Female football official embraces her untraditional role on the field

Southeast Missouri State running back Mark Robinson (23) carries the ball against Southern Illinois earlier this season at Houck Stadium Cape Girardeau.

Tyler Graef ~ Southeast Missourian

A hardy remnant of Southeast Missouri State football faithful, wearing raincoats and ponchos and sporting umbrellas, were in the stands at Houck Stadium Saturday.

They went home happy having watched the Redhawks win their fifth game, a 17-10 thrilling rain-drenched victory on Homecoming over the University of Tennessee-Martin.

In any gridiron contest, specially-clad arbiters roam the turf, observing the action and calling penalties when needed.

A spectator may only take notice of these on-field policemen if one of the folks in black and white stripes makes a call against their team.

Earlier this season at Houck Stadium, a discerning fan may have noticed something different about the officials during the Redhawks’ contest with Southern Illinois.

One of the “zebras” wasn’t a fella, it was a woman.

Nicole Randolph

Running with the boys

Nicole Randolph was a field judge that evening, working in a profession overwhelmingly occupied by men.

Field judges run a great deal and her job is to keep tabs on receivers and defensive backs.

For the last five years, Randolph has been a referee — a job that requires a thick skin. Everybody around you thinks they can do it better.

The late British playwright Harold Pinter, himself a one-time track star and a devoted cricket player, pushed back against the notion of fans knowing best.

“Referees are the law.” wrote Pinter. “They have a whistle. They blow it. And that whistle is the articulation of God’s justice.”

Connecting with family

Randolph, 38, is part of a Missouri Valley Conference officiating crew and SIU is an MVC school — which explained Nicole’s presence at Houck.

“I was happy to be assigned to the SEMO game,” Randolph said. “On the way to Cape Girardeau, I stopped to see my aunt and uncle in Champaign, Illinois.”

Nicole lives in Farmington, Michigan and drives thousands of miles annually going from game to game.

The furthest drive for her this season will be a November game in South Dakota.

The nuts and bolts of officiating

There are usually eight officials for any game. If a game has replay capability, there will be two more.

Randolph was the only female official on the sidelines at the SEMO-SIUC contest, which is typical.

“There might be 16 women nationwide working games in (our) consortium,” said Randolph, referring to the College Officiating Consortium — the assigning agency for refs.

The Big Ten’s Bill Carollo is the man personally responsible for assigning officials for several conferences, including the MVC.

“The number of females in (this business) is quite low, maybe two or three percent,” Carollo said.

It seems clear that Carollo is looking for qualified folks to enforce the game’s rules, regardless of gender.

“We have a huge shortage of officials today,” Carollo said.

“Ten years ago, we had no women at all.”

An altered landscape

If you attend a high school football game in southeast Missouri you may well notice something.

More often than you might expect, there is a girl, usually only one per team, in a jersey and pads.

The falling of gender barriers in football is an intriguing development.

Randolph, a Michigan native, isn’t particularly interested in any suggestion that she’s a trailblazer.

She doesn’t want special treatment and doesn’t get it.

“Female refs get a separate locker room from the men,” Carollo said. “Other than that, everything else is the same.”

“I love sports,” Randolph said. “I played basketball and ran track in high school and at Oakland University.”

For many people, activity in sports scales back considerably after college graduation.

Not for Randolph.

“After college, I played basketball in a rec league,” said Randolph, “and got involved in coed flag football.”

She did some coaching too — of a high school track team in the Detroit suburb where she lives.

She’s also worked in a women’s pro basketball league.

Randolph takes officiating jobs in college football not only in the MVC but whenever other leagues need a ref — the Pioneer, the Mid-American Conference, and even occasionally the Big Ten.

“It’s inspiring to be an official,” Randolph insists. “I don’t feel intimidated (at all).”

Breaking through the glass ceiling

She admits that her knowledge of football gets questioned at times.

“Anything I do,” Randolph admitted, “is going to have more scrutiny because of my gender.”

Transparency is essential, she said, to having credibility as an official.

Despite the divisiveness in American society today and the instantaneous reactions possible via social media, Randolph doesn’t worry about any notion of violence or abusive language directed her way.

She defuses the negative by “being proficient in my communication.”

“My integrity is important,” Randolph said. “I will admit to a mistake.

“(Look), coaches make mistakes, so do players, scorekeepers, and timers. Refs do too.”

Tempers can be volatile during games.

Randolph copes with angry coaches and players by keeping her cool.

“A coach’s job is usually on the line so our calls matter,” Randolph said. “Admitting I didn’t see something enhances my credibility.

“A relationship is important with coaches.”

Coaches don’t evaluate referees, Carollo said.

“(Coaches) have no part in it,” Carollo said. “They can send in plays for review and ask questions, but plays are reviewed and graded by current (National Football League) officials.”

The compensation

There is no such thing as full-time gridiron referees, not even in the NFL.

But Carollo says something has got to give because refereeing is not a part-time vocation anymore.

“I need (refs) to be in year-round training, just like coaches,” said Carollo, who sits on the recently organized College Football Officiating Competition Committee.

The job doesn’t come with full-time money.

“Division III referees make a few hundred dollars a game,” Carollo said. “Big Ten officials make about $3,000.”

Carollo declined to say how much refs earn in SEMO’s league — the Ohio Valley Conference.

Referees don’t even think about turning in expenses.

“It’s a flat fee we pay,” the officiating coordinator said. “Out of that money, refs pay for their own travel and hotel expenses.”

Carollo admits it can be a hard life.

“I need qualified people who can officiate the college game and balance that with family life and a regular job,” Carollo said.

Randolph’s everyday job is as a substitute teacher in the Farmington public schools. She works in special education.

She attends coaching clinics whenever she can and leans on mentors.

“I thought I could make (refereeing) a career,” Randolph said, “when two officials — one from the Big Ten, the other from the NFL — saw me call a high school basketball game.”

The men told Randolph they liked how she moved and how she handled the often-fiery reactions she got when making a call.

“They approached me after the game,” Randolph said, “and told me they thought I could do this for a living.”

With that encouragement, Randolph decided to make officiating her vocation.

The future

She has goals — and her objectives are clear.

“I want to work regularly in a Power-5 conference, then I want to get to the NFL,” Randolph said.

“But my dream job is to get on television and be an analyst.”

It may seem a long journey from where Randolph is to where she eventually wants to go, but life teaches us all the same thing.

The one thing you can count on in this life is change.