LAIRD HAYES
Richard Dunn
Even in his finest hour, Laird Hayes, the NFL official, was his
own toughest critic, overruling himself on a couple of issues that
nobody watching Super Bowl XXXVI last season would notice.
When Hayes received his Super Bowl XXXVI ring at the NFL Officials
Association union meeting last May, it didn’t represent a dramatic,
last-second, game-winning field goal by Adam Vinatieri to lift the
New England Patriots to a 20-17 upset victory over the St. Louis
Rams.
“I made a couple of boo-boos, so I was a little disappointed in my
performance,” said Hayes, who made his Super Bowl debut. “The ring to
me doesn’t represent the Super Bowl and the Rams losing to the
Patriots. It represents all the people along the way who made it
possible for me to be there, starting with my wife, Maggie, who has
been a saint.”
Hayes, in his eighth year as an NFL side judge, points to a couple
of breaks along the way and some influential people who helped him
design a flexible schedule at Orange Coast College, where he’s a
physical education instructor and head men’s soccer coach.
“When Barry Wallace was the Dean of Athletics at Orange Coast, he
made it possible for me,” said Hayes, who at the time was a Pac-10
Conference side judge and would sometimes get Saturday assignments in
Washington or Oregon and needed an accommodating Friday shift at OCC
to make it happen, even if it meant missing a soccer game.
Hayes, on the other hand, tries to be as flexible as possible in
the OCC Athletic Department, teaching aerobics, table tennis --
anything former and current OCC athletic directors Jane Hilgendorf
and Fred Hokanson would ask of him.
“We’re resurrecting surfing this fall,” a proud Hayes announced.
A Princeton graduate by way of Santa Barbara’s San Marcos High,
Hayes started the OCC surfing team in 1978 when a couple of students
approached him about it and he was serving as the college’s Assistant
Dean of Students, a role he filled from 1976 to ’85.
After a few years working at the district office as Director of
Community Relations, Hayes was assigned back to Orange Coast, this
time in 1987 to fill the role as men’s soccer coach.
Hayes had little experience in soccer, but the district was
slashing funds and implementing hiring freezes on coaches. It opened
the door for Hayes to return to OCC and his longtime former assistant
coach, Mauricio Claure, was instrumental in the Pirates’ 1989 and
1991 state championships.
A Newport Beach resident, Hayes broke into officiating as a
Princeton undergraduate student, starting with intramural basketball.
“I’m not really sure why I started. I guess to make a few extra
bucks,” said Hayes, who attended graduate school at UCLA.
Inspired by his late father, Will, he turned his attention to high
school basketball and soon was a member of the Los Angeles Basketball
Officials’ Association. Hayes worked his way to the varsity level,
then it became small colleges, then a few years later baseball
entered the picture. “I figured I knew the strike zone, because I was
a catcher in baseball,” Hayes said.
Hayes never thought about football until 1976, when he was hired
at OCC and Wendell Pickens told him about the Orange County Football
Referees Association. In only his third year, Hayes said he got his
first big break, when veteran crew chief Larry Arason liked Hayes’
work and insisted he join his crew the following season.
One day, Hayes met his future Pac-10 official mentor, the late
Dave Kamanski, whose nephew at the time rowed on OCC Coach Dave
Grant’s crew. Two years later, Hayes and Kamanski were operating the
West Coast Football Officials Clinic, which lasted for 10 years.
Hayes, who started officiating community college football in 1980
after meeting South Coast Conference assigner Don MacKenzie, hooked
up with the Pac-10 in 1983 as a side judge.
“I never thought about the NFL. It never crossed my mind,” Hayes
said. “I always thought that was for other people.”
Hayes, who didn’t get on a full-time Pac-10 officiating crew until
1992, first applied to the NFL in 1990, upon the Kamanski’s
recommendation.
After the NFL scouted him and Hayes passed a series of
psychological tests and FBI background checks, he became a finalist
for an NFL spot in 1993, then received the big call in 1995.
Hayes, the latest honoree in the Daily Pilot Sports Hall of Fame,
misses his family during the 25 weekends a year in which he’s out of
town, but he tries to make up for it during the week. He frequently
picks up his son, Andy, 11, from school and watches his water polo
and football practices. His daughter, Katie, 20, will be a sophomore
at UCLA.
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