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Speaker 1: Ron Harper yesterday. Go listen to it right now, or

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Speaker 1: wait till six o'clock on the iHeartRadio app. Or wait

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Speaker 1: till after six o'clock because the Euhanius Horiaz and n

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Speaker 1: Crawl are going to be on the Red Hot Stove

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Speaker 1: League down my home. Let's see, this was on Friday.

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Speaker 1: I was invited in. The folks at Elder High School

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Speaker 1: always kind enough to invite me to their annual sports

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Speaker 1: tag and the featured guest the speaker this year was

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Speaker 1: Jean's Territor, who's obviously the NFL rules analyst for CBS.

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Speaker 1: Longtime NFL official worked a Super Bowl as last game

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Speaker 1: was the Super Bowl, the Philly Special Super Bowl where

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Speaker 1: Philly beat New England. Longtime men's college basketball official officiated

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Speaker 1: lots of NCAA tournament games.

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Speaker 2: He was the featured speaker.

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Speaker 1: He was awesome, and Gene was nice enough to make

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Speaker 1: himself available for an interview, and the folks at Elder

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Speaker 1: High School were kind enough to give me a room

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Speaker 1: to kind of go into the back and sit down

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Speaker 1: with him and make it happen. And so I'm deeply

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Speaker 1: appreciative of both. I through no work of mine, this

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Speaker 1: is more a reflection of the guest. I think this

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Speaker 1: is a good conversation. I think you'll enjoy it. Here's

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Speaker 1: my conversation with Jeene's territor. I want you to tell

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Speaker 1: me what a typical regular season Sunday game day is

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Speaker 1: like for the rules analysts.

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Speaker 2: Pull back the curtain for me.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, in the NFL, I can tell you it's

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Speaker 3: a little unique in my position, and I think with

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Speaker 3: Dean Blandy, you know, Mike Prayer on the Fox side,

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Speaker 3: they live in that same area that I do. One

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Speaker 3: o'clock window and CBS five NFL games going on at

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Speaker 3: the same time. So picture three different televisions that are

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Speaker 3: attributed to each.

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Speaker 2: Game, lined up on a big wall in a room.

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Speaker 3: So you're looking at about eighteen to twenty one forty

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Speaker 3: five inch screens stacked on top of each other, and

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Speaker 3: you're trying to navigate the games, are seeing snaps. I

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Speaker 3: have officials, retired officials, college officials in the studio working

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Speaker 3: watching each an individual game. But truthfully, that one o'clock

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Speaker 3: window with multiple games is trying to watch as many

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Speaker 3: snaps as you can as they may go off differently

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Speaker 3: than the previous game. To digest plays, and then inevitably

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Speaker 3: it happens, right, Gene, there's a review in Cleveland, So

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Speaker 3: immediately leave the huge wall of twenty one screens turned

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Speaker 3: to the studio, to the other three major screens, which

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Speaker 3: is an EVS screen that I manipulate with an operator

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Speaker 3: to be relooking at the player rewinding it naturally, the

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Speaker 3: broadcast live feed, and then a feed that actually faces

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Speaker 3: the referee, who's probably in a review at that time.

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Speaker 3: So for television's sake, you're not speaking over and you

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Speaker 3: time things correctly, and then really you probably have fifteen

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Speaker 3: to twenty seconds to try to dissect hopefully a couple

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Speaker 3: of replays, get ready to go on air. Remember what

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Speaker 3: city you're in, Know what announcers are on the game,

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Speaker 3: if you're really on a roll, both players involved in

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Speaker 3: the play, get their names right, Digest all of those

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Speaker 3: things in that first ten seconds while you're watching two

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Speaker 3: or three replays, and then hope to be able to

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Speaker 3: digest enough by that point to get into the game live,

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Speaker 3: be brought into that game, and then maybe speak to

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Speaker 3: a replay or too, prior to the referee making his announcement.

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Speaker 1: What is it like?

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Speaker 2: And I'm sure this has happened, though not that frequently.

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Speaker 1: There's two replay issues at the same time at two

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Speaker 1: separate games.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's happened. It happens a little more frequently than

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Speaker 3: you may believe. But in the event that that occurs,

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Speaker 3: you don't get told while you're on live TV doing

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Speaker 3: the first one, usually that hey, there's another review in

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Speaker 3: the other game. But you can feel it. So you

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Speaker 3: may hear from a producer either on location or my

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Speaker 3: producer in ref studio, or there's a beautiful card that

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Speaker 3: goes right up in front of your face that says,

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Speaker 3: wrap this one up as quick as you can. So

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Speaker 3: then you try to cut out of that and then

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Speaker 3: you literally morph into that next game as quickly as

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Speaker 3: possible to doing all the things I just prefaced prior

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Speaker 3: to that, and then hoping that you can get in

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Speaker 3: to be at least some element of making production a

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Speaker 3: little better.

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Speaker 1: You and your role. You've got to be critical at times.

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Speaker 1: You've got to be critical of men. You know, men

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Speaker 1: you've worked with. You ever hear back from them?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know what, not really and I don't.

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Speaker 2: I mean I know that.

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Speaker 3: How the social world works, right because Sterotor agrees with

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Speaker 3: the refs all the time. He's a stamp for the NFL,

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Speaker 3: and whatever they say he agrees with. That's really not

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Speaker 3: the case. I would tell you I've never done the

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Speaker 3: raw percentages. I bet it's in eighty twenty. You know,

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Speaker 3: eighty percent of the time I'm watching the plays. I

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Speaker 3: may not agree that it was really a quality kind

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Speaker 3: of file for past interference, right, but by the book,

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Speaker 3: it's past interference. So you live in that world as well. Hey, Geno,

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Speaker 3: is that passive aference?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? It is. Is it something that you want called

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Speaker 2: every play?

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Speaker 1: Not?

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Speaker 3: Probably not, But that's not your role all the time

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Speaker 3: to do those. And I'll say this, just from being

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Speaker 3: an official for so long, we've been criticized our whole

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Speaker 3: lives from multiple places, right, I mean, coaches, ex officials,

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Speaker 3: now analysts. A great official, they make mistakes, you own it.

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Speaker 3: There are different opinions on plays. But when you miss

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Speaker 3: one and miss one and look, it happens. And I've

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Speaker 3: had it happen many times in basketball where you're work

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Speaker 3: in one of the March Madness games and you just

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Speaker 3: see a hit on the arm and the official missed it.

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Speaker 3: If ball falls three feet short, hey, let's bring in

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Speaker 3: gene yes, gene yes, guys, he missed it. If he

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Speaker 3: had the luxury to look at it two more times

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Speaker 3: like I did, or his angle was a little better,

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Speaker 3: I think there'd be a different decision on the play.

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Speaker 3: I mean, I think there's something to be said for

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Speaker 3: being transparent. You want to be credible, you want to

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Speaker 3: offer insight, hopefully, but when it's.

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Speaker 2: A miss, it's a miss. And I think good officials understand.

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Speaker 1: That where your role, I think his most beneficial is

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Speaker 1: not so much they got it right, they got it wrong.

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Speaker 1: I like it whether it's in men's college basketball or

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Speaker 1: in the NFL. I like it when a rule is

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Speaker 1: explained and I think it helps the viewer. Is there

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Speaker 1: in the NFL in football, is there a rule that

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Speaker 1: you believe fans misunderstand or miss in turn?

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Speaker 2: But more than the others, I.

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Speaker 3: Think the most difficult thing we're all challenged with no

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Speaker 3: pun intended right now in the NFL is the subjectivity

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Speaker 3: of when.

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Speaker 2: Does it catch and what is a catch? What is

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Speaker 2: in a catch, which ironically has paralleled.

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Speaker 3: My career since Calvin Johnson's play through, Des Bryant's play through,

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Speaker 3: Zach Ertz's play in the Super Bowl was my last game,

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Speaker 3: all of them had catches, And even in the last

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Speaker 3: couple of weeks here, as we've watched and enjoyed the

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Speaker 3: NFL postseason interception catch, no catch, those types of plays continue.

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Speaker 2: To fall through.

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Speaker 3: I think analysts, me personally and my collective peers in

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Speaker 3: these positions, the NFL needs to do a little better

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Speaker 3: job maybe in explaining some of that nuance. Is when

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Speaker 3: does the possession of a foot pass become a legitimate

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Speaker 3: catch and why as an upright receiver who possesses a

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Speaker 3: football different than a player who possesses a football in

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Speaker 3: the air and when he lands on the ground.

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Speaker 2: Starts to fall.

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Speaker 3: And then I think, really from the officiating side of it,

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Speaker 3: which I think is another conversation that needs to be

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Speaker 3: taking place. And along with television, technology continues to grow

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Speaker 3: and get better. We continue to have now two hundred

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Speaker 3: frames a second in stead of thirty two when I

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Speaker 3: was a kid. Sometimes we're slowing these down so far

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Speaker 3: that reality becomes distorted, and I think there's that window

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Speaker 3: where we can all see freeze frames of all this

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Speaker 3: was done, or they slowed it down so much it

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Speaker 3: appeared he just had possession, when if you go back

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Speaker 3: and watch it in real time. It wasn't even an

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Speaker 3: eighth of a second, right, So I think there's something

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Speaker 3: that needs to be done there. Not for credibility's sake

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Speaker 3: as much because I understand it. It's the conveying of it,

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Speaker 3: not convincing the public about it, but maybe educating.

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Speaker 2: It in a little more way. And that's digestible. Right.

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Speaker 3: The saying always has been if ninety nine people in

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Speaker 3: the bar are looking at the play and tell you

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Speaker 3: it's this, that it should be that. Okay, So whatever

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Speaker 3: you do when you're framing or your analysis, it should

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Speaker 3: so come out to that answer.

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Speaker 2: That's the hope. And there's some challenges in that.

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Speaker 1: You mentioned your last game was the Philly Special super Bowl, right,

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Speaker 1: so this week is the Super Bowl. I've talked with

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Speaker 1: players and coaches about what it's like to be in

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Speaker 1: that game. They'll say it's just another football game once

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Speaker 1: it starts. But the week leading up to it as

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Speaker 1: an official, is there anything different than you know, hey,

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Speaker 1: it's Week nineteen Bengals at Browns.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: The shock that in my case, with the big Italian

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Speaker 3: family funding twenty two tickets.

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Speaker 2: For the NFL and.

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Speaker 3: Then realizing I had to work an entire basketball season

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Speaker 3: to pay for the tickets. But I just got from

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Speaker 3: my family, along with their hotels and travel once that

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Speaker 3: shock settled down. Now, listen and I appreciate what they say,

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Speaker 3: and I think sometimes, yes, it is just week nineteen,

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Speaker 3: but that doesn't happen. At least it didn't happen for

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Speaker 3: me until we kicked the ball off. When the ball

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Speaker 3: kicked off, we were back into the rhythms of what

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Speaker 3: it meant to referee, produce, manage, and navigate through a

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Speaker 3: three three hour NFL football game. That doesn't change pretty

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Speaker 3: much for the sake of the game and the essence

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Speaker 3: of what you do.

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Speaker 2: But I think you would be wrong.

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Speaker 3: To tell yourself that it was just another game the

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Speaker 3: week before when your crew got to that city that

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Speaker 3: we all love to see.

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Speaker 2: As this next week's coming up now Wednesday.

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Speaker 3: Thursday, Friday, Saturday, they're not normal Wednesdays through Saturday.

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Speaker 2: Don't pretend they are.

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Speaker 3: I always decided that it was best to let the

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Speaker 3: crew know that feeling when we got to the super

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Speaker 3: Bowl city that no, this isn't normal for these next

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Speaker 3: three days. But within that moment, we still have to

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Speaker 3: go through the processes that we were doing on Wednesday,

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Speaker 3: Thursday Friday when we were home zooming, doing our player

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Speaker 3: team tendencies or individual matchups, breaking down the playlist the

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Speaker 3: football of what we were about to see, but also

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Speaker 3: embracing the fact that, look at your human one hundred

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Speaker 3: and forty plus million people are going to watch this

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Speaker 3: football game, right.

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Speaker 2: I know, as CBS we've been really fortunate.

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Speaker 3: We broke the cold for most viewership in a Thanksgiving

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Speaker 3: game this year. We had the most viewership for the

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Speaker 3: Christmas game, most viewership just last week for the AFC Championship.

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Speaker 2: That's fifty million, the Super Bowls three times.

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Speaker 3: That you have to embrace the fact that if I

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Speaker 3: do make a mistake in this game, there are one

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Speaker 3: hundred and fifty million people that do care right as

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Speaker 3: opposed to maybe a different week.

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Speaker 2: And I don't think that's a bad thing.

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Speaker 3: I think that's just enhancing your level of awareness about

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Speaker 3: what you're about to go into. It humbles you, but

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Speaker 3: it also prepares you. So I don't think that you

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Speaker 3: shy away from that and deny that. I have a

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Speaker 3: few more You've been awesome with your time.

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Speaker 1: I hear people when they talk about the state of

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Speaker 1: NFL officiating, and I think largely the concerns are overblown.

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Speaker 1: But when people express hey, officiating needs to be better,

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Speaker 1: the go to solution as always make them full time employees.

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Speaker 1: And my response to that is always like, all right,

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Speaker 1: what's the job security?

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Speaker 2: Right?

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Speaker 1: If I miss a call them, I have out of

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Speaker 1: a gig. So from your perspective, when you hear hey,

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Speaker 1: make them full time employees, what do you say in response?

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Speaker 3: I was an NFL official for fifteen years of my life,

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Speaker 3: and as an NFL referee for thirteen of those years,

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Speaker 3: I spent twenty to thirty hours a week preparing for

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Speaker 3: next Sunday's game.

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Speaker 2: I can't prepare any more. Full time or part time.

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Speaker 2: That's what I did.

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Speaker 3: I also did referee for call these basketball games during

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Speaker 3: those weeks.

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Speaker 2: That doesn't mean I wasn't preparing.

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Speaker 3: It just meant that I was in a hotel somewhere

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Speaker 3: at noon getting ready for Michigan State playing Indiana, and

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Speaker 3: for three hours of that six hours prior to the

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Speaker 3: basketball game, I was breaking film down. NFL officials collectively

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Speaker 3: are putting that amount of time in every week through

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Speaker 3: their zooms, through their preparations, through their study habits. You

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Speaker 3: also can't get better at officiating unless you were seeing

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Speaker 3: live action.

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Speaker 2: The NFL doesn't play all year round.

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Speaker 3: It's not like basketball where we can have full contact

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Speaker 3: camps that simulate gameplay somewhat like we can in the

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Speaker 3: basketball space, where it kind of does navigate for ten months.

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Speaker 3: I'm not a proponent of the full time either, because

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Speaker 3: if you think about it, it would limit the amount

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Speaker 3: of people that would go into it. When would you

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Speaker 3: have to declare that you want to be an NFL

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Speaker 3: ref right at twenty six, three years out of college,

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Speaker 3: you got married at thirty, you're working major college football,

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Speaker 3: aspiring to be and then they come calling, and now

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Speaker 3: you have to give up the job that has the

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Speaker 3: benefits and all of that, and, as you said, the

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Speaker 3: job of security. So I don't think that's the answer.

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Speaker 3: I think there's a look, you got to get better.

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Speaker 3: You got to make sure that you have a good

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Speaker 3: foundation of a lot of major college football experience.

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Speaker 2: I would think in most.

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Speaker 3: Cases understanding there's always the exception. But just like the players,

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Speaker 3: ninety percent of our players come from the Power five conferences,

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Speaker 3: ninety percent of our officials should probably come out of

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Speaker 3: that same space.

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Speaker 2: I hear all the time. They should be younger, they

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Speaker 2: should be able to run better.

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Speaker 3: Don't ever forget that in this business, experience is the

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Speaker 3: most valuable tool you.

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Speaker 2: Can ever have.

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Speaker 3: A young official getting in the NFL, in my humble opinion,

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Speaker 3: should probably be in their late thirties. That means that

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Speaker 3: they started too in their mid twenties, and they went

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Speaker 3: through the small college space into the major college space,

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Speaker 3: build a foundation of experience and a lot of in

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Speaker 3: game experience only to get to the platform at that

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Speaker 3: next level, which quite frankly, I worked five years in.

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Speaker 2: The Big East.

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Speaker 3: Through the Big East is sayday with Michael Vick Miami's resurgence.

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Speaker 3: I thought I was prepped, and I was, I think,

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Speaker 3: but I wasn't prepped for what I saw that next Sunday.

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Speaker 3: That next year, what they did on Sundays looked like

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Speaker 3: a different sport in some ways than what I just realized.

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Speaker 3: I had worked for five years of major college So

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Speaker 3: I think there's a lot to that.

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Speaker 2: The scrutiny they're under, the technology.

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Speaker 3: You're under the replays, assisting them and being a safety

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Speaker 3: net on plays that maybe aren't forcing them to work

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Speaker 3: at their craft at a higher level.

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Speaker 2: Those are conversations for the future.

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Speaker 1: As a college basketball fan, I love and I'm lucky

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Speaker 1: I sit up close working Cincinnati broadcast, but I love

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Speaker 1: to watch the interplay between the coaches and the officials.

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Speaker 1: It's got to be more fun than the NFL guys, right,

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Speaker 1: because there's more officials, there's more space. I think an

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Speaker 1: NFL head coach just has a little bit more going on.

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Speaker 1: Walk me through. Maybe the difference is in working the

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Speaker 1: college basketball coaches in the NFL.

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Speaker 3: I can look when people say, do you miss it collectively? No,

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Speaker 3: I don't because, as you know, traveling travel, you never

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Speaker 3: miss sleep deprivation, You never miss your body aging and

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Speaker 3: not being able to keep up with the next wave

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Speaker 3: of young athletes. You don't miss. What I miss is

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Speaker 3: what you just said. It's the in real game time,

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Speaker 3: high intensity, high pressure management of personalities that are acting

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Speaker 3: out of character with a high intensity level for the

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Speaker 3: right reasons. Not always diffusing it, but navigating it and

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Speaker 3: managing not just that coach in that specific instance, but

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Speaker 3: a lot of times players in real time. Look, when

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Speaker 3: you get to the levels of UC basketball or NFL football,

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Speaker 3: there's no fist bumping that goes on with refs because

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Speaker 3: they got to play right.

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Speaker 2: You're supposed to get to play right.

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Speaker 3: The fun begins when you got to play right and

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Speaker 3: the coach is treating you like you miss the biggest

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Speaker 3: player in the world and you got it right, Like,

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Speaker 3: how do you navigate that? That to me was the

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Speaker 3: art of the game. That's what I missed. That's what

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Speaker 3: I loved. That's what I will never, never not love

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Speaker 3: about what I did. The difference in basketball, and you're right,

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Speaker 3: the proximities are so tight they can get to you

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Speaker 3: much quicker.

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Speaker 2: In hoops, they were wild and knew.

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Speaker 3: They had a little more leniency sometimes in college basketball

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Speaker 3: than the NBA too, But in the NFL there was

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Speaker 3: a lot of that happening with the players. So there's

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Speaker 3: a lot happening on that field that you don't get

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Speaker 3: to see. But basketball is that closer proximity. I always

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Speaker 3: mastered the art of putting my hand over my mouth

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Speaker 3: when I had that conversation, for protection for what may

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Speaker 3: come out of my mouth and also for any good

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Speaker 3: lip readers, which I am now because I'm a little

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Speaker 3: bit hard of hearing at.

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Speaker 2: This point of my life.

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Speaker 3: But I always protected myself in that regard.

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Speaker 2: But man, being at uc mix.

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Speaker 3: Said some things to me that I don't know that

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Speaker 3: I would allow to happen if we were just in

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Speaker 3: a regular setting like this. But on the core it

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Speaker 3: was not only acceptable, Uh, you knew it was coming,

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Speaker 3: so it was a great thing, and that we all

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Speaker 3: knew that we all knew the playing field we were on,

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Speaker 3: so it was no surprise.

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Speaker 1: I would always get a kick out of with him specifically,

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Speaker 1: but others the three officials come out or by shaking

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Speaker 1: hands or three minutes later, it's you know you're getting

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Speaker 1: dawcust one more because I've always wanted to ask somebody

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Speaker 1: who's officiated to the highest level of this question. It's

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Speaker 1: a simple one. Is there a such thing as a

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Speaker 1: make good call?

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Speaker 3: No, and there can't be because you go down the

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Speaker 3: rabbit hole. Two wrongs never make a right. The only

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Speaker 3: way you handle a miss which happened, they're going to

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Speaker 3: continue to happen.

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Speaker 2: It's an imperfect world. You own the miss.

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Speaker 3: If you feel really good about where you are in

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Speaker 3: your credibility and relationship, you get to that coach and

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Speaker 3: you let him or her know I kicked this one. Okay,

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Speaker 3: I can't go back, but we're not going to live

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Speaker 3: in that space anymore. If you go down the rabbit

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Speaker 3: hole like man, we called a nickel dimer.

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Speaker 2: On this end of the court, we need to hatchet

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Speaker 2: over there.

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Speaker 3: You're playing with such fire right now that the game

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Speaker 3: and yourself runs into a much different difficulty. If life

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Speaker 3: were that way, we would be in a much better space. Right.

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Speaker 3: I'm wrong, I'm sorry, but it has to end right

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Speaker 3: at that point, and as a ref you hope that

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Speaker 3: confronting that.

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Speaker 2: Can put an end.

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Speaker 3: I will also tell you full transparency, it wasn't the

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Speaker 3: best answer.

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Speaker 2: Always for the coach. And three minutes later he's still

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Speaker 2: told you about to play you miss.

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Speaker 3: Five minutes before, even though he promised that he wouldn't,

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Speaker 3: he still did and that was okay too.

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Speaker 1: All Right, there you go. Jean's territor CBS Sports, NFL

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Speaker 1: and college football rules analysts more of the NFL than college,

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Speaker 1: but you do occasionally hear him.

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Speaker 2: On a college broadcast.

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Speaker 1: And I only know that because on Friday he told

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Speaker 1: me thanks to the folks at Elder High School for

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Speaker 1: helping to make that happen. You'll hear a u Haaneosuarez

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Speaker 1: and Nick Crawl next. Since ESPN fifteen thirty traffic.

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Speaker 4: From the UCE Health Traffic Center. Trust of the experts

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Speaker 4: at you See Health for innovative and personalized heartcare. They

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00:18:10,480 --> 00:18:13,640
Speaker 4: never miss a beat your heart shouldn't either. Schedule online

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Speaker 4: at ucehealth dot com. Northbound seventy one and Deerfield Road,

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Speaker 4: it is an accident that when blocking off the right

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Speaker 4: lane a little bit of slow traffic back from Fifer Road,

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Speaker 4: not seeing any substantial delays, though in southbound seventy five

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Speaker 4: more construction work between Ronald Reagan Highway and the Norwood

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Speaker 4: Lateral on that ezelic with traffic.

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Speaker 2: This report is