FIRST dooowwwnnn ... and life to go!

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Contents

Foreword By Bill Parcells..........................................................................ixChapter 1: Can't Keep A Good Man Dooowwwnnn........................................................1Chapter 2: Cold Reality Of Where It All Began......................................................11Chapter 3: Differentiating Between Imaginary Bugs And Real-Life Subway Thugs.......................25Chapter 4: Treat People Right; They Tend To Do The Same in Return..................................43Chapter 5: Wanna Super Life? Make Sure You Have A Super Bowl Perspective...........................62Chapter 6: Counting My Blessings ... Even In Retirement............................................82Chapter 7: Even On The Gridiron, It All Comes Down To People And Relationships.....................115Chapter 8: So, You Want To Be An Official?.........................................................135Chapter 9: Many Thanks To Many Wonderful Folks.....................................................155Appendix...........................................................................................164A. Red Cashion All-Time Regular-Season NFL Crews...................................................164B. Sample NFL Officials Test From 2011.............................................................166C. Answers For Sample NFL Officials Test From 2011.................................................173

Chapter One

An optimist is someone who figures that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's the bluebird of happiness. ~Robert Brault

When used together and directed specifically toward you, two of the more humbling, haunting and humiliating words that can ever be uttered are: "You're fired!"

Life can be progressing along smoothly, satisfactorily and precisely as planned until those two words stop you dead in your tracks, smacking you in the face with the full-throttle force of a freight train. Especially in terms of how it affects the male ego, being fired can be beyond disheartening. It's often demoralizing, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

I certainly hope you never hear those two words ... unless, of course, they have the same wonderfully positive effect on your life as they did on mine. Being fired was definitely a life-altering event for me in a good way.

No, I take that back. It was actually transforming in a grand and magnificent manner. It made me re-think my methods. It forced me to re-evaluate my goals and plans to achieve them. And it essentially allowed me to reshape my destiny as an official, challenging me to make some significant personality changes and to approach my role with far more passion.

In hindsight, it's likely that I would have never made it to the NFL if not for being fired. Nor would I have been as successful in my business endeavors. And I certainly would not have been inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame or written this book.

It was only after I was fired that I fully realized my attitude needed an overhaul. That was a pivotal moment in my life. Once I adopted a far more enthusiastic approach to my profession—and, for the most part, to life in general—I realized that not even something so demoralizing as being fired could keep a good, upbeat and optimistic man down.

Or should I say "dooowwwnnn?"

If I had a dollar for every time someone has asked me about how my trademark "first dooowwwnnn" call originated, I might be able to afford a secondary home (my wife and I currently live in Bryan/College Station, Texas) in Dallas. Or Denver. Or maybe even Dubai.

For that matter, if I had a dime for every time someone had recognized me and done his/her own impersonation of me performing that call, I might be able to pave a path of silver from Dallas to Denver.

In my full-time profession, I worked for many years in the insurance industry. I was once working on a huge insurance deal at the famous Lloyd's of London Building on Lime Street in downtown London when somebody at one of the broker's tables yelled—loudly and across the hallway—at me: "first dooowwwnnn!"

The broker I was working with asked me: "Do you know what the bloody bloke is talking about?"

"I do," I replied, somewhat sheepishly.

It happened similarly at the CNN Center in Atlanta. It's also occurred in office buildings, theaters, sporting venues and restaurants from Minneapolis to Miami, Provo to Pittsburgh, Boston to Berkley and all points in between. For whatever reason, it is an especially common occurrence in airports.

Outside the American Airlines terminal at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, I once stood waiting to catch a courtesy van that would take me to a hotel on the airport grounds where an NFL meeting was being held. Before the van arrived, however, one of the long buses that transported passengers from a commuter terminal to the main American Airlines terminal whisked past me and then circled back around toward me. I was standing there, basically by myself, and I waved at the driver attempting to inform him that I did not need a ride from him.

He kept coming anyway. He pulled the bus right up next to me, as the brakes screeched to a halt. He then flipped open the automatic bus doors, sprang out of the driver's seat, stepped out of the bus and hollered: "first dooowwwnnn!" Then he returned to the bus, sat back down, shut the doors and sped away.

I chuckled and shook my head in amazement. I still do.

Although I was still working for the NFL as a referee trainer through 2012 and have worked for the league in some capacity for more than four decades, I last worked a professional football game as a referee in January 1997. Nevertheless, I am stunned and amazed by how many people continue to mimic that call and quiz me about how it began.

The reality is that my emphatically enthusiastic "call" of those two words stemmed from hearing these two categorically abysmal words: "You're fired!"

As I will document in detail in the ensuing chapters, I had dreamed for many years of becoming an official—hopefully a referee—in the National Football League. I started working junior high games as a college student at Texas A&M and worked my way through the high school and junior college ranks with a continuing vision of reaching the pinnacle of the officiating profession. When I earned an opportunity to work collegiate games in the Southland Conference (SLC) in the 1960s, I really thought I was on my way.

The SLC was a small-school conference that had been founded in 1963 with original members Abilene Christian, Arkansas State, Lamar, UT-Arlington and Trinity. In other words, it was hardly the big-time or the bright lights of college football. But I figured it was a great collegiate entry point for me as I continued to climb the ladder all the way to the NFL.

As such, I took a very dignified, detached and stately approach to how I worked games in the SLC. I didn't participate in much unnecessary chit-chat with coaches, players or fellow officials. I showed no bias and, essentially, displayed no...