Speaker 1: Hey, glad you're here for Super Bowl The Full Experience
Speaker 1: Part two. I hope you enjoyed Part one. Twins Devon
Speaker 1: and Jason mccordion what it feels like to play in
Speaker 1: a Super Bowl, to win it and lose it. This
Speaker 1: episode features more tremendous storytelling on two aspects of the
Speaker 1: game that are always highly scrutinized, the Super Bowl Halftime
Speaker 1: show and the officiating. I guess Charles Coplin says he
Speaker 1: experienced twelve minutes of terror followed by tequila each time
Speaker 1: he co produced the halftime and former official John Perry,
Speaker 1: who worked three Super Bowls, tells a great story about
Speaker 1: the pressure of being head raff in Super Bowl fifty three,
Speaker 1: the game right after the infamous officiating the Bacle in
Speaker 1: the NFC Championship game down in New Orleans. Remember the
Speaker 1: past interference non call of the final minutes that the
Speaker 1: Saints will always believe costs them their Super Bowl shot
Speaker 1: and put the NFL officials under fire. So to follow
Speaker 1: that no pressure, right risk reward is one of the
Speaker 1: biggest reasons why you do it. From an official standpoint,
Speaker 1: You look around, you think, why would anybody do this?
Speaker 1: You never can win you never have a home game.
Speaker 1: No matter what you do, the people are gonna hate you.
Speaker 1: No matter how good you get. They won't remember the
Speaker 1: You know, in a in an average NFL football game
Speaker 1: is a hundred fifty three plays. Generally there are two
Speaker 1: or three mistakes. They're human. That's where everybody focuses. No
Speaker 1: one will talk about the hundred fifty that they did correctly.
Speaker 1: It's just you get used to it. Uh. But the
Speaker 1: challenge is to go out and try to work a
Speaker 1: perfect game. Impossible, but he can strived excellence. And you know,
Speaker 1: as an official, when you leave that football field, you're
Speaker 1: going in to take a shower. You know right there,
Speaker 1: whether you were good or bad. The unique inside of
Speaker 1: John Perry is coming up. But now the Super Bowl
Speaker 1: halftime shows. Of course, super Bowl fifty six in l A,
Speaker 1: dr Dre Snoop dogg Eminem, Mary j Blind, Kendrick Lamar
Speaker 1: were booked sort of full circle because Super Bowl one
Speaker 1: was also in l A. That inaugural halftime featured the
Speaker 1: University of Arizona Symphonic Marching Band, the Grambling Marching Band,
Speaker 1: Al hurt On trumpet, and the Anaheim High School High
Speaker 1: Steppers drill team. And flag girls. The NFL has come
Speaker 1: aways in terms of star power and the emphasis place
Speaker 1: on the halftime show. For years. Of course it's been sponsored,
Speaker 1: were tens of millions of dollars to the NFL every year.
Speaker 1: It's also brought some controversy, the infamous wardrobe malfunction eighteen
Speaker 1: years ago now now. The following year, the NFL stepped
Speaker 1: in and took a much more active role than producing
Speaker 1: the halftime and my good buddy Charles Coplin became the
Speaker 1: NFL executive in charge. I met Charles when he ran
Speaker 1: teleprompter in my early days of Sports Center. He wasn't
Speaker 1: very skilled at that, but he had many more important
Speaker 1: talents to become a producer at ABC Sports, eventually an
Speaker 1: NFL vice president, it in charge of programming, and the
Speaker 1: co executive producer of the halftime show for the six
Speaker 1: years that featured Sir Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen,
Speaker 1: Tom Petty, The Who, and the greatest Super Bowl halftime
Speaker 1: performance ever. Prince Okay, Charles, were going back in time
Speaker 1: to the years that you supervised the Super Bowl halftime
Speaker 1: show for the NFL first half winding down, Where are you?
Speaker 1: What are you thinking? What are you feeling. I am
Speaker 1: walking from one of the suites inside the stadium to
Speaker 1: the production truck, and I am feeling share terror and
Speaker 1: panic feeling because I mean, logistically, the show is a
Speaker 1: herculean effort. And while you plan for months and for
Speaker 1: every contingency and all that stuff, at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, you know, like the repercussions if anything were
Speaker 1: to go wrong or are pretty pretty drastic. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, you're just like fingers crossed. There's only a
Speaker 1: hundred twenty million people watching, right, There's only a show
Speaker 1: that is twelve minutes, with about eight minutes to set
Speaker 1: up a hugely elaborate stage. What could go wrong in that?
Speaker 1: What could go wrong? Exactly my point? And when the
Speaker 1: twelve minutes are done and it's come off well, and
Speaker 1: you've entertained that many millions of people, shots of tequila,
Speaker 1: lots of hugs, uh, feeling of tremendous relief, elation, and
Speaker 1: a lot of reading of texts, you oversaw what many
Speaker 1: people would consider the greatest Super Bowl halftime show ever,
Speaker 1: Prince in Miami. Many would consider it one of his
Speaker 1: greatest performances period, even though it was only twelve minutes
Speaker 1: long take us through how you got Prince, how you
Speaker 1: put the show together, and then how it unfolded in
Speaker 1: Miami with that incredibly dramatic rainstorm. Well, we had um
Speaker 1: people working for a that would reach out to the
Speaker 1: artists on our behalf, and Prince was interested early on.
Speaker 1: So um, we we felt like with that particular show,
Speaker 1: we had somebody who was really uh invested in doing
Speaker 1: a really really good job. And he was so invested
Speaker 1: that he invited us to his hotel room at the
Speaker 1: Beverly Wilshire in Beverly Hills to play us um a
Speaker 1: track he had recorded a reference track of the full
Speaker 1: show of full twelve minutes, and it was an amazing
Speaker 1: experience meeting him. It was quite comical, uh, but he
Speaker 1: had done his homework, you could tell on the other shows.
Speaker 1: He almost went into it kind of with a competitive spirit,
Speaker 1: and I think to your point of it being his
Speaker 1: best performance. You know, for us, he was such the
Speaker 1: obvious choice because he was like James Brown and Jimi
Speaker 1: Hendrix rolled into one, and he also had great appeal
Speaker 1: for the players, which was important. So uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the rest, as they say, is history. But he he
Speaker 1: was so diligent and had so much vision in the
Speaker 1: show that he put together that that it was. He
Speaker 1: was a great partner. So you're in that hotel from
Speaker 1: in l A. You're listening to the twelve minutes that
Speaker 1: he's produced. What what's the reaction? What are you what
Speaker 1: are you thinking? Well, I have to tell you that
Speaker 1: that whole experience in that hotel room was surreal because
Speaker 1: first of all, when we knock on the door, he
Speaker 1: opens it and there's there's Prince and he doesn't look
Speaker 1: human like he he does not look human. He's he's diminutive,
Speaker 1: diminutive in the stature, and he's wearing a canary yellow
Speaker 1: suit and makeup, and he invites us in very warmly,
Speaker 1: and we start to walk in the door and we
Speaker 1: realized that princes act really gliding. He's not walking, he's gliding.
Speaker 1: And that was because he was wearing those healy stinkers,
Speaker 1: you know that light up in the back. So he's
Speaker 1: around the hardwood four hotel and um, he sat us
Speaker 1: down there, about four or five of us. He sat
Speaker 1: us down and he's kind of a low talker. So
Speaker 1: we're in this sweet on this white couch and he's
Speaker 1: talking really low and he's speaking in really esoteric, creative language,
Speaker 1: and he could you could kind of tell he was
Speaker 1: getting a little frustrated with us in terms of like
Speaker 1: not completely understanding where he was going. And so then
Speaker 1: he just said, well, rather than keep talking, I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna have you experienced this in the fourth dimension. And
Speaker 1: we were kind of like, I don't really know what
Speaker 1: that is, but just just go with it. Does it
Speaker 1: mean you have to take something to get the fourth dimension?
Speaker 1: He didn't offer that. So he wheeled over to this
Speaker 1: sound system that he had in his hotel suite O
Speaker 1: and he he hit play or whatever, and it was
Speaker 1: just so loud, and it was that thundercrack, which was
Speaker 1: that lightning strike thundercrack, which was the beginning of We
Speaker 1: Will Rock You. And we sat there for twelve minutes
Speaker 1: just listening to this music, playing extremely loud and hearing
Speaker 1: for the first time. Oh, he's not going to play
Speaker 1: Little Red Corvette or Raspberry Beret. He's covering songs. He's
Speaker 1: doing Proud Mary or All Along the wash Tower, the
Speaker 1: Best of You, and we were just taking it in.
Speaker 1: And then he wheeled over about eight minutes into this thing,
Speaker 1: and he had a box of tissues and he just
Speaker 1: gave each one of us a tissue and then he
Speaker 1: wheeled away and the music kept playing and then, uh,
Speaker 1: when it finally ended, you know, the beautiful ending of
Speaker 1: Purple Rain, he came back in. He wheeled back in,
Speaker 1: and he now had a tissue and he held the
Speaker 1: tissue aloft and suggested to all of us to hold
Speaker 1: the tissue aloft. And we were and I'm like, I
Speaker 1: wonder how this is gonna end. And then he just
Speaker 1: sort of put it the tissue to his eye like
Speaker 1: it brings a tear to your eye, and he started laughing,
Speaker 1: and we were all very happy, and we left the
Speaker 1: room and we were like, it's gonna be a great show.
Speaker 1: You know what it does bring a tear to your eye.
Speaker 1: And anybody that plays that that performance on YouTube, it is.
Speaker 1: It is powerful. It is moving. Purple Rain at the
Speaker 1: end is a sing along. You get the Florida a
Speaker 1: and m band is a part of it. Then the
Speaker 1: rain is dumping down. The legend has it that Okay,
Speaker 1: it's one of those Miami you're from Miami, I lived
Speaker 1: down there. It's one of those torrential rain storms that
Speaker 1: only the tropics can deliver, right and it's like that
Speaker 1: all day. And I know there was some anxiety among
Speaker 1: their various parties, not among Prints, apparently about whether than
Speaker 1: not he could do this. You know, four different electric guitars,
Speaker 1: the dancers are in six inch heels, the stage is slick.
Speaker 1: I mean a lot can go wrong with that. And
Speaker 1: as legend has it, Charles when he was ask about
Speaker 1: the rain, he said, can make it rain harder? And
Speaker 1: I don't care if you're a performer or and I mean,
Speaker 1: that's just that's what you want to hear. Game on.
Speaker 1: I'm ready for this. Yeah, no, that's true. And you
Speaker 1: know you're you're right. We both are Floridians. I was
Speaker 1: born there, and and it doesn't really rain like that
Speaker 1: in February. It rains like that in like June. So
Speaker 1: it was really freaky weather. And there was a concern
Speaker 1: like what if he doesn't go on? There's no plan B.
Speaker 1: And then when we got worried that, he said, can
Speaker 1: you make it rain harder? I'm like, so Prince, so tremendous. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't you know it added obviously, it added to
Speaker 1: the show because when you're playing a song called Purple
Speaker 1: Rain and it's pouring and the lighting is all purple
Speaker 1: and it's hitting the rain drops. I mean, it just
Speaker 1: couldn't have worked out any better. But at the time
Speaker 1: it was pretty scary. Two years later, Bruce Springsteen very
Speaker 1: different kind of artists. He doesn't work with pyrotechnics, he
Speaker 1: doesn't work with elaborate light shows. He does three hour shows.
Speaker 1: Now you've got twelve minutes to del ever this, and
Speaker 1: he also knocked out of the park. People will consider
Speaker 1: that a great performance by Bruce and the eas Street Band,
Speaker 1: But but take us through that process. How do you
Speaker 1: get a Springsteen show squeeze and into twelve minutes? And
Speaker 1: when he goes on, by the way, he's not rushing
Speaker 1: to the music. He's kind of taking us to church.
Speaker 1: He's playing the role of a preacher. And I'm sure
Speaker 1: you're thinking, Bruce, TikTok, TikTok, let's get to some songs here,
Speaker 1: because it's such a different animal for him, that kind
Speaker 1: of show. Yeah, another guy who in his own way
Speaker 1: was super competitive. You know, these guys understood this is
Speaker 1: not their show. This is a unique situation, and they
Speaker 1: rose to the challenge of trying to adapt not only
Speaker 1: their songs but their performance to maximize the power that
Speaker 1: they would have within the constraints of a show like that.
Speaker 1: His manager John Landau even said to us, the super
Speaker 1: Bowl has been about electronic energy. We want to bring
Speaker 1: the stage lower and we want to have this intimate
Speaker 1: human energy. And you know, you're not in a position
Speaker 1: where you're foolish enough to tell an artist what to play,
Speaker 1: So you are at the mercy somewhat of what they're choosing.
Speaker 1: And you know, Bruce's deal is he he walks around,
Speaker 1: he entertains, he takes his audience to church, and he
Speaker 1: had the right songs. So it was just a question
Speaker 1: of like supporting him and he had a lot of Uh.
Speaker 1: He really rose to the challenge of trying to conform
Speaker 1: to the twelve minutes. He was one of the few
Speaker 1: artists that we worked with that wanted to rehearse ahead
Speaker 1: of time, and so we met him in New York
Speaker 1: City at eight thirty in the morning. They were on
Speaker 1: the stage boom and he kept doing it over and
Speaker 1: over again, and he would be like, twelve forty five.
Speaker 1: I got it to twelve forty five, you know, So
Speaker 1: he was he was fired up. Yeah. That again, it's
Speaker 1: just not what you think of Springsteen worrying about time constraints.
Speaker 1: But that's why I was so brilliant. He can play
Speaker 1: to the back of the house in a huge arena
Speaker 1: or stadium, but that night, if you watch it, he
Speaker 1: played to the millions and millions watching at home, right
Speaker 1: to the cameras. It's pretty masterful, pretty hard thing for
Speaker 1: an artist to pull off. And I'm sure as a
Speaker 1: Bruce fan, you're sitting there watching this unfold, thinking, yes,
Speaker 1: very different from Prince, but man, he nailed it in
Speaker 1: his own way. Well, Bruce was our white whale because
Speaker 1: he had always said no to the Super Bowl halftime show,
Speaker 1: and uh he John Landelle later told me that that, uh,
Speaker 1: I mean, I know this story to be true that
Speaker 1: Bruce called him during the Tom Petty show the year
Speaker 1: before and he said, why the bleep aren't we doing
Speaker 1: this show? And I think, um, we had to prove
Speaker 1: that it was a credible musical show and not just
Speaker 1: kind of a novelty And I think the artist that
Speaker 1: we had the years prior um really went a long way.
Speaker 1: And also, you know, Frankly, and this is something that's
Speaker 1: still holds true. Artists were having harder and harder time
Speaker 1: selling their music. The industry was changing, album sales were declining,
Speaker 1: and this was an opportunity to give an artist a
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of exposure. And John Lando is as smart
Speaker 1: as they come as a manager, and and realized that
Speaker 1: some of the other artists did, We're not going to
Speaker 1: get any better promotion than this. So Bruce finally says
Speaker 1: yes because of Petty, and Petty was sandwiched in between
Speaker 1: the years of Prince and Springsteen. You're a huge time
Speaker 1: Petty fan, as I am, but he wasn't the first
Speaker 1: choice of the folks there, and he was a guy
Speaker 1: that I know you've told me had unusual reaction when
Speaker 1: you were kicking around the idea of him playing the
Speaker 1: Super Bowl halftime. Yeah, I think Tom kind of felt
Speaker 1: maybe he wasn't worthy of it, which is ridiculous, I mean,
Speaker 1: just ridiculous. But um he I think had to really
Speaker 1: gear up to do it. Um he was. Do you
Speaker 1: think he felt that Charles as biggest following Prince is
Speaker 1: obviously a challenge. Why do you think Petty felt I'm
Speaker 1: not worthy of this halftime stage? I think because Tom
Speaker 1: Petty is is a complicated was a complicated man. He's
Speaker 1: a tremendous talent. I think while he is I was
Speaker 1: a fantastic performer, and the Heartbreakers are a fantastic band.
Speaker 1: I think he's more introspective. Bruce and Prince have more swagger. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I think one thing that was was great is
Speaker 1: that everybody, including Tom in the band and his manager,
Speaker 1: Tony Demitriati's, we all knew that he had songs that
Speaker 1: are anthems that everybody knew, and that we would be
Speaker 1: able to design a production around him to put him
Speaker 1: in the best possible light. I think he got more
Speaker 1: comfortable as we went on. I also think he was
Speaker 1: concerned with the commercialism of the Super Bowl. You know,
Speaker 1: the man that's saying I won't back down is you know,
Speaker 1: part of the bridge Stone halftime show, and we had
Speaker 1: to sort of convince them that, you know, television from
Speaker 1: its very earliest days was presented by a sponsor. But
Speaker 1: those were the kinds of things that I think he
Speaker 1: was very careful with and wisely so. But to no
Speaker 1: one's surprise, probably even not even to his surprise, he
Speaker 1: was fantastic and he found that much like artists who
Speaker 1: are more current and more recent, like Lady Gaga, justin
Speaker 1: timber Lake that the platform that the halftime provided was
Speaker 1: I meant say lucrative. He you had a conversation with
Speaker 1: Bruce about it afterwards. Many of the songs he played
Speaker 1: you talked about were quite old, They've been out for
Speaker 1: a long long time, but now new people were hearing him.
Speaker 1: He made cash off of that. It worked out for him. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you look at the metrics of artists
Speaker 1: that play the Super Bowl halftime show in terms of downloads,
Speaker 1: in terms of concert sales the weeks and months after.
Speaker 1: I mean, even Paul McCartney, if you go back and
Speaker 1: you look at McCartney's career at that point. I'm not
Speaker 1: suggesting he wasn't you know, a Beatle and he wasn't
Speaker 1: at the top of the list, but that to your point,
Speaker 1: You're you're being introduced to a whole new audience. You're
Speaker 1: being reintroduced to an audience. And also you're that the
Speaker 1: budgets for that show are quite high, so you're getting
Speaker 1: to perform your canon of songs with tremendous production value,
Speaker 1: and as you suggested earlier, in front of a hundred
Speaker 1: fifty million people on TV and eighty thousand high rollers
Speaker 1: in the stadium. The only thing that always had to
Speaker 1: be kept in mind from these artists, they weren't paying
Speaker 1: their money. This was not a ticket to see your show,
Speaker 1: So you had to be sort of aware that if
Speaker 1: you went deep on the album cut list, you know,
Speaker 1: that might not be let's talk about or Paul. Sir,
Speaker 1: Paul is the first halftime show that you oversaw at
Speaker 1: the NFL. And and yes, he could have played hundreds
Speaker 1: of songs and could have gone a lot of different
Speaker 1: directions with this. But I guess in the years when
Speaker 1: the NFL was now taking a much more active role
Speaker 1: in the wake of the wardrobe malfunction, um, with Janet
Speaker 1: Jackson and Justin Timberlake, everything had to be scrutinized. Even
Speaker 1: with a guy like McCartney. You've told me what Paul
Speaker 1: was gonna wear on stage, The NFL had to sign
Speaker 1: off on things like that, and then what Beatles songs
Speaker 1: he was going to play? Yeah, well, you have to
Speaker 1: remember that was right after the wardrobe malfunction and the
Speaker 1: paranoia from everybody. Um was when I look back at
Speaker 1: it now, it's ridiculous. I mean, there were concerns about
Speaker 1: him singing California grass and how quaint right, and now
Speaker 1: it's the title of the Disney Plus documentary. Um, we
Speaker 1: had to walk with him into his dressing room where
Speaker 1: he showed us what he was gonna wear. I mean,
Speaker 1: even if he wanted to commit a wardrobe malfunction, I
Speaker 1: don't even know what that would have been. The band
Speaker 1: had t shirts made up that that was a saying
Speaker 1: that poked fun of the wardrobe malfunction. So there was
Speaker 1: just this incredible like concern and it sounds absert at
Speaker 1: the time, but you know, like we had to resist
Speaker 1: going all the way back to up with people because
Speaker 1: there was so much ter annoying about this. But he
Speaker 1: comes through and he's very cooperative. And then the year
Speaker 1: after that are The Rolling Stones, and the Stones catalog
Speaker 1: contains a few more songs and a few more lyrics
Speaker 1: that could rattle some people. And so after dealing with
Speaker 1: cooperative Paul McCartney, here comes more rock and roll Royalty.
Speaker 1: But you've got Keith and you've got Mick, You've got
Speaker 1: these two alpha's. What was dealing with the Stones like
Speaker 1: in the run up in terms of trying to figure
Speaker 1: out what they were going to do with their twelve minutes. Well,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you a funny story. We were at the
Speaker 1: Hollywood Ball seeing the Rolling Stones and we ran into
Speaker 1: the McCartney guys who we had worked with the year before,
Speaker 1: and they were tough. Paul was awesome, but they were tough,
Speaker 1: and they looked at us and they laughed and they
Speaker 1: were like, who's worse us through the Stones. You're like,
Speaker 1: that's kind of a tie. Um. The Stones are just
Speaker 1: different because you have two leaders, so you're dealing with,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of different camps, and the Stones are,
Speaker 1: you know, they're they're not that Paul isn't a phenomenal
Speaker 1: live performer, but the Stones are a looser band and
Speaker 1: and they approached it in a very different way. And
Speaker 1: with Paul, we were very very aware, and we had
Speaker 1: spent months going through the four songs driving My Car
Speaker 1: and Get Back, Kate, Shoot and Living Let Die, and
Speaker 1: the Stones were still not exactly sure what they were
Speaker 1: going to play even several days before the show, which
Speaker 1: is people have to understand how different that is. They've
Speaker 1: talked about how much work went into twelve minutes, so
Speaker 1: in their view, there was a lot of labor on
Speaker 1: their part, and it may seem like they just winged
Speaker 1: at the last minute, but I know they took it seriously.
Speaker 1: There's that shot after the performance when they're kind of
Speaker 1: wheeled away in golf carts and you know, it takes
Speaker 1: a lot of thing to make you know, Nick Jagger
Speaker 1: jump over the moon. But it looked like they were
Speaker 1: pretty happy with how things had gone. And in the end,
Speaker 1: what you didn't have to censor lyrics to start me up?
Speaker 1: Which you make a grown man cry, you make a
Speaker 1: dead man come? I mean right out of the gate.
Speaker 1: That's their first song. Youther not have that on Global TV? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean you know Don Mischer, who's a legendary executive
Speaker 1: producer and director, directed that show and he also directed
Speaker 1: The McCartney Show and with McCartney, like he knew every beat,
Speaker 1: but he was in the truck on where's Keith? There's Keith? Okay?
Speaker 1: Camera for like it was literally was like he was
Speaker 1: directing a football game, and uh, we were, yes in
Speaker 1: a situation where the Stones wanted to play two songs.
Speaker 1: Forget whether or not like you wanted to have a
Speaker 1: choir perform. You can't always get what you want or
Speaker 1: you wanted to do like Ruby Tuesday or whatever whatever
Speaker 1: your favorite songs are, and it's always so difficult to
Speaker 1: decide on a set list. But they chose two songs,
Speaker 1: Start Me Up and a song from their new album,
Speaker 1: Rough Justice, which at the time was a bigger bang
Speaker 1: and it was their single and that's why they were
Speaker 1: doing the show. They wanted to sell records. And both
Speaker 1: of those songs had lyrics. You mentioned one of them,
Speaker 1: and Rough Justice there's a lyric in there and I
Speaker 1: won't say that lyric, and I wouldn't have even said
Speaker 1: the start re Up lyric, but it's your show, so
Speaker 1: um and uh. We would not permit them to sing that.
Speaker 1: And it got into a whole conversation about censorship, and
Speaker 1: we said to them, you're going to have to take
Speaker 1: out that audio yourself, and whatever they say, that's that's
Speaker 1: exactly what happened. They were in charge of their own audio,
Speaker 1: and they did a dropout on those two songs, the
Speaker 1: two lyrics, and those two songs, Start Me Up and
Speaker 1: Rough Justice. I mean, in the end, it's kind of
Speaker 1: silly and much do about nothing, but those are the
Speaker 1: kind of things, you know. We had Stevie Wonder on hold.
Speaker 1: He was our pregame act. He was ready to go
Speaker 1: for half time. Probably if we needed them. We didn't
Speaker 1: tell him, But how was our plan B. That's great
Speaker 1: behind the scenes, just in case the Stones get uncooperative
Speaker 1: the last minute, let's bring in Stevie Um. In the
Speaker 1: years after you left the responsibility of overseeing the show,
Speaker 1: the focus kind of changed a little bit, Charles. There
Speaker 1: were these combo acts. It wasn't enough to bring in
Speaker 1: one singular kind of musical giant. It was sort of,
Speaker 1: let's appeal to different demographic groups. He had Bruno Mars
Speaker 1: and the Chili Peppers that you might not put those
Speaker 1: two acts together. Katie Perrey brought on Lenny Kravitz, Miss Elliott, Coldplay.
Speaker 1: They let's bring back Bruno Mars and Beyonce who had
Speaker 1: done an earlier show. Then you've got Lady Gaga, just
Speaker 1: in timber Lake ruined five, Travis Scott, Jennifer Lopez, and Shakira.
Speaker 1: So the focus really really changed after that. And and
Speaker 1: you've told me this you wanted to in the years
Speaker 1: when you always saw it. You had the same idea
Speaker 1: to kind of do a collaborative acts, but it just
Speaker 1: never kind of came together. Yeah, I also should point
Speaker 1: out that they have definitely gotten younger, which I think
Speaker 1: is smart. Um, but we we would always try and
Speaker 1: figure out like this solo artist thing is not gonna last,
Speaker 1: like you're running out of artists, and and the songs
Speaker 1: themselves are really super important because you don't want to
Speaker 1: alienate an audience and certain music is polarizing. So the
Speaker 1: thought was that if we could put together collaborations, we
Speaker 1: can reinvent this thing instead of always just picking one artist.
Speaker 1: And I had meetings with the Rock and Roll Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame, with Rolling Stone, I was fortunate enough to
Speaker 1: spend some time with Rick Rubin, and at least when
Speaker 1: I was there, we couldn't pull it off. I think
Speaker 1: the thing you always have to be careful about is
Speaker 1: do these artists together make a better show? Because you know,
Speaker 1: I love the Red Hot Chili Peppers and I love
Speaker 1: Bruno mar Ours. That probably would have been a better
Speaker 1: show if it was just Bruno, but it definitely adds
Speaker 1: to the appeal. And for instance, this year, I think
Speaker 1: they're they're going to do something which I think is
Speaker 1: going to be pretty special, and uh my hats off
Speaker 1: to them for being able to figure out how to Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to get to that because that is a
Speaker 1: lot of excitement around, you know, Snoop, dr Dre, Mirror,
Speaker 1: J Blise, Kenrick Lamar again putting people together. But jay
Speaker 1: Z kind of overseeing this, his company involved in producing it.
Speaker 1: And jay Z is the guy that I know you
Speaker 1: were hopeful of involving much much earlier. That didn't exactly
Speaker 1: come to pass then. But in this next Super Bowl
Speaker 1: at will, yeah, we had I thought we had to
Speaker 1: deal with jay and there were certain people, um that
Speaker 1: decided for whatever reason, that they didn't want to do it,
Speaker 1: and that that wasn't j J was ready to go.
Speaker 1: So I find it kind of interesting now that he's
Speaker 1: the executive producer of the Super Bowl halftime show. So
Speaker 1: the powers that be the network involved basically they didn't
Speaker 1: love that idea at the time. That year was in Dallas,
Speaker 1: Cowboys of some say I think in Fox has some
Speaker 1: say and and you know, hip hop's polarizing, and but
Speaker 1: I think things have changed, um And I think Colin
Speaker 1: Kaepernick has changed a lot of the way they've approached this.
Speaker 1: I think I think things have leveled out for good reasons. UM.
Speaker 1: And I think that ever since jay Z has been involved. UM,
Speaker 1: I think this is the year three the shows have
Speaker 1: been really, really good, and he's been able to put
Speaker 1: together this type of artists. So you know, maybe we
Speaker 1: were a little before our time with that one, but
Speaker 1: he he would have been great and still will if
Speaker 1: he decides to put himself on the stage. And obviously
Speaker 1: his wife ended up doing the show a couple of times,
Speaker 1: so I'm glad he's involved. I think I think they're
Speaker 1: doing good things. It's gonna be interesting to say, you know,
Speaker 1: thirty years after the chronic with the speaking of lyrics.
Speaker 1: I mean, have to tweak some things there too. But
Speaker 1: but all those folks on stage in l A by
Speaker 1: the way, in daylight because of the West Coast kickoff.
Speaker 1: So I'm not sure the last time those folks all
Speaker 1: got together from stage and performed in sunlight outdoors, but
Speaker 1: I look forward to it. Daylight's hard, you know, I
Speaker 1: think people like a lot of people. Uh. I think
Speaker 1: the last one in daylight might have been the cold
Speaker 1: Play Beyonce A Bruno show. And you know, you gained
Speaker 1: so much you take prints out of Nighttime or Bruce
Speaker 1: or some of these other shows we've talked about. There's
Speaker 1: something called theatrical lighting, and you lose that. I would
Speaker 1: imagine the producers of the show this year. I thought
Speaker 1: about that, but it's it's more of a challenge when
Speaker 1: you're doing the show in daylight on the West Coast.
Speaker 1: I want to close Charles with stories about a performance.
Speaker 1: It was not at the super Bowl halftime. You two
Speaker 1: did a halftime show, but it was. I think if
Speaker 1: it isn't, if it isn't, Prince, this is perhaps the
Speaker 1: most powerful memorable musical performance associated with any sporting event,
Speaker 1: and that's you two and Green Day in two thousand
Speaker 1: six when the super Dome reopened and they performed before
Speaker 1: a Saints game in the wake of Katrina, when that
Speaker 1: sports venue had been turned into a shelter. It was
Speaker 1: a grim and gruesome place during that tragic hurricane. But
Speaker 1: the city was going to come back to life and
Speaker 1: YouTube and Green Day we're gonna be a part of that.
Speaker 1: And even though you didn't oversee that in the serable
Speaker 1: at halftime, take me there for for that musical performance
Speaker 1: that sort of like change everybody. Yeah, that one was
Speaker 1: all hard. You know, that was a really cool experience.
Speaker 1: The league wanted to do something because it was going
Speaker 1: to be the first game back at the Superdome, which
Speaker 1: obviously had been a shelter for people who were homeless
Speaker 1: from Hurricane Katrina, and the Saints were very much a
Speaker 1: part of that city, and they had been on the
Speaker 1: road the year before, and this was going to be
Speaker 1: the first game back at home, and it was a
Speaker 1: Monday night game on ESPN, and we had heard um
Speaker 1: from the guy that we had hired, the late David Saltz,
Speaker 1: who was a real valuable part of our team, that
Speaker 1: you know, hey, stop whatever you're doing, I think we
Speaker 1: can get YouTube. And I'm like what. And the Edge
Speaker 1: had the Music Rising charity where they were giving musical
Speaker 1: instruments to two people who were less fortunate, and long
Speaker 1: story short, you two had been doing something with Green
Speaker 1: Day and one thing led to another, and the next
Speaker 1: thing we knew we were putting together a show at
Speaker 1: the beginning of the game, and you two came on
Speaker 1: and saying beautiful Day and bono. You know, rift about
Speaker 1: the ninth Ward and all that stuff, and of everything
Speaker 1: that I was ever involved with, that was the emotional
Speaker 1: high that that was that place was you talk about church.
Speaker 1: There was something really special going on in that building
Speaker 1: that night. I can do the emotion in your voice
Speaker 1: right now just thinking about that, that's a power away
Speaker 1: beyond a band and music and a football game to
Speaker 1: sort of help that city get resurrected in that time.
Speaker 1: And it was cool because, hey, they were so thankful.
Speaker 1: I was not involved in this show, but they were
Speaker 1: so thankful with the super Bowl that they had done
Speaker 1: after nine eleven, which was very special, and I think
Speaker 1: they really appreciated the platform and to be able to
Speaker 1: come in there and do something that was philanthropic, because
Speaker 1: the super Bowl halftime is many many things, but it's
Speaker 1: not philanthropic. I mean it's a commercial. It's a commercial performance,
Speaker 1: and this was you know this, nobody really got paid
Speaker 1: for this. This was sort of no pun intended pro
Speaker 1: bono and it just was one of those things where
Speaker 1: it was an accident and it came together in the
Speaker 1: best way you possibly could, and it healed the city
Speaker 1: and the Saints you know, the rest of history. They
Speaker 1: went on blocked the kick, the pun at the beginning
Speaker 1: of the game when the game, so everybody that was
Speaker 1: involved with that, I think it's emotional and things. That
Speaker 1: was one of the best things they were ever involved
Speaker 1: with for the right reasons. Well, thanks for sharing stories.
Speaker 1: I would encourage people to go back and watch some
Speaker 1: these performances on YouTube, because when the game is unfolding,
Speaker 1: you're trying to get a sandwich, maybe trying to use
Speaker 1: the facilities, and it's a it's a weird way to
Speaker 1: appreciate music with perhaps a crowd full room. When you
Speaker 1: sit back there and you watch these there's a power
Speaker 1: to him. So I know you you take great pride
Speaker 1: in the role that you played those years. And thanks
Speaker 1: for sharing the stories. Yeah, thanks for having me. For
Speaker 1: more inside stuff that's NFL related, check out a new
Speaker 1: podcast the Charles co hosts, Out of Our League wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts up now. John Perry, Now you
Speaker 1: might recognize John as the NFL rules expert for ESPN
Speaker 1: on the Monday and Football broadcast. He was an NFL
Speaker 1: official for nineteen years, the last twelve as a head referee.
Speaker 1: That's the man in the white hat in charge of
Speaker 1: the game. John worked in three Super Bowls, including that
Speaker 1: one in Miami were Prince Stole the show, and the
Speaker 1: one the mccordy Twins one together with the Patriots. You
Speaker 1: see it's all tying together. Well, John, help us understand
Speaker 1: what it feels like to be the head referee in
Speaker 1: charge of the most watched television event of the year
Speaker 1: and the ultimate game in football. My gut just started
Speaker 1: to beginning to journ a little bit as I was
Speaker 1: thinking through that. UM. Well, to put it in context,
Speaker 1: you know, Number one, to get there is decades. You
Speaker 1: start off at Pop Warner, work your way through junior
Speaker 1: high high school Division three JUCO D two D one,
Speaker 1: get into the NFL, and that just to learn that
Speaker 1: game takes three or four years, and then you hope
Speaker 1: that you're good enough to get there. So you're talking
Speaker 1: when I when I worked, my first one was two
Speaker 1: and a half decades. To get to that position, you
Speaker 1: get the assignment roughly two weeks before the game is played,
Speaker 1: which gives you an opportunity to take care of tickets,
Speaker 1: travel logistics early on, so then you can turn your
Speaker 1: focus to the game. But UH, that two week period
Speaker 1: has carries every emotion from fear, anxiety, nerves, reflection. UH,
Speaker 1: your family all that they have put up with for
Speaker 1: all these this time to get to that position. The
Speaker 1: build up, you feel it, everything, all the conversations on
Speaker 1: every talk show is the Super Bowl. You feel every
Speaker 1: ounce of that uh, and it takes roughly about a
Speaker 1: half of a quarter the first quarter to find your
Speaker 1: rhythm and find your feet, uh, to to get back
Speaker 1: to what you know is normal, which is just focusing
Speaker 1: on football. So you hope the worst case scenario is
Speaker 1: some controversial judgment call you gotta make in the opening
Speaker 1: drive before you have your feet underneath you. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I've been there, uh yeah, getting through the coin toss.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're just trying to find saliva as you
Speaker 1: run out to the fifty yard line because you know
Speaker 1: a hundred hundred million people are watching this. You described
Speaker 1: in decades of worked, the simplest thing is to describe
Speaker 1: a holding kindally. But you are the man on the microphone,
Speaker 1: and so you've got to get the mic turned on
Speaker 1: and convey competence and command and confidence in the call
Speaker 1: and all that stuff. And you do see occasionally the
Speaker 1: nerves come into play, just as they do for players
Speaker 1: and broadcasters in that situation. But did you have to
Speaker 1: remember how to how to use the mouth and use
Speaker 1: your words in those situations? The first Super Bowl that
Speaker 1: I was a referee, where the referee is the white hat,
Speaker 1: the guy that does all that coin toss ceremony truly.
Speaker 1: Right before I ran out the the media people that
Speaker 1: were standing next to me, I told the gal I said,
Speaker 1: I have no saliva but can't swallow. And she felt
Speaker 1: for me and she gave me a life saver real quick.
Speaker 1: She said, here, put this in your mouth as you
Speaker 1: run out, chew it. You'll find some saliva. Thankfully I did.
Speaker 1: I got through it. Most coin tosses in the super Bowl,
Speaker 1: ironically fifty plus super bowls, you'll find an air, a
Speaker 1: mistake in the Super Bowl, mispronunciation pronunciation of uh of
Speaker 1: a celebrity. One of the guests, Um, We've had a
Speaker 1: coin toss where nobody called heads or tailed before it
Speaker 1: was flipped. They choked on the coin toss. Wow, anything
Speaker 1: is possible in the Super Bowl. Yeah. So, thankfully I
Speaker 1: got through mine. So the first time you referead Super
Speaker 1: Bowl two thousand, eleventh season, it's in Lucas Oil. Happens
Speaker 1: to be your home state of Indiana. It is the
Speaker 1: most watched program in US television history at the time.
Speaker 1: You go a hundred and sixties seven million people, you know,
Speaker 1: drifted through at least part of that game. That's when
Speaker 1: Eli Manning beat Brady and uh and the Giants, you know,
Speaker 1: came came from behind a win that that Mario Manningham catching.
Speaker 1: Just watched the replay. Thankfully, the official looks to be
Speaker 1: in perfect position because it was the key playing the game.
Speaker 1: A beautiful over the shoulder throw. He gets the fingertips,
Speaker 1: gets the feet down, and they got right there. Thankfully,
Speaker 1: didn't blow the call at that moment. Yes, thankfully, you
Speaker 1: know the and I look back, nine penalties for fifty
Speaker 1: two yards. Do you feel like if you haven't played
Speaker 1: a huge role in the outcome, if the teams have
Speaker 1: played cleanly and there hasn't been a need to toss
Speaker 1: a lot of flags and get involved, that that's that's
Speaker 1: a successful game for the officiating crew. Absolutely, No matter
Speaker 1: what level, no matter what game, the highest compliment is
Speaker 1: to go unnoticed. And I think we did that in
Speaker 1: that football game. Whether there was nine or nineteen. You
Speaker 1: hope that they're all there. You hope you get good
Speaker 1: game flow, good pace. Um. But yes, the highest compliment
Speaker 1: is for somebody to say, man, I don't remember seeing
Speaker 1: you on the Super Bowl and certainly not be that
Speaker 1: the subject of of a talk show afterwards. That's that
Speaker 1: you're like an offensive lineman the less said about you,
Speaker 1: the better, right, because if they're they're using your name,
Speaker 1: it's usually not a compliment. That is very true. So
Speaker 1: fast forward too, has an eighteen season Super Bowl fifty three.
Speaker 1: It's in Atlanta, and and you're calling it a career correct.
Speaker 1: So you have the honor of officiating in your third
Speaker 1: Super Bowl and the second time as the head referee.
Speaker 1: This comes one game after what's acknowledges an officiating debacle
Speaker 1: in the NFC Championship game the Rams and the Saints,
Speaker 1: involving a non call of a pass interference that actually
Speaker 1: led to the changing of the rule where for the
Speaker 1: first time, a judgment call could be challenged by a
Speaker 1: coach and reviewed by replay. So what was the context
Speaker 1: leading up to that Super Bowl? Off of tug up
Speaker 1: Talk shows, it was NonStop for two weeks that the
Speaker 1: Saints have been screwed. You know it had had a
Speaker 1: p I been called, they could first down, kneel down,
Speaker 1: kneel down chip shot win the game. As it is,
Speaker 1: they lost in overtime. A lot of things went into that,
Speaker 1: but the officials took the brunt of that. John Soon
Speaker 1: What was that like that period leading up to Super
Speaker 1: Bowl Uh. In the season. The one thing that that
Speaker 1: most people wouldn't not know is the amount of preparation
Speaker 1: from an official standpoint that goes into a game. Roughly,
Speaker 1: for every hour of football, there's probably ten hours of preparation.
Speaker 1: I'm most proud of my preparation for Super Bowl fifty
Speaker 1: three because of everything that you just mentioned. The world,
Speaker 1: in our world, it was on fire. It was Uh.
Speaker 1: They were coming after officials. They couldn't believe how a
Speaker 1: crew could miss a call like that, impact the winning team,
Speaker 1: impact who went to the super Bowl. Our world was attacked,
Speaker 1: and that's how we prepared for the Super Bowl. Everything
Speaker 1: that I showed my crew leading up to Super Bowl
Speaker 1: three kickoff dealt with World War two attacks, Normandy leaving,
Speaker 1: leaving the boat, attacking the beach. Can't be defensive, we
Speaker 1: have to be proactive. You've got to be aggressive, but
Speaker 1: under control. Uh. Used speeches from patent the president, Um,
Speaker 1: what was behind that? Trying to try to tell your
Speaker 1: your fellow officials. What were you trying to to get
Speaker 1: them to understand? By quoting all these generals and these
Speaker 1: military leaders, it was metaphoric. Uh, this is who we are.
Speaker 1: You you didn't choose to be in this position like
Speaker 1: an eighteen year old that was going to Normandy. We
Speaker 1: didn't choose to work the Super Bowl, the biggest game
Speaker 1: of our life. Following two weeks of criticism. Get the
Speaker 1: noise out of your head, clear your head, find your rhythm,
Speaker 1: find your soft space, and go out and do what
Speaker 1: you know you should be doing. Um And for three
Speaker 1: days in Atlanta, every pregame had video music, pictures, storylines
Speaker 1: trying to metaphorically tell the crew, this is who we
Speaker 1: are and at the end of the day, when it's
Speaker 1: ten eleven o'clock at night Sunday evening, we will be victorious.
Speaker 1: I had no idea that that kind of a motivation
Speaker 1: look aproach went into it. I know you guys are
Speaker 1: stating the rules, you're looking at what the teams have done.
Speaker 1: I assume you're watching some tape, just like a broadcaster
Speaker 1: would be aware of tendencies and things that might come up.
Speaker 1: I did not know that it was it was motivational
Speaker 1: or inspirational. Is it just for that game, John, just
Speaker 1: because of the backdrop, or is that normal stuff before
Speaker 1: the Super Bowl for the for the head referee to
Speaker 1: to play kind of a combination of you know, New Rock,
Speaker 1: need Lombardi, whatever, whatever you coach, metaphor you want to
Speaker 1: make well. Anybody that worked on my crew would tell
Speaker 1: you that's pretty That was pretty much my stick for
Speaker 1: twelve years. UM. We would certainly spend time in the
Speaker 1: xs and ohs, everything that you mentioned, formations, tendencies, red zone, coverage, mechanics, zones,
Speaker 1: everything that goes into the game. The super Bowl, however,
Speaker 1: is emotional and it can be a mental triangle of issues.
Speaker 1: If you don't find your quiet zone and your rhythms
Speaker 1: of what you do play after play after play and
Speaker 1: what you should be doing it. It takes a it
Speaker 1: takes a man is to go to another human being
Speaker 1: that does what he does and says, you're out of it.
Speaker 1: You're mentally not here. I can just see it. You're nervous,
Speaker 1: find find something. So you try to do some different things.
Speaker 1: Did that happen in the Super Bowl? John? Mid game?
Speaker 1: Did you have to go over and console a less
Speaker 1: experienced person in the crew and say, hey, listen, just
Speaker 1: like just like a quarterback Wood in the Hartle say hey,
Speaker 1: calm down, I can see you're you're off your game,
Speaker 1: but you're okay. Yeah, yeah, that game For example, you
Speaker 1: know all the officials where the earpieces. We call them
Speaker 1: the O two oh official to official communications system. After
Speaker 1: the first drive, you could just tell that nobody was comfortable.
Speaker 1: I brought everybody together and said, take those things out
Speaker 1: of your ears. I don't want to hear anybody speak
Speaker 1: for the next five minutes. Everybody just work what you
Speaker 1: know you're supposed to work. Then we'll regroup on the
Speaker 1: next time out, and if it's better we've all feeling better,
Speaker 1: we'll put him back in which we did. What you do?
Speaker 1: You talk about being proactive and being aggressive, and basically
Speaker 1: it is reactive, right, I mean you're reacting to what's
Speaker 1: going on in the field, just like we do in
Speaker 1: the booth. Yet it's dangerous sometimes to do anything that's
Speaker 1: challenging with the mindset of mistake avoidance. I lecture people
Speaker 1: want to do this as you get to a point
Speaker 1: where your focus becomes not avoiding mistakes but just being good.
Speaker 1: Can you ever get to that place or is it
Speaker 1: always about don't miss this, don't don't overstep it? Is
Speaker 1: it mistake avoidance at the highest level. Risk reward is
Speaker 1: one of the biggest reasons why you do it. From
Speaker 1: an official standpoint, you look around you think, why would
Speaker 1: anybody do this? You never can win, You never have
Speaker 1: a home game. No matter what you do. The people
Speaker 1: are gonna hate you. No matter how good you get.
Speaker 1: They won't remember the You know, in a in an
Speaker 1: average NFL football game is a hundred fifty three plays.
Speaker 1: Generally there are two or three mistakes. They're human. That's
Speaker 1: where everybody focuses. No one will talk about the hundred
Speaker 1: that they did correctly. It's just you get used to it. Uh.
Speaker 1: But the challenge is to go out and try to
Speaker 1: work a perfect game. Impossible, but he constrived excellence. And
Speaker 1: you know, as an official, when you leave that football field,
Speaker 1: you're going in to take a shower. You know right there,
Speaker 1: whether you were good or bad. You were a second
Speaker 1: generation officials, so you should have known better. I mean,
Speaker 1: your dad, Dave was was also a legendary official. Happened
Speaker 1: to be a side judge, which means he's in sort
Speaker 1: of the defensive backfield looking for pass interference and things
Speaker 1: like that. In Super Bowl seventeen, that was the strike
Speaker 1: season UM, the two season UM when when Joe Theisman
Speaker 1: and John Riggins and the Washington team beat Miami's Killer Bees. So,
Speaker 1: so you were at what age and what were you
Speaker 1: feeling watching your dad you do that job. Did you
Speaker 1: have any idea at that moment that you would someday
Speaker 1: like to do what he was doing that very day?
Speaker 1: When I look back now, I I do tell people
Speaker 1: I think I was born to officially it UH to
Speaker 1: put into context. When I was growing up, my dad
Speaker 1: was a Division one basketball player official and an NFL
Speaker 1: football official. My mother, who nobody talks about UH from
Speaker 1: an officiating standpoint, was a high school girls official score
Speaker 1: for basketball. She was a swimming referee. So conversations at
Speaker 1: my house at dinner around the table, they were odd
Speaker 1: and different than most scintillating stuff unless you're born to
Speaker 1: do what you're doing. Yeah, talking about false starts so
Speaker 1: over the French fries. UM. So yeah, I think I was.
Speaker 1: I think I was born to do this. UM. I
Speaker 1: learned through us MOSIS. When I was nine years old,
Speaker 1: some of the best NFL football officials were coming to
Speaker 1: our house because it was a mid midway meeting point
Speaker 1: between Chicago in Michigan. So Jerry Mark Bright's and the
Speaker 1: Dean Looks and the Dick Dolacs. UH. These people would
Speaker 1: all converge on my dad's house in the summer for
Speaker 1: two or three days and go through the rules. And
Speaker 1: I was the I was the gopher. Get the cokes,
Speaker 1: get the drinks. We need more ice there, guys that
Speaker 1: chew tobacco, you know, emptiest spittoon. I did all that,
Speaker 1: so I was always around it. I don't remember a
Speaker 1: world ever without officiating. What do you remember about that
Speaker 1: day when when the Washington took on Miami and I
Speaker 1: just see your open he doesn't blow it. But were
Speaker 1: you were you watching the game through that lens? John,
Speaker 1: I don't think it was then because it was eighteen. Uh, immature.
Speaker 1: I think I was proud. I don't. I didn't at
Speaker 1: that point, of course, at eighteen, how do you really
Speaker 1: realize what it took to get there? Now I do
Speaker 1: know now I carry more pride today than I probably
Speaker 1: did at eighteen as an eighteen year old. My dad
Speaker 1: that's his job, this is what he does. But now
Speaker 1: I get it. Well. Relationships with the parents obviously change
Speaker 1: over time. We don't view our dads the same way
Speaker 1: win or eighteen as you do when we're adults. But
Speaker 1: you would get into the profession and you get to
Speaker 1: the highest level of the profession that he wants it,
Speaker 1: and he ended up being, you know, supervisor of Big
Speaker 1: Ten officials, having an enormous impact on the sport and
Speaker 1: in officiating in another capacity. But but his career, like
Speaker 1: a lot of players, but like very few officials, actually
Speaker 1: cut short. His on fielder cut short by an injury,
Speaker 1: which is had to be you know, jarring to his world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he had a ball game in Chicago where Doug Plank
Speaker 1: took him out by accident. Freak, but the helmet went
Speaker 1: right into my father's hip. And all the years of
Speaker 1: basketball officiating up and down the court, the lakes were
Speaker 1: probably deteriorating to begin with, but that hit, he never
Speaker 1: walked the same. Two hip surgeries thereafter, never walked the same. So, John,
Speaker 1: you lose your dad for money? Yes, that's it's an
Speaker 1: overwhelming emotional experience. And then you referee innociable for the
Speaker 1: first time in forty six in your home said Indianapolis,
Speaker 1: And that's the Giants over the Patriots games. We're talking about.
Speaker 1: What were your emotions going into that game? And as
Speaker 1: it unfolded, you had to feel a presence, I mean,
Speaker 1: you had to know that somewhere he's seeing it and
Speaker 1: he's proud. Yeah, without a doubt. Sorry. So I never
Speaker 1: worked a game without talking to my father beforehand. For
Speaker 1: kind of the what you mentioned New Rockney earlier, I
Speaker 1: would get the new Rockney speech from my dad. You know, hey,
Speaker 1: go out and have a great game, make him big,
Speaker 1: make him be there, do your thing. Uh. That season,
Speaker 1: he passed away in May of two thousand and eleven,
Speaker 1: So I worked that entire season. I had none of
Speaker 1: those phone calls. Um. So it was tough. It was
Speaker 1: really tough. And I get the nod to work the
Speaker 1: super Bowl. Super Bowl. It's in my own state. It's
Speaker 1: in a city that I lived in for twelve years. Uh,
Speaker 1: my family's there. I have a ton of friends there.
Speaker 1: And I walked around the city numb. Uh. We had
Speaker 1: the DP patches that were used in the college game
Speaker 1: on the hats of the officials, and I took about
Speaker 1: a hundred. Everywhere I went, I dropped a d p
Speaker 1: uh logo um I had. My father was cremated, and
Speaker 1: the remains of my father were in my flag, they
Speaker 1: were in my bean bag. I took remains, ironically with
Speaker 1: with another official whose father had passed away and we
Speaker 1: we probably would get in trouble today if they knew it,
Speaker 1: but we put some on the football field before the game.
Speaker 1: Leading up to it, everything I thought about was my dad,
Speaker 1: Um and I. We had a devotion Sunday morning where
Speaker 1: we had a pastor come in read Walker. It's a
Speaker 1: very long story, but at the end of the devotion,
Speaker 1: read realized I had had allowed some fathers to speak,
Speaker 1: Carl Paganelli seek Sr. Who was very much involved with
Speaker 1: football officiating, Jene Sterritor Senior, very much involved, so they
Speaker 1: spoke to the crew. Read Walker realized that I was
Speaker 1: I was the guy. I was the empty guy. My
Speaker 1: dad wasn't there to speak, and read Walker put me
Speaker 1: in the middle of the room, sat me on a chair,
Speaker 1: and he did a a ceremony called the laying on
Speaker 1: of the hands, and then probably was forty people in
Speaker 1: this room and they all touched each other and the
Speaker 1: inner people touched me, and Red Walker said a prayer
Speaker 1: and it was uh, life changing. That's the only way
Speaker 1: to say that. It was electric. I could feel everybody
Speaker 1: and that that just carried with me through out the day.
Speaker 1: Barely got through the coin toss, got to the goal line,
Speaker 1: to start the game, and I broke down emotional. I was,
Speaker 1: I was in tears, sobbing. I don't remember who the
Speaker 1: punt return guy was, but he said, met, you must
Speaker 1: be really nervous. You're out of your crying. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's a deeper story than that. I'll be fine. But
Speaker 1: I can tell you I've worked one perfect game in
Speaker 1: my life, and that was Super Bowl. For I didn't
Speaker 1: work it. I I would tell you with no doubt,
Speaker 1: with no reservation, that I had a guardian angel. I'm
Speaker 1: sure as my father that saw everything and relay that
Speaker 1: information to me some way. Somebody would call it. We
Speaker 1: had a past in inference and I say, I know
Speaker 1: his right arm grabbed the receiver's left him. Yeah, how
Speaker 1: do you know that? You're not even looking down there?
Speaker 1: We had down by contact, actually with an inteverted whistle
Speaker 1: by another official. Thankfully we had a flag. I knew
Speaker 1: all that. I said, well, thankfully we have flag because
Speaker 1: you blew your whistle. Yeah I did. I was, I
Speaker 1: went way too fast. Everything that took place that day,
Speaker 1: I saw it, processed it, but it was because of him. Wow,
Speaker 1: what an incredibly powerful experience. I mean, it's the sort
Speaker 1: of thing that defies explanation. You do look for reasons
Speaker 1: beyond our understanding, because to know exactly what's going on
Speaker 1: with twenty two players and the entire officiating crew to
Speaker 1: that that level, it's it's multidimensional. The job you're doing,
Speaker 1: and it's i mean, the perfect game is difficult for
Speaker 1: any player. Any broadcasts are, certainly any official But it's
Speaker 1: what an incredible thing that you had that that day. Wow,
Speaker 1: what happened? Would you think at the end? How did
Speaker 1: the game end? When you walked off? I didn't want
Speaker 1: to to end because there was that connection that was
Speaker 1: hard to get anywhere else. Yeah, well, thank you for
Speaker 1: sharing that. So after the controversial NFC title game, it's
Speaker 1: the Patriots and the Rams. It's the last game that
Speaker 1: you're officiating, right, maybe the dullest Super Bowl ever. I
Speaker 1: don't know how it felt for you, but there were
Speaker 1: no touchdowns until the fourth quarter, the lowest scoring game ever.
Speaker 1: If the Patriots defense was suffocating Jared Goff and Todd
Speaker 1: Gurley in this high powered Rams offense, and people were
Speaker 1: tuning out because they wanted to see some touchdowns, what
Speaker 1: was it like being on the field for the dullest
Speaker 1: Super Bowl every dullest in some minds. Now, we would
Speaker 1: tell you that we were very proud of the fact
Speaker 1: that we anticipated exactly what you just mentioned. We figured
Speaker 1: it was McVeigh versus Eli check and the opposite on
Speaker 1: the other sideline, low scoring chess match, a turnover will
Speaker 1: determine the win. And I enjoyed it. But I'm a purist.
Speaker 1: I'm not a I like defense. I like those uh
Speaker 1: seventeen to tens, four to seventeens. I'm not a big
Speaker 1: fan of the I I like defense too, but three
Speaker 1: three after three, when you got a lot of casual
Speaker 1: people watching who don't watch a lot of games and
Speaker 1: far from just the purist audience, is not exactly what
Speaker 1: the network has in mind. But in the end, there
Speaker 1: was drama. There was the Brady had the touchdown drive
Speaker 1: and they end up scoring and then adding a field goal.
Speaker 1: But you know, you got Belichick on one sideline. I
Speaker 1: think it was his ninth Super Bowl, Brady over there,
Speaker 1: same number, and you've got Sean mcveigh's thirty three at
Speaker 1: the time. I think he's probably half of Belichick's age.
Speaker 1: The dynamic would be interesting to hear from the officials
Speaker 1: perspective was the assumption went b belichicks Ginnick at the call,
Speaker 1: and this young whipper snapper over here went in doubt,
Speaker 1: it's not going to go the Rams way. I know
Speaker 1: that's what fans thinking about what officials think, but that's
Speaker 1: but that is what people are. That's what's going through
Speaker 1: their mind. Well what should go through their mind is this.
Speaker 1: You do recognize it before the game? You do? I
Speaker 1: mean you walk in a New England sideline with Tom
Speaker 1: Brady there and Bill Belichick there. Let's be realist. They
Speaker 1: are who they are and they demand and should receive
Speaker 1: the respect that they've earned. On the other side line
Speaker 1: is a young coach who has led his team to
Speaker 1: this point. It's exciting. You also recognize how brilliant this
Speaker 1: young guy is and how innovating he will become once
Speaker 1: the game begins. They it's eleven and eleven, somebody's got
Speaker 1: a blue jersey, somebody's out of white jersey, and all
Speaker 1: you know is the numbers on the back. You don't
Speaker 1: see twelve, Brady, you see twelve. And when you're talking
Speaker 1: to both coaches, it's the same because you never want
Speaker 1: anybody to say, well, you know what they're treating a
Speaker 1: little bit differently. Now, I don't believe that that's true,
Speaker 1: and I can tell you that based on the nineteen
Speaker 1: years of doing it at that level. Three super Bowls,
Speaker 1: a championship. We don't really care once the game begins
Speaker 1: who anybody is. It's advantage or disadvantage. That's the way
Speaker 1: it should be. There's always gonna be people think that
Speaker 1: whoever's whoever's screaming the loudest or the most often, or
Speaker 1: he's trying to influence the call. He's doing that for
Speaker 1: a reason. He's not just trying to exercise his voice.
Speaker 1: He's trying to lobby that he thinks it's gonna work.
Speaker 1: It's reassuring to hear that that. You don't think it
Speaker 1: happens that often that way. I don't, despite what others think. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes there is conversation with Tom Brady that
Speaker 1: you know that we'll try to buy a call and
Speaker 1: be a little bit animated for TV purposes. You just
Speaker 1: you just laugh. I don't know, not enough, give me
Speaker 1: a break, pick a bigger one. The very first super
Speaker 1: Bowl you work in the OH six season, Dan in Miami,
Speaker 1: one of the few rainy super Bowls, was famous for
Speaker 1: something other than the fact that the Colts beat the Bears.
Speaker 1: Prince gave In the Rain one of the most legendary
Speaker 1: musical performances ever. Forget the Super Bowl A halftimes and
Speaker 1: it outrated the game. At one point there were you know,
Speaker 1: a hundred and forty million people and tuned into that.
Speaker 1: So I do know what you guys doing a half time.
Speaker 1: You're not watching a halftime shell but you come out
Speaker 1: there for the third quarter. Any idea that, like television
Speaker 1: and music history have just been made on that field. No,
Speaker 1: the interesting thing is you go week by week by week,
Speaker 1: and you got a twelve minute halftime. Now it takes
Speaker 1: roughly thirty seconds to get to the locker room, thirty
Speaker 1: seconds to get back, So you really have an eleven
Speaker 1: minute a half time where you can use the restroom
Speaker 1: if you need to. You might discuss a couple of plays,
Speaker 1: you might discuss, hey, going to the second half based
Speaker 1: on what I'm seeing. Here's tendencies, formations that we need
Speaker 1: to discuss. You're trying to get that out of the way.
Speaker 1: Officials have paperwork that they note their fouls and describe them.
Speaker 1: So there's there's administrative stuff that we're doing in there
Speaker 1: in a ten to eleven minute window. Then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden you get to this game and it's twenty
Speaker 1: minutes plus. Um, you do know that it is Prince
Speaker 1: because you wish you were out there, especially being a
Speaker 1: music guy. I would have loved to have been. They
Speaker 1: I've already used the rest room. I think I'm gonna
Speaker 1: spend the rest of the eighteen minutes on the sideline. Um,
Speaker 1: you can't even hear it, sadly, Um, but the stories
Speaker 1: when you were finished. Of course, you've got family and
Speaker 1: friends that you meet up with and have dinner, drinks,
Speaker 1: whatever the case may be. After the Super Bowl and
Speaker 1: they're they're not talking about the game, They're talking about halftime.
Speaker 1: I wish you could have seen it. That's what my
Speaker 1: wife said. Unbelievable, actually raining, purple rain, the sheets are waving.
Speaker 1: Come on, this is crazy. Um. I have watched it
Speaker 1: multiple times since then. Today it is still as good
Speaker 1: as it was then. John is as correct about that
Speaker 1: as he was on ninet nine percent of his calls.
Speaker 1: If you haven't seen it in a while, watch Prince
Speaker 1: again on YouTube. It moves me every time. Now there's
Speaker 1: one more scrutinized aspect of the super Bowl. We haven't
Speaker 1: touched on yet the super Bowl commercials, and it turns
Speaker 1: out we have one more story. We'll leave you with this.
Speaker 1: Back to nineteen ninety nine. Jennifer and I not yet engaged.
Speaker 1: We're gonna go to the super Bowl in Miami. My
Speaker 1: Broncos had beaten her Jets to get there and she
Speaker 1: was crushed like all Jets fans. But as a consolation prize,
Speaker 1: Jennifer had booked a super Bowl commercial. That's a huge deal.
Speaker 1: The money is good, great exposure if he keeps running
Speaker 1: to get residuals. So the commercial is for Pizza Hut
Speaker 1: and Jennifer gets cast as a secretary for Donald J.
Speaker 1: Trump real estate Magnet. The shoots in New York. It's
Speaker 1: Jennifer Trump, a camera operator and an audio operator in
Speaker 1: the back of a limo for two hours in a
Speaker 1: driving rain so they couldn't leave. So we get down
Speaker 1: in Miami. We're on a him at Bronker's are in
Speaker 1: the game. She's gonna see her commercial. We go to
Speaker 1: a bar in the sadium to grab a drink before
Speaker 1: we go to our seats, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: Jennifer looks up and says, oh, I got my super
Speaker 1: Bowl commercials on. We watched the commercial and Jennifer says,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I got cut out. And then she said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, during the shoot, Mr Trump did keep saying
Speaker 1: repeatedly as I tried to fix my makeup, it's not
Speaker 1: about her, It's about me. Then she said, make that
Speaker 1: drink a double. So there's our super Bowl commercial story.
Speaker 1: You hope you enjoy both of our super Bowl batts.
Speaker 1: The Full Experience episodes a kickoff season four. Huge thanks
Speaker 1: to John Perry and Charles Coppin. Also grateful to my
Speaker 1: buddy Leaf fitting ESPN Senior Vice president longtime producer in
Speaker 1: College Game Day for his help on this episode. As always,
Speaker 1: grateful to Jennifer, my co executive producer and A. Jason
Speaker 1: White celt for his editing skills. Talk to you soon,