field.

“I think we’re a real important part of the game,” Hayes said. “For

example, we get no medical insurance, and I think we’re in a fairly

hazardous situation. For some, this is their only income, and the NFL has

done really well for many years getting us pretty cheap. The public

thinks what we’re asking is a huge increase, but it’s not when you really

look at it.

“I’ve had people ask me, ‘But don’t you enjoy what you do?’ And, yes,

I do, of course, but because I enjoy what I do, should I not be

compensated? If you take that theory, then those who hate their jobs the

most should get paid the most. That’s crazy. And how would you feel if

you found out your counterparts were making 400% more than you?”

As Hayes relaxes at his Newport Beach home this weekend, he plans to

enjoy every moment.