March is a great month on the NFL calendar because, traditionally, the NFL hires new officials.
We already have four retirements (Byron Boston, Mike Spanier, Jeff Rice and Walt Anderson) and the NFL is encouraging several veterans to take the gold watch. The list of retirees could therefore be extended.
Al Riverson, Senior Vice President for Arbitration, determines the finalists for the vacancies. It’s one of the funniest parts of his job – realizing a referee’s dream.
New recruits will go through an exciting and overwhelming orientation process. It starts with the official who receives a package on uniforms, rules, rule reviews, accent points and physical requirements. The new officials will attend the mini-clinic in May and learn about their crew assignments.
Then it’s all staff clinic in Dallas in July and the new recruits will be at eye level in the National Football League.
I want to emphasize that I have no idea who will be hiredBut we can put two and two together and determine that the NFL could hire a second woman this year – LaShell Nelson. She has been an official at the ODP for several years. Last year, she worked in the AAF and the CFL. Now she works in XFL. The NFL gives him a close look and gives him several opportunities to arbitrate to gain experience and show supervisors what he can do.
We will monitor the situation and report on all hires if and when we get confirmations.
