{"id":4083,"date":"2018-05-11T00:28:20","date_gmt":"2018-05-11T00:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/?p=4083"},"modified":"2023-05-24T17:56:30","modified_gmt":"2023-05-24T17:56:30","slug":"zebra-on-a-tightrope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/2018\/05\/11\/zebra-on-a-tightrope\/","title":{"rendered":"Zebra on a Tightrope"},"content":{"rendered":"
IN APRIL 2017, AFTER WORKING HIS WAY UP THE OFFICIATING LADDER FROM POP WARNER GAMES TO THE BIG TEN, STEVEN WOODS \u201993 GOT THE PHONE CALL OFFICIALS DREAM OF: \u201cWE\u2019D LIKE TO BRING YOU ON WITH THE NFL.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/h5>\n
HIS FIRST REGULAR SEASON NFL ASSIGNMENT WAS THE MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL GAME BETWEEN THE DENVER BRONCOS AND THE LOS ANGELES CHARGERS ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2017.\u00a0<\/strong><\/h5>\n
WM SAT DOWN WITH STEVEN IN MARCH AND ASKED HIM TO REFLECT ON HIS FIRST YEAR AND THE JOURNEY TO THE JOB WHERE \u201cHALF THE PEOPLE HATE YOU ALL THE TIME.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/h5>\n

WM:<\/strong> When did you begin officiating? Why?<\/em><\/p>\n

STEVEN WOODS:<\/strong> I always loved football, but when I was living in Dallas in 1999, someone asked me, \u201cHave you ever thought about officiating?\u201d<\/p>\n

That question changed the course of my life.<\/p>\n

When I met my wife, she was cool with it. As we had kids, they were all good with it. There were a lot of things that could have totally sidetracked this at any point.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always wanted to go one step beyond. I started off doing little Pop Warner games. When I was doing those little kids\u2019 games, I\u2019d think, it\u2019d be so cool if I could just work on a Friday night. And I did that.<\/p>\n

And then it was, if I could just work Division III. At that point, I was working Friday nights and Saturday afternoons, but I think competitive people are inherently uneasy with where they are at and they always want more.<\/p>\n

As I kept going in Division III, I was thinking, if I could get into the Mid America Conference, with the ultimate goal of being in the Big Ten. And then I made it there.<\/p>\n

That was when I realized, I could work on Sundays.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And then it actually happened\u2026\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

On April 24, at 3:09 p.m., I missed a call from the NFL. It said, \u201cSteve, it\u2019s Dean Blandino with the NFL, please give me a call.\u201d<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t see this voicemail until 4 o\u2019clock! So I call him back. I leave a voicemail. He calls me back another 10 minutes later. He said, \u2018You\u2019ve done a great job, and we\u2019d like to bring you on with the NFL.\u2019 And my heart is just beating out of my chest. I\u2019m sitting down\u2026absolutely speechless.<\/p>\n

After I had accepted that this was not a dream, a kind of panic started. It\u2019s like a dog who has chased this car but never thinks he\u2019s going to catch it. When he finally has the car in its mouth, it\u2019s like, \u2018What do I do now?\u2019 And that\u2019s when that fear of failing came on.<\/p>\n

How do you deal with that?\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

You\u2019re constantly dealing with it. I\u2019ve got such a healthy fear of failure that that drives me to not take things for granted.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve got to prepare. And I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s good or not, but I think it keeps you honest. I think that when you start thinking you\u2019ve got it figured out, life\u2019s going to come in and punch you in the stomach.<\/p>\n

You also have to deal with people yelling at you all the time. What\u2019s the appeal in that?<\/p>\n

Half the people hate you all the time. (laughs)<\/p>\n

But my desire to stay involved in a game that I love supersedes all of that. You\u2019ve got to have thick skin for it, but, more often than not, it\u2019s funny when people say things.<\/p>\n

I remember I was running up the tunnel at Ohio State to get on the bus. They were holding yellow ropes for us to run past the crowds, and as I\u2019m running up the tunnel, I look over and I make eye contact with an older woman who was probably in her 60s. She puts both middle fingers up and yells \u2018F*** you!\u2019 They had won by three touchdowns! And I just started smiling because it becomes sort of funny.<\/p>\n

I think people assume that it\u2019s part of the spectacle of the game\u2014being able to yell at us\u2014and not thinking that we\u2019re husbands, fathers, sons.<\/p>\n

Before games I\u2019ll walk around and hand out lapel pins that have the NFL shield on them to little kids, because they look at us like the enemy too. So I\u2019ll come up and say, \u201cI\u2019ve got something for you.\u201d They\u2019ll start to take it, and I\u2019ll grab it back and say, \u201cYou can\u2019t yell at me!\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the same joke, and I tell it at least three times in the same area, but they always think it\u2019s funny.<\/p>\n

What would you like people to know about officials?\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

How much work goes in behind the scenes. I think people assume that we\u2019re just showing up.<\/p>\n

We have tests. We have training films that they\u2019ll publish on a weekly basis. We\u2019ll watch film on the next two teams that we\u2019re going to have. It\u2019s a process.<\/p>\n

I just gave a talk at Rotary, and I\u2019ve got a slide about balance that features a zebra on a tightrope: family, work, football. This year was a really big adjustment\u2014I\u2019d worked Friday nights and Saturday afternoons, but I\u2019d always had Sundays.<\/p>\n

So now, and I\u2019m certainly not complaining because this opportunity is amazing, but I work [as a financial advisor] Monday through Friday. Then I\u2019m up at 5 in the morning on Saturday to catch a 7 a.m. flight to wherever. If it\u2019s a 1 p.m. game on Sunday, I\u2019ll get back around midnight. In bed between 1 a.m. and 1:30 a.m., and my kids are up at 6 a.m. So it was exhausting.<\/p>\n

During the flights home, we would get a thumb drive with the game on it, so I would watch the plays I wanted to take another look at. By the time we got home, they had already uploaded the regular game, so we could watch the game kind of in greater detail. And as I\u2019m watching the film Monday after work, I\u2019m making notes. Tuesday afternoon, we would get our preliminary grades from our supervisor. They grade every single play, and you have to respond to all of that.<\/p>\n

And then, on Wednesday, the final grades come out. Saturday rolls around, and you\u2019re doing it again.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>That\u2019s a lot of extra work for someone who already has a full-time job, not to mention a family.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve got to be the best team out there.<\/p>\n

When we walk out on the field, everybody in the stands and on the sidelines expects us to be perfect and then get better as the game goes on.<\/p>\n

Which isn\u2019t realistic.<\/p>\n

Everybody makes mistakes, but we\u2019ve got to get through them. If I don\u2019t, I\u2019m going to sit there and beat myself up, and I\u2019ll have to quiet all that noise in my head\u00a0because I have another play happening. I can\u2019t take a play off. I can\u2019t pout about something I messed up. Something I didn\u2019t call and should have, or something I called and shouldn\u2019t have.<\/p>\n

So you really have to learn to deal with it quickly and move on.<\/p>\n

Walk us through that first NFL game you officiated.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It was Monday Night Football, we were commemorating the anniversary of September 11, and it was the first regular season game.<\/p>\n

It was a big deal.<\/p>\n

All I kept hearing was, \u201cThe speed that you\u2019ve seen up until now is nothing.\u201d And the speed that I had seen was already faster than most college games. I had worked Michigan vs. Ohio State and other games like that with great athletes.<\/p>\n

And these guys were bigger, stronger, faster. I remember thinking, I can\u2019t mess this up.<\/p>\n

All of that was going through my head, and then the National Anthem started. There was a bald eagle with a wingspan of about six feet flying over. I just had goosebumps.<\/p>\n

But once you get that first snap\u2014and it was just like that when I played the game, I wanted to get that first hit out of the way\u2014there\u2019s kind of a calm that settles in with concentration. You\u2019ve really got to maintain a very high level of concentration during these five to six second intervals. That doesn\u2019t sound that difficult, but by the end of 200 plays, I was mentally exhausted.<\/p>\n

But during timeouts, I found myself looking around and thinking, \u2018I can\u2019t believe I\u2019m here.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2014Interview by CHRISTINA EGBERT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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