Word: game
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Commissioner Pete Rozelle would have liked to receive from the Redskins' coach. Graham, however, chose the more traditional method of disputing a call: he blew his stack. He raged onto the field and threw a penalty flag at an official, and later told reporters: "The officials stole the game from us!" For such bad manners, Rozelle socked Graham with a reported $2,500 fine...
...Rozelle seemed a bit testy, it was un derstandable. All season long, coaches have been berating the officials in boldly public ways. Occasionally they have a point. Recently, when one team of officials inadvertently deprived the Los Angeles Rams of a down in the closing seconds of a close game, Rozelle suspended them for the remainder of the season. In an earlier game, the same officials, who keep count of the plays by looping a rubber band around their first, second, third or fourth finger, lost track and had to call the press box to find out what down...
...officials in the two pro leagues and they come in all sizes and shapes, says pro football's Director of Personnel Mark Duncan, "except fat. I'm the only fat person allowed around here." They are paid $250 to $350 for each of a dozen or more games a season. Though they work full time at jobs as various as pharmacist, policeman and bank vice president, their training for the game is extensive. Each summer they attend a week-long clinic climaxed by a six-hour written test. During the season, they are rated by the coaches...
While the officials must also suffer the abuse of fans, they get some of their worst knocks from the coaches. When N.F.L. Films placed a microphone on Atlanta Falcons Coach Norm Van Brocklin during one game, they had to discard much of the dialogue because it consisted of profanities hurled at the officials. His prime target was a man of Polish extraction who had recently anglicized his name. "You Polish son of a bitch," yelled Van Brocklin. "You may have changed your name, but you're still a Polish son of a bitch...
...sane men endure such a thankless job as officiating? It is not the money, they say, but the thrill of being in the game. Says N.F.L. Referee Bernie Ulman, a sporting-goods salesman who, like many pro officials, is a former college-football player: "It's the one good way of staying with football after you're too old to play...