The QB had taken his finger and drawn the pattern on his palm. The word was when an NFL quarterback threw a pass, the ball made a ‘different’ sound. As I spun out of my route, I heard it… ffftttth- then pop! The football caromed off of me bouncing wildly into the grass. Norm Van Brocklin had just hit me with a rifle shot. My hands stung. “You catch like your dad!” the ‘Dutchman’ bellowed. Tossing the pigskin around with an NFL Hall of Famer as a kid, is just one of a lifetime of football memories.
Fifteen years later, my father, brother and I sat silently watching TV. The New England Patriots were beating the Bengals. In the quiet, the three of us knew it would be the last football experience we would share. Our dad, Bob Carey, a collegiate All-American and NFL player would die of cancer two weeks later at age 58. Just days after his funeral and again in silence, I stood on a football field in St. Louis waiting for the start of another game. I was back in a uniform, but looking at the contest from a new perspective, that of a rookie football official.
In the twenty seasons since, there have been hundreds more games officiated where I would be called upon to enforce the rules of the game my father taught me. Football has been the catalyst for lifetime friendships in the fraternity of officials, coaches and players. Football has allowed me to wallow in the mud while officiating a rainy Jr. High contest played in a converted Texas cow pasture and to run through the tunnel into Notre Dame stadium in uniform. The game has provided me with challenges that have shaken and strengthened my self-confidence. It has helped me in business and allowed me to share a love of the sport with my wife and children and with the children of others.
Just before his death my father gave me a copy of “The Official Football Rules", a book published in 1924. In it was The Football Code, a reflection upon the ideals on which the sport was built. It stated, “The obligation of every football player, coach and official is to protect the game itself, its reputation and good name. He owes this to the game, its friends and traditions.” A more modern translation of this same code still exists in today’s NCAA football rulebook. I think of the code often and with it, my dad.
Football was founded upon the principles of honor, integrity and history. It can legitimately claim to uphold it’s creators’ intentions, nearly 140 years after it’s birth. As a son, player and now official, it has provided me with more than I could have ever asked of it in return. For these memories I am grateful to football - - and to my father, who attempted to live his life according to the values of the game we shared.
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