Coleman relives time as NFL official at Rotary
Former NFL referee Walt Coleman kicked off his presentation to Hot Springs National Park Rotary Club Wednesday with a few jokes before holding up a stack of papers.
Coleman proceeded to flip through the pages and read through countless pieces of hate mail, insults and comments about his performances as a referee.
A Little Rock native and a graduate of Central High School and the University of Arkansas, Coleman spent 30 years in the NFL.
“Please accept the fact you’re totally unqualified to referee high school football, let alone the NFL,” Coleman read from his stack of papers. “You have no leadership abilities. You have no spine. You have no ability. Please stick to milking cows.”
Coleman sifted through his hate mail with plenty of laughter from himself and the Rotarians in attendance. Fans of various NFL teams sent Coleman copy after copy of eye charts and Sears optical advertisements.
“You should stick to dairy farming, you surely don’t have a clue how to make an honest call,” Coleman read. “By the way, both feet must be inbounds to be complete. Bozo.”
The veteran referee also told his fair share of funny moments from his time officiating games at the highest level of professional football.
Heading into his tenure as the referee, the main official on the football field wearing a white hat, Coleman assumed he would be able to at the very least run the coin toss with no problems. He was sure if he could do one thing right, it was the simple flipping of a coin.
That was until San Francisco’s Bart Oates said the 49ers wanted to defend the south goal instead of just pointing to the way the team wanted to kick. Unsure of which way to turn the players’ backs to illustrate the direction of play, Coleman needed some help.
“I could tell you I had no idea,” Coleman said. “Fortunately I turned off my microphone and said, ‘Could you give me a hint?’ And Steve Young, obviously the quarterback knowing that I’m the referee and I’m supposed to protect him during the game, I guess he decided maybe I better help ol’ Walt out.”
Young gave Coleman a slight point toward the south end zone and everything was sorted.
Coleman also commented on his infamous “tuck rule” ruling after someone asked if a piece of hate mail came from New England.
“New England loves me,” Coleman said. “I mean you know because I’m the tuck rule guy and I ruled for New England, not Oakland.”
Aside from telling hilarious stories from his time as an official, Coleman also explained two rule changes that will take place in college football this season.
Players ejected for targeting in the second half of games will now be able to appeal the call and will possibly be able to play in the first half of the team’s next game.
Previously, if a player was ejected for targeting in the second half of a game, that player would have to sit out the first half of the next game.
“They can send in an appeal to the national coordinator of officials, and he can look at the video,” Coleman said. “If they determine that it shouldn’t have been targeting, then they can allow the player to come back and play in the first half of the next game.”
The Razorbacks dealt with this problem last season when linebacker Bumper Pool missed the first half of a game against Texas after he was ejected for targeting in the second half against Rice the previous week.
“Everybody has a problem with targeting,” Coleman said. “They don’t have so much a problem with the foul. They have a problem with what the penalty for the foul is because it disqualifies a player from the game.”
Despite the slight change, the rule remains the same that if a player is ejected for targeting in the first half, that player must sit out the second half of the contest.
Highlighting another slight rule change this season, Coleman said a problem Arkansas had in football last year was opposing teams faking injuries to slow down the Razorback offense.
“I don’t know if you remember, there was a game against a team that is over there in Oxford,” he said. “I don’t remember who that is, but anyway. There were some problems in the game where a lot of people felt like they were faking injuries, and the defensive player was going down to slow (the game).”
Coleman said that although nothing can be done during the game by officials if one team thinks another team is faking injuries to slow the offense down, teams can now appeal to the NCAA after the conclusion of the contest this season.
“Obviously the problem from an officiating standpoint is we have no way of knowing that he’s not hurt,” Coleman said. “There’s no way we can make any kind of ruling on the field that he’s not hurt. From that standpoint, it’s going to happen and the game’s going to go on.”
Coleman called the possibility of faking injuries a sportsmanship and integrity issue. While it might be hard to regulate during a game, schools will now at least have the opportunity to seek action from officials after the game.
“Now what they’ve done is they’ve given the offending school, if they think they’ve been offended, the opportunity to send in a request to the national coordinator of officials and ask them to investigate this issue,” Coleman said. “If they decide there’s actually, if they feel like there’s a problem, they can address it with the conference and so forth.”
The investigation must happen after the contest because officials have their hands tied when it comes to injuries during games.
“The last thing you want is an official to say he’s not hurt and have him be really hurt bad,” Coleman said. “Then you know what happens after that. You have a room full of lawyers.”
Coleman closed his talk with a story about Philadelphia football fans. Just ahead of the second-half kickoff in a game Coleman was officiating at Philadelphia, a fan ran across the field throwing something out of a paper sack onto the playing surface.
Police and security eventually tackled the fan, and Coleman blew the whistle to get the second half underway without waiting to see what substance the fan had thrown on the field.
“After the game the security people and the stadium came in and said, ‘Walt, how come you didn’t stop the game? That could’ve been anthrax. That could’ve been some kind of major issue he was throwing out of that sack,’” Coleman said.
Coleman replied he was just trying to get the game going and then asked what was in the sack.
“As it turned out the guy had his mother’s ashes, and she had requested that they be spread on the field where the Eagles play their games,” Coleman said. “Now she didn’t request it to be done during the game, but he felt like he would be much more impressive if he did while an Eagles game was going on.”
Throughout his entire time as an official, Coleman said he never received a positive letter from fans and when he retired, only one player, Petyon Manning, congratulated him on his 30 years in the NFL.
“Has anyone in here seen a perfectly officiated game,” Coleman asked the Rotarians. “I’ve seen a bunch of them but I haven’t found a fan yet that’s seen one.”