By TODD TRAUB
Leader sports editor
If NFL referee and Arkansas native Walt Coleman didn’t already feel at home Thursday, he quickly took steps to correct that.
Coleman, featured speaker at the Sherwood Chamber of Commerce luncheon, invited the gathering to serenade him the way he has become accustomed in his 21-year professional officiating career, and the crowd responded with a lusty chorus of boos.
“I always feel out of place when I get a nice introduction and I get applause,” said Coleman, an executive at Coleman Dairy who has made a second career spending his weekends at NFL stadiums around the country.
In an upbeat appearance, Coleman explained his love of football and touched on some of the highlights of his career, which included one of the most controversial calls in the history of the game.
He is prohibited by NFL rules from doing media interviews during the season but Coleman, a member of the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame, also took questions from the audience.
His father was a referee and Coleman began his own career as a junior high official in 1974. He has seen some of football’s greatest players up close, but he pointed out guys like Joe Montana and Peyton Manning wouldn’t have amounted to much without the unsung heroes — the blockers who never touch the ball.
Unfortunately the unsung heroes usually only get attention when they have committed a penalty. That’s where Coleman comes in.
“Somebody like me stands out in front of everybody and says ‘Holding, No. 62 offense,’ and then No. 62 gets recognized,” Coleman said.
Yet it is the effort of individuals pulling together which makes Coleman a fan of the game.
“When you get out there in the real world that’s the way it works,” he said.
Coleman probably feels an affinity for the players whose mistakes are singled out because it is something that happens to Coleman and his fellow refs almost every week.
Whether the goofs are real or perceived, fans will let you know what they think, Coleman said.
“Boos just come with the territory when you’re trying to get something accomplished,” he said.
To this day, Coleman still hears from irate Oakland Raiders fans about the “tuck play” call he made in the 2002 AFC playoff in a snowstorm at New England.
Oakland led 13-10 with New England driving in the closing minutes when Patriots quarterback Tom Brady dropped back to pass, then appeared to try to tuck the ball to run, was hit and fumbled with Oakland recovering.
With 1:43 left, it appeared to be the fumble Oakland needed to lock up the victory, but replay official Rex Stuart called for a review.
After studying the video on the sideline, Coleman ruled Brady’s arm was going forward even though Brady may have been trying to tuck and run, and thus the play was an incompletion and New England kept possession.
The Patriots drove for the tying field goal and won it in overtime to advance to their third Super Bowl and first championship.
The league upheld the call but Coleman’s name was mud in the Bay Area.
Where Oakland fans had previously mourned the “Immaculate Reception” by Pittsburgh’s Franco Harris — the controversial catch of a deflected ball which beat the Raiders in the 1972 playoffs — now they channel their grief into rage at Coleman.
“I’ve trumped that,” he said.
Coleman, who wears No. 65, said that on Monday he took a call from a Raiders fan who confused him with referee Walt Anderson, a Texas native who wears No. 66 and worked Sunday’s Oakland loss to Miami.
“You blew another call,” said the fan, by way of introduction.
Coleman said he long ago mastered the referees’ rules for survival, which include running off the field as soon as the final gun sounds and backing in one’s car for a quick getaway.
Coleman was only partially joking. He recalled his first game, a 1974 junior high matchup between Mt. Ida and Mountain Pine, after which an irate coach ran after him and stuffed a note featuring two bible verses into Coleman’s pocket.
On Thursday, Coleman fished out a copy of the verses. One verse essentially urges Judas to go hang himself and the other, basically, says to do likewise.
Coleman joked that he calls NFL games for stress relief and then seriously explained he has no say-so in his assignments, which are handed out by the league office three weeks in advance.
He would prefer to visit Miami, Tampa or San Diego, but his next four trips are to New York, Pittsburgh, Seattle and Chicago.
“Very pleasant in Chicago,” Coleman said, looking toward the Dec. 26 Bears game.
Coleman was asked about the apparent increase in blown calls across the board in Major League Baseball, college football and the NFL. He said that while mistakes are made, part of the perception has to do with the age in which we live.
In the high-tech age, an official’s goof, real or perceived, travels faster to more places and is scrutinized by more people.
Technology that includes TiVo replay, high definition and multiple camera angles sometimes undermines a referee who is being asked to make a quick decision to keep the game moving.
A referee is as human as the player who jumps offsides, yet technology can no more replace that player than it can replace officials. Coleman said most people who love football understand that human element and live with it.
“I think it’s a combination of a lot of things but from our standpoint you just do your job,” he said.
