In line of fire

Put on your workout clothes and sensible shoes. Grab a whistle and a yellow flag. Now, try straddling lanes on the Golden State Freeway while looking for expired registration tags on cars as they race past.

Welcome to the life of a football umpire.

Of the seven officiating positions, none is more in the line of fire than the umpire, who stands unprotected in the middle of the defense, just behind the linebackers.

While collisions aren’t a regular occurrence, just about every umpire -- from high schools to the NFL and every level between -- has a story about being upended by a hulking player.

Because those collisions can be brutal -- some have ended officiating careers -- the NFL is considering equipping its umpires with pads and some type of head protection.

“I’ve really been thinking about this for a long time,” said Mike Pereira, the league’s vice president of officiating. “Some of these hits are to the legs, but I’ve also seen hits to the head. . . . These [umpires] are a proud group of guys that take pride in their toughness. I know I wouldn’t get 100% buy-in from them to wear gear, but at some point we just have to look at it.”

Contact isn’t always accidental. Offensive players at the higher levels have been known to use umpires as unwitting blockers in an attempt to create separation from a pursuing defender. The strategy is prevalent enough that the NFL advises its umpires not to stand in the same spot on every play as to make them more difficult to scout.

“You want to find a way to use that umpire as a blocking dummy,” said Christian Fauria, an NFL tight end for 14 seasons. “I see it happen all the time. . . . If you’re in a man-to-man situation and you run your guy into the ref, man, you’re out of the gate.”

On the rarest occasions, the hit goes the other way. On Oct. 18, during Louisiana State’s game at South Carolina, umpire Wilbur Hackett Jr. made national news -- and became a YouTube sensation -- when he wobbled Gamecocks quarterback Stephen Garcia with a forearm shiver. The hit almost looked intentional by Hackett, a starting linebacker for Kentucky from 1968 to 1970, but the Southeastern Conference said he was protecting himself, and it took no action.

Far more often, it’s the official who ends up staggered.

“Sometimes you think you’re out of the way, but you’re like a bullfighter out there, and sometimes the bull turns a little bit and gores you,” said Ron Botchan, a retired umpire who worked a record five Super Bowls.

Botchan, who in the early 1960s played linebacker for the AFL’s Los Angeles Chargers and Houston Oilers, is widely considered the best umpire the game has known. He retired in 2002 after Super Bowl XXXVI, which he worked as an alternate. He lives in Rancho Mirage and is now one of the league’s assistant supervisors of officials.

He has his own collection of collision stories.

Once, he was bowled over by San Francisco running back Roger Craig -- helmet to noggin. Another time, while working a game in San Diego, he was slammed to the hard dirt infield and his head hit the ground.

“I had to get six stitches to close that,” he said. “Luckily, there was a woman there who gave me a feminine product to wear under my hat to staunch the bleeding. I got a concussion, but never missed a play.”

Botchan said fellow umpire Art Demas took such a hard shot to the chest in the 1980s that he suffered a broken sternum and his heart briefly stopped. After that, the league asked its umpires to wear flak jackets under their uniforms, the way a quarterback with a rib injury might.

“Some of the guys wore them, but I didn’t,” Botchan said. “They were too hot and too heavy.”

What he did discreetly wear for the rest of his career was a plastic insert in his cap that helped protect his head. He thinks current umpires would be willing to wear fortified hats such as those worn by jockeys, sort of a batting helmet without the ear cups.

The Arena Football League has experimented with helmets on umpires in the wake of a near-tragedy. In 1999, umpire Ed Manning was knocked to the turf during a game, suffering a head injury that left him in a coma for nine days. He recovered fully, but the collision ended his career.

Unlike in traditional football, in which umpires move toward the line of scrimmage after the snap to become less obtrusive, AFL umpires are anchored about five yards off the line of scrimmage from the snap through the whistle. That helps them identify illegal defenses specific to arena ball.

In recent years, the AFL also enacted a rule against an “umpire rub” that penalizes an offensive player who intentionally runs a defender into the umpire. If a team is flagged for it three times in a game, the player called for the third offense is ejected.

“It’s obvious,” said Doug Wilson, an AFL umpire for the last eight years. “You can feel it when it happens. And you can definitely feel it if they make contact with you.”

Once, while experimenting with different camera angles, the AFL affixed a so-called “ump cam” to Wilson’s hat. It worked fine -- until he was blasted to the turf by a player coming from his side.

“Next thing you know the camera’s looking straight up to the top of the arena,” Wilson said. “The announcers had a field day with that one. If you looked at it on tape, the receiver clearly dragged a defender over the top of me.”

In the NFL, with the growing popularity of the controlled passing game and West Coast offense, the umpires’ workspace has gotten even more congested.

Before the snap, the umpire stands six to eight yards deep and is responsible for counting the offensive players. He then watches the snap, looking for false starts by the interior offensive linemen. After the snap, as he moves forward, he watches for infractions such as holding, illegal use of the hands, chop blocks and leg whips -- all while conscious of players coming at him from the sides and passes that could be zipped in his direction.

There are other officiating positions with more responsibilities, but none closer to the most intense action. It’s not surprising, then, that a lot of umpires are former linebackers and defensive linemen.

“We don’t have an alternate guy who does it,” Botchan said. “If an umpire goes down, nobody wants to get in there. You see everybody going to the bathroom, leaving the room, looking at their shoes.”

And there’s no such thing as hazard pay at football’s lower levels. In Southern California, the per-game pay for umpires and other officials is $70 for high schools; $96 for community colleges; $120 for NAIA and NCAA Division III; and from $900-$1,000 for Division I, depending on the conference. Depending on experience, NFL officials are paid between $2,990-$8,300 for a regular-season game, more for the playoffs and Super Bowl.

“For most officials, it’s not about the money, it’s a way of life,” said Rich Kollen, director of football operations for the Southern California Football Assn., which oversees community-college football in the region. “When you’re working small college football, it’s about the love of the game.”

Chris McGowan loves his job, and at his size -- 6 feet 1, 270 pounds -- the former high school defensive lineman is comfortable stepping into the impact zone. Mostly.

But he got a rude awakening last year while working a junior college game in the Los Angeles area. When a linebacker intercepted a pass over the middle and started heading for him, the 42-year-old McGowan wasn’t able to get out of the way. There was a collision, facemask to face.

“It was a bang-bang play, and I got banged real good,” McGowan said. “He didn’t target me, but he hurt me, no question about it. More than anything, I was hugely embarrassed.”

Much as he might have wanted to, McGowan didn’t sit out a play.

“No,” he said. “My pride wouldn’t let me.”

There has been some discussion about moving the umpires out of the mosh pit of bodies, possibly to the offensive side of the ball alongside the referee. But the counterpoint is that the game would suffer.

“We’d just give up too much that way,” the NFL’s Pereira said. “There are too many things -- a fumble, a downed by contact, short trapped passes -- that he turns and helps on. Breaking up skirmishes in the piles, and certainly the hurry-up offense, being able to run and get the ball set up.

“He’s going to remain in that position.”

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sam.farmer@latimes.com