Earning Their Stripes

Bungee jumping and skydiving can be dangerous. So is sitting in the stands for an England-Ireland soccer match, or showing up at a Raider game wearing a Pittsburgh Steeler jersey.

Then there’s the ultimate hazardous sports experience--working as a football umpire.

Sent onto the field without pads or a helmet, the always-exposed umpire stands five yards in front of the center--between the inside linebackers and defensive tackles--waiting for the ball to be snapped.

Then the fun begins.

“We call it the bullfighting spot,” said NFL umpire Ronald Botchan, a resident of Granada Hills who has worked four Super Bowls. “The only way you can really guess how tough the position is would be to get on the freeway at rush hour and practice dodging cars.”

Every umpire has at least one horror story to tell--the kind that caused his life to flash before his eyes.

And every umpire has at least one scar to brag about from an injury or collision.

A flight controller might suffer a nervous breakdown charting the near misses a football umpire experiences in a game, let alone a season.

“Before every game, we discuss who will replace whom if someone gets hurt,” said John Pemberton, a resident of Canoga Park and an umpire for 19 years in the Pacific 10 Conference. “The referee goes, ‘Who can replace me?’ All six hands go up. But when they mention the umpire position, six guys run out of the room.”

Umpires require quality medical plans. Many become best friends with an orthopedic surgeon or two.

“We’re training people to become umpires fully understanding there’s going to be a time or two they get hit,” said Jerry Seeman, senior director of officiating for the NFL.

NFL officials earn between $1,800 and $4,500 per game. A Pac-10 Conference official get $550 a game. High school officials are paid $48. They deserve every penny.

Botchan suffered two broken ribs in one game and needed six stitches on his head for a cut in another game.

Pemberton had surgery for a torn medial collateral ligament when a linebacker was knocked into his knee.

Larry Obar of Sunland, a top high school umpire, said he has had surgery on both knees in his 32 years as an official.

It’s no wonder many of the best umpires are former linemen or linebackers--they’re used to getting hit and know about life in the trenches.

Botchan, 62, is considered the top umpire in the game today. A former linebacker at Belmont High, Occidental College and for the Houston Oilers, he has been an NFL umpire for 18 years.

“It’s amazing more people don’t get put out permanently,” he said. “You’re right in the middle of the action. It’s real scary, but after you’re in there for a while, you’re oblivious to it.”

So much comes down to judgment. The umpire is responsible for seeing offensive linemen don’t move before the ball is snapped. The umpire also checks for ineligible linemen downfield on pass plays and must make the most difficult decision of all--whether a lineman is holding. All the while, they’re trying to elude bodies flying left, right, in front and behind.

“You have to get out of the way but not take your eye off the linemen,” Botchan said. “You take your eye off for a second, you’ll miss holding.

“It’s like a gang fight on every play. It’s like a car wreck. There are violent sounds and it’s loud.”

Said Pemberton: “When you recognize there’s going to be a pass play, you move up to the line of scrimmage as fast as you can to watch the line play. But if you do that in today’s brand of football, you’re like a guy stepping into an intersection with your eyes closed. I never move up to the line of scrimmage until I check the intersection to see I’m not going to run into people crossing.”

With the 1990s version of the West Coast passing offense, umpires have become part of the offensive strategy. Receivers often use the umpire as a screen from defenders.

“There isn’t a team that doesn’t have an umpire pick play,” Pemberton said. “One time I did a scrimmage at USC. They ran a play and the tight end coach went bonkers. He threw his clipboard, ‘That is the umpire pick pass and you ran too deep.’ That was the first time I ever heard it said by a coach.”

Botchan barely escaped changing history in the Super Bowl last January. He almost got into the way of a touchdown pass by Brett Favre of the Green Bay Packers.

“It looked like a running play, then all of a sudden was a fake,” he said. “I ducked down right in time. You look like a fool when you get in the way of a play.”

Obar said the “nightmare play” for umpires is the draw play, especially if an umpire reads pass but charges forward and discovers it’s a run.

“You’re really exposed,” he said. “The defense is reacting and you’re caught in-between.”

Such is the dangerous but exciting life of a football umpire.

“They’re kind of a special breed,” Seeman said.

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Eric Sondheimer’s local column appears Wednesday and Sunday. He can be reached at (818) 772-3422.