Still on call: Steratore thriving in new job with CBS
Associated Press
Gene Steratore was the referee in last season’s Super Bowl in Minneapolis. He now works for CBS.
Associated Press
Gene Steratore of Washington is a former NFL referee and college basketball official.
When Gene Steratore got the call that he would be the referee for Super Bowl LII in Minneapolis last February, it marked the signature moment in a 15-year career of officiating in the National Football League.
An official doesn’t just receive that type of assignment on seniority. An intricate rating system, complete with game reviews that show accuracy in calls and comportment of the officiating crew, is a major part of the evaluation process.
Only the best make it, and Steratore has been one of the best referees in the game for years. So at the pinnacle of his career, Steratore did something that surprised many.
He left.
Retiring from his successful NFL officiating job at age 55 might have seemed a little crazy, but not to Steratore. He was offered a position by CBS as a rules analyst in June and accepted. And like many of his life’s decisions, Steratore trusted his gut. He used the same technique in finishing his run as an NCAA basketball official at the end of last season.
“It was a big decision because of the amount of time, year and effort you put in to get to the levels I was fortunate to get to but at some point with everything, things do come to an end,” said Steratore. “There are opportunities we can take on as we age, a new endeavor, and especially with something as large as CBS really is, and it just felt like the right time for me.
“I knew when I was contemplating it a few years ago that I wasn’t ready yet. It had nothing to do with working a Super Bowl or any other game. It just had that internal feeling.”
Steratore was one of four high-profile NFL officials to announce their retirement this year. The others were Ed Hochuli, Jeff Triplette and Terry McAulay. Triplette and McAuley followed Steratore’s path into television jobs. Triplette was hired by ESPN to work Monday Night Football and McAulay headed to NBC for Sunday Night Football.
“Now that I’m there and involved in a completely new endeavor, it’s been a nice and accepted challenge to learn the media side of life and incorporate what I learned over 35 years of officiating and put officiating and media together,” Steratore said. “Over the past few months, it’s been a great deal of fun.”
In Steratore’s new job, he monitors a handful of games from a studio that are being played at the same time, and waits for the call to review a play. He is sort of an official, only his calls are now opinions on how the rules should be applied.
“Then, after making a decision on the challenge, you are being asked to go on television (and give your call),” said Steratore. “To see all that interaction behind the scenes, with producers trying to get you on, and with a very small window to be hopefully relevant … that’s what makes it so fun.”
Steratore’s son, Andrew, works as one of the game monitors in the studio and his other son, Gene, handles his social media account.
“That was a vital part in making the decision to do this, to finally come home and not be on the road for 150 days (a year),” said Steratore. “I share this with my family and it’s been so rewarding.”
Interesting anecdotes
Though Steratore has officiated hundreds of game, one team has seen a lot of him. Steratore has refereed 16 games in which Tom Brady quarterbacked the New England Patriots. In three of those games (2010, 2012 and 2013), Brady went up against Peyton Manning in high-profile encounters of future Hall of Fame quarterbacks.
In a 2011 game between the Patriots and New York Jets, Brady ended up giving Steratore a bloody nose.
“He fumbled the football and the offensive and defensive linemen were on the quarterback,” he said. “As a referee, you feel protective of the quarterback (because of the rules). … As a practice, I go into the pile and surf through the bodies. Brady turned his facemask and caught me on my nose. One of the officials on my crew said your nose is bleeding. Do you want to put a bandage on it? I told him my nose draws enough attention so let’s move on.”
In a 2008 game in Pittsburgh against the Baltimore Ravens, Steratore realized before the game that he left his cap at home. A frantic call back home caught his sons just before leaving for the game.
“The police pulled my kids over at the Bridgeville rest area,” Steratore said. “They thought they were going to get a police escort to Heinz Field because he had the hat. The officer took the hat and made them get back in (the line of traffic) on 79.”
Steratore worked his first NFL game in the regular-season opener in 2003. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were in town to play Philadelphia at Lincoln Financial Field.
“It was right after (the season) when Tampa Bay won the Super Bowl,” Steratore recalled. “The first play of that game, I missed a low block on a kickoff. My first downgrade in the NFL was the first play I ever officiated. I never saw players run that fast. A player got hit and flipped over. A veteran player came over to me and said, ‘Did you see that?’ I said, ‘Yeah, they move really fast.’ He said, ‘Yeah, and that’s a foul, too.'”
One of the most special times, he said, was having his brother, Tony, on his crew for three seasons.
“That never happened before. I remember that (phone) call really clear,” said Steratore. “Those three seasons of having your brother on your crew, every one of those games are forever burned in your mind.”
Whether he wanted to be, Steratore is linked to two of the most controversial NFL plays in this century: the overturned TD catches of Detroit’s Calvin Johnson in a 2010 game against the Chicago Bears, and Dallas’ Dez Bryant against the Green Bay Packers in the 2014 playoffs.
Most recently, Steratore’s use of an index card last year to measure the distance between the tip of the ball and the pole at the end of the first-down chains, went viral on social media. The first down call came on Dallas’ winning drive against the Oakland Raiders.
“I still have the card,” said Steratore. “My dad called me at the airport as I was leaving after the game and said, ‘I did that in 1968 in Bentleyville.'”
Bounces
Before everything else, there was basketball.
Gene Steratore’s father, Gene Sr., was a flamboyant and respected basketball official, working high school and college games.
“I remember the trips to West Virginia to see (then head coach) Gale Catlett,” he said. “We used to stand under the stands near the officials’ locker room. I used to sit on the end of the bench and watch (my dad) referee. We never watched the players as kids. We watched my dad.”
Steratore’s first basketball gig came at the Uniontown YMCA when he was 13-years-old.
“Bumps Nypaver gave us free sodas and a couple dollars at the end of an eight-game Saturday,” Steratore said. “I loved every second of it. I fell in love with officiating right then.”
Steratore got his PIAA certification while living in Edinboro and his first football game was a junior varsity game in Erie that earned him $22. After returning to the area, he worked high school and small-college games until legendary official Mickey Crowley hired him for Atlantic 10 games in 1997. Steratore retired from that job, last working primarily for the Big Ten Conference.
His assignments allowed him to work with another Washington County product, Ray Natilli.
“When Raymond started officiating, his dad was his partner,” Steratore said. “When his father started to wind down, Raymond and I began to work together. We worked two men back then. We had a lot of fun at Burgettstown, South Fayette and those games back in the day. I remember we worked Kansas and Michigan State in the second round of the NCAA tournament maybe five years ago and looked at each other and said these players are a little bigger than at Burgettstown and South Fayette. That was a fun night because Raymond was there.”
Steratore said the pace of basketball helped him become a better football official.
“The repetition of basketball, the quickness of it, the challenge of making hundreds of decisions a night, helped the processing of actions between competitive athletes. It didn’t matter what sport,” he said. “It kept my mind in the process of making judgments second by second non-stop. That helped me slow the game down. Football is unique because the play continues after the foul. Those seconds allowed me to judge whether it was a foul or not. … It allowed me to have what’s called a later whistle.”
Still home-grown
Steratore grew up in Uniontown and graduated from Laurel Highlands High School and Kent State University. Throughout his officiating career, he and his brother have run Steratore Sanitary Supplies in Eighty Four. He has fond memories of his childhood.
“From an officiating side and a sports side, Uniontown is as tradition rich as Washington is,” said Steratore, a South Strabane resident. “As a kid growing up, I loved Uniontown. It still carries that blue-collar work ethic, a family town.”
Coaches such as James “Lash” Nesser, Abe Everhart and Mark John, to name a few, influenced Steratore.
“They taught me a lot,” Steratore said. “They prepared me to meet the people I ended up working with later on. I was much more nervous working with (them) than (Wisconsin’s) Bo Ryan and Michigan State’s Tom Izzo.”