{"id":1186,"date":"2020-11-24T13:37:50","date_gmt":"2020-11-24T13:37:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/?p=1186"},"modified":"2020-11-27T02:47:55","modified_gmt":"2020-11-27T02:47:55","slug":"black-excellence-shines-on-monday-night-football","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/2020\/11\/24\/black-excellence-shines-on-monday-night-football\/","title":{"rendered":"Black excellence shines on Monday Night Football"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>When the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Los Angeles Rams took the field on Monday Night Football, it was the first time in league history that an all-black officiating crew called an NFL game together. The matchup also  featured a Buccaneers team that has three Black coordinators. Black excellence was on full display for everyone to witness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jerome Boger, a 17-year veteran NFL official, led the seven-person officiating crew comprised of: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Barry Anderson \u2013 Umpire \u2013 14-year NFL official<\/li><li>Anthony Jeffries \u2013 Side Judge \u2013 3-year NFL official<\/li><li>Carl Johnson \u2013 Line Judge \u2013 17-year NFL official<\/li><li>Julian Mapp \u2013 Down Judge \u2013 12-year NFL official<\/li><li>Dale Shaw \u2013 Field Judge \u2013 8-year NFL official<\/li><li>Greg Steed \u2013 Back Judge \u2013 18-year NFL official<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis historic Week 11 crew is a testament to the countless and immeasurable contributions of Black officials to the game, their exemplary performance, and to the power of inclusion that is the hallmark of this great game,\u201d said Troy Vincent, NFL Executive Vice President of Football Operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-twitter wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/NFL?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#NFL<\/a> will make history tonight on Monday Night Football with its first all Black officiating crew. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/MNF?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#MNF<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Rams?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#Rams<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/GoBucs?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#GoBucs<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/BlackExcellence?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#BlackExcellence<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/DTS?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#DTS<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/y49pjeba2A\">pic.twitter.com\/y49pjeba2A<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Double Take Sports (@dbltakesports) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/dbltakesports\/status\/1330983151133286403?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 23, 2020<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Five of the officials work together regularly, with Anderson, Mapp, Shaw, and Jeffries part of Boger\u2019s crew. Johnson and Steed were brought in from other officiating crews to join the group for Monday Night Football. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Boger became just the third Black referee in NFL history when he was promoted from his position as line judge in 2006, with Johnny Grier being the first at the start of the 1988 NFL season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI am proud of my heritage and excited about my participation in this historic game,\u201d Boger said.&nbsp; \u201cThe opportunity to work with a great group of Black officials and exhibit our proficiency in executing our assignment is something I am really looking forward to.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-twitter wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">History.<br><br>The first all-black officiating crew will work <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/MNF?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#MNF<\/a>. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/InspireChange?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#InspireChange<\/a> (created by <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/wyche89?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@wyche89<\/a>) <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/O2lbyJD1tx\">pic.twitter.com\/O2lbyJD1tx<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Inspire Change (@InspireChange) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/InspireChange\/status\/1331002085362573314?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 23, 2020<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>If there&#8217;s one place the NFL has made progress with hiring minority talent, it is within the ranks of officiating. Four of the league&#8217;s 17 officiating crews are led by Black referees, which is a higher percentage than NFL coaches or general managers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The NFL hired its first Black official,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/operations.nfl.com\/the-officials\/history-of-the-official\/burl-toler\/\">Burl Tover<\/a>, in 1965. He served as a head linesman in the league until 1980, including working Super Bowl XIV, becoming the first African American to officiate the league&#8217;s championship game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Also, five Black officials were a part of the Super Bowl LIV crew \u2013 including Anderson, Johnson, and Steed \u2013 the most minority officials ever on a Super Bowl officiating crew. Boger was the referee for Super Bowl XLVII to conclude the 2012 season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While this is progress is progress, the NFL still has a long way to go when it comes to minorities in front office and head coaching positions. Also the question still remains why are we just seeing an all-black officiating crew in a league that is 100 years old. This is the same question that emerged when the a <a href=\"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/2020\/08\/18\/jasons-wrights-hire-as-first-black-team-president-is-long-overdue-in-the-nfl\/\">NFL team hired the first black president<\/a> in the league earlier this year. However, this is a conversation for another day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For now, these NFL referees deserve to be celebrated for breaking barriers and doing so during a nationally televised Monday Night Football game. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The first all-black officiating crew in NFL history and three black coordinators highlighted the Rams vs. Buccaneers matchup on Monday Night Football.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1192,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/NFL-officating-crew2-.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1186"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1199,"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1186\/revisions\/1199"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}