Fail Mary Revisited

The Green Bay Packers' matchup with the Seattle Seahawks to open the 2014 National Football League season rekindles memories of injustice. In 2012, when the Pack Attack last battled the 2013 champs, the green and gold got shafted by hapless replacement referees on a play that decided the outcome of the game. Following that fiasco, while I grieved, I wrote an explanation for the madness, from the point-of-view of one of the dopey refs. Enjoy former NFL scab Clyde Skumly's take on that Seattle “touchdown” that definitely wasn't a touchdown.

Clyde Skumly, replacement ref:

All right, you football freaks, if you could all stop bickering about how plan-B referees cost your favorite team a win, pretty-pretty-please with sugar on top allow me to defend myself and my colleagues. Yes, earlier this year I worked as a replacement ref in the NFL while the real officials were on strike. And I'd like to point out that I'm pretty sure I correctly nailed an Eagles' lineman for a false start, and meanwhile, that Ed Hochuli ref you people suddenly wanna hug did nothing but bench-press a treadmill in his basement. I guess that's gratitude for ya.

Our best efforts to succeed at the highest level of the reffing trade, under intense pressure and in a very short window of time, may have been criticized, but we weren't as incompetent as some of you ingrates think. While my associates had built their resumes by reffing everything from the Lingerie League to dog shows to pie-eating contests, I'd been busting my hump for decades as an official for a different sport that may cause brain damage: Professional wrestling.

Shortly after I damn near graduated from high school, I began my career as an amateur wrestling referee. When I made the jump from amateur to pro wrestling, it was for two reasons: 1.) When you watch sweaty young men straddle and pin each other enough times, it starts seemin' fruity. 2.) Plus I got fired for “gross ineptitude.”

Thankfully, the WWF came calling shortly thereafter. Apparently they were impressed by my reputation as a hapless referee and simply blown away by the awful score I got on that IQ test they gave me. My life was transformed in that magical moment when the owner of the company handed me a contract outside of a strip club and groaned, “Shit or get off the pot.” In a matter of weeks I was warning Jake “The Snake” Roberts to put his damn pet python back in its bag, and the jeers I got from Albuquerque to Tallahassee only toughened my skin. For all officials, our job entails making unpopular calls, and if that means sending young fans of The Undertaker or the Packers home with tears in their eyes while we refs rejoice in their sorrow, then so be it.

Death threats no longer scare me. I wasn't fazed when I got bundles of hate mail after I reffed that match between Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant at Wrestlemania V or X or whatever the hell it was. Sure, my critics still insist I had my back turned while Andre hit Hulk in the head with a steel chair (which was an illegal foreign object) because I got distracted by Andre the Giant's evil manager, that I wrongly counted the Hulkster down for the three-count and awarded the championship belt to Andre the Giant. And to those naysayers, here's my rebuttal: My ruling stands. Get over it. Maybe Hulk did get knocked out by that illegal chair as the tape clearly shows and maybe he didn't, but I'm the ref and I didn't see it. So, go to fuck yourself, OK?

I didn't become a referee for the approval of my fellow man, or the trophy wives or the money. Heck, I gave up on trophy wives years ago. I earn just enough scratch to shack up with loose broads here and there while I'm on the road. And I really don't give a crap if my fellow man disapproves of that.

Not long after the story broke about the real refs going on strike, I was contacted by the NFL. Once a league official assured me that the gig—however temporary—would pay better than working this year's SummerSlam, I was happy to hop aboard the football express. My God, they even held the contract-signing inside an office in New York City! I had to put on a fancy suit and shake hands with big shots and put on deodorant and everything. It felt a lot more legit than pressing a contract against the back of Bam Bam Bigelow outside of The Golden Beaver in Knoxville and signing it with a stripper's eyeliner as I had done to join the WWF.

Lord knows my first few weeks jobbing as an NFL weren't perfect. On one occasion, I made a series of shadow-puppet gestures 'cause I forgot how to hand-signal a false-start penalty. Some football know-it-all on ESPN called me “substandard,” but at least the paychecks kept coming. In spite of the bickering from the media and the fans, I finally got the cash to buy that pinball machine I'd had my eye on for so long.

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