Bowl games a reward for the refs

Monday, December 23
Updated: January 1, 2:19 PM ET

Bowl games a reward for the refs

By Wayne Drehs
ESPN.com

When National Director of Officiating David Parry handed out assignments for the 2002 bowl season, John Soffey couldn't help but chuckle.

Instead of sending a crew to the national championship, the Big East Director of Officiating was told his top crew would head to the Capital One Bowl, pitting Penn State against Auburn.

In other words, he'd get to deal with Joe Paterno, an officiating antagonist since early October.

Said Soffey, chuckling, "If anybody talks to Dave, tell him thanks for giving us Joe."

Truth be told, it wasn't necessarily by choice. Parry has the unenviable task of making the teams, the games and three unbreakable guidelines fit in the bowl officiating puzzle.

"Yeah, I don't think too many guys wanted Joe this year," Parry said.

Parry's job isn't easy. This year, for example, it was the Big East's turn to officiate the national championship game. But Rule No. 1 says that no officiating crew can call a game in which a team from that conference participates. Thus, when Miami qualified for the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, the Big East crew was out.

"I take sort of a selfish pride in it," Parry said. "The last few years, I've only had to make one or two changes. And I'm tickled with that."

The way it works is this: In August, Parry uses three guidelines to pencil in which conference will officiate each of the 28 games.

The guidelines are as follows:

Every game must be officiated by a neutral crew.

Each of the six BCS conferences should work four BCS games (one of which should be the national championship) over a six-year period.

The number of assignments each conference receives is based on the number of bowl participants that conference had the year previous. Traditionally, the major conferences get three assignments while the mid-majors get two.

Once finished, the NCAA Bowl Certification Committee approves the assignments and the day after the bowl pairings are finalized, Parry conducts a conference call with three conference officiating supervisors and an NCAA representative.

In a 10-minute call, they fix any problems, such as Miami heading to the Fiesta Bowl this year, and rubber stamp final assignments. Parry then notifies the officiating director from each conference which games they are assigned and that individual, using performance scores from the regular season, designates which crew to send to his assigned games.

Getting assigned to officiate a bowl is considered a reward for a good season. While regular season games typically pay anywhere from $700 to $800, BCS bowls pay $1,100 per game plus all expenses. The remaining bowls pay $900 per game plus expenses.

In addition, most bowls host the officials for three or four nights of complimentary lodging, as well as invitations to bowl week activities. On top of that, officials are entitled to all the swag -- hats, sweatshirts, DVD players, even X-Box consoles -- that the players get.

And it's the ultimate of résumé builders, making dealing with JoePa the least of one's concerns.

"It's not necessarily true, but there's an image that if you're doing a Jan. 1 or a BCS game, that's a little more prestigious," Parry said. "But you can have some hum-dingers in the other games, too."

Wayne Drehs is a staff writer at ESPN.com. He can be reached at wayne.drehs@espn3.com.

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