Team player

Ex-referee Tunney set to visit DN

NFL referee Jim Tunney confers with San Francisco 49ers quarterback Joe Montana during an NFL game. Tunney was an NFL official from 1960–1991, including time as a referee from 1967–1991. He refereed three Super Bowls during his officiating career. Submitted

Despite their zebra stripes, seven-member officiating crews typically blend into the background, and even when all eyes are upon them it is rare for more than one official to be the focus of attention.

But make no mistake. There are 29 men on the field, not 22, on three teams: two in competition and one trying to keep the other two playing fair.

At least that’s how now-retired NFL referee Dr. Jim Tunney viewed his officiating crews — as teams.

Tunney, a Pebble Beach, Calif., resident, will be speaking at Wild Rivers Coast Foundation’s “Pre-Bowl Tailgate Party” fundraiser on Jan. 28 at Lucky 7 Casino’s Tolowa Events Center. A well-traveled speaker, Tunney’s core message is how teamwork transforms groups of people into something greater than the sum of their parts.

As Tunney describes it, an experienced coach is a good type of person to have as an officiating crew chief, called the referee, who supervises the work of the six other field officials (umpire, head linesman and four judges).

When a line judge blows a call, a ref, like the coach of any other team, has to make sure his “teammate” keeps his head in the game, Tunney told the Triplicate in a phone interview last week.

“When we have an official who makes a call and 77,000 people are yelling at him and he’s got his head down, you’ve got to get him out there and keep going. So my job was just to get the crew to pick themselves up and move on.”

Although Tunney grew up aspiring to be a coach, his most well-known coaching work was as a neutral on the field. Tunney joined the NFL as an official in 1960. In 1967 he was promoted to referee, a position he held until 1991, “coaching” officiating crews (which are kept intact during the regular season) for 24 years. He officiated at a record 29 post-season games, including three Super Bowls (VI, XI and XII).

Tunney was present for two of the NFL’s top three weather games (as ranked by NFL Network). Tunney was an alternate referee for the legendary National Football League Championship between Green Bay and Dallas in 1967, known as the “Ice Bowl,” when the wind chill was in the minus-50s and a spectator in the stands died of exposure.

Tunney refereed the 1988 “Fog Bowl,” when an opaque white mist drifted off Lake Michigan and onto Chicago’s Soldier Field during a playoff game between the Bears and Philadelphia Eagles. The game was rendered unwatchable to all but the players and Tunney’s crack officiating crew, who reported that the game could go on because they could still see the uprights at both ends of the field.

Among Tunney’s other noteworthy games was another weather incident, when fans at Denver’s Mile High Stadium in 1985 threw snowballs that interfered with an extra-point kick attempt by the visiting San Francisco 49ers. Tunney reminded the press after the game that although the incident was lamentable, there was no rule in the books for penalizing teams for their fans’ interference. Nevertheless, Tunney increased security during the second half of the “Snowball Game.”

Given Tunney’s reputation for bringing freak weather wherever he goes, Del Norters may wish to pack snow chains. And swimsuits. You can’t be too sure.

One thing you can be sure of is that Tunney’s Jan. 28 speaking engagement will have something to say to anyone interested in learning more about how to build a team, from the perspectives of both a coach and a member.

The event was made possible through Tunney’s association with Jim Griggs, who keeps a home on the North Coast. Griggs and Tunney have been friends for years and Griggs serves on the board of Tunney’s youth foundation.

Tunney is a past president of the National Speakers Association and “has worked with major corporations and associations all over the world to build teams, set effective goals and increase productivity, according to his website, jimtunney.com/blog.

However, Tunney says he is not a big fan of the word “motivation” and therefore hesitates to refer to himself as a motivational speaker.

“You can inspire people,” he said. “You can give them new direction. But the motivation has to come from inside.”

As long as individual motivation is there, Tunney says, the key is to build those individuals into a team with a shared sense of purpose and resolve.

“I would love to coach the 49ers right now,” Tunney said on Tuesday of last week, “because they won’t lose. Once you get people that believe they won’t lose, that’s an easy coaching assignment.”

True to Tunney’s description, the San Francisco 49ers battled back twice to retake the lead in the fourth quarter of Saturday’s playoff game, advancing to the NFC Championship with a pair of electrifying plays in the final seconds of the game. (Perhaps all it took was a new head coach — team-builder Jim Harbaugh — to turn around a long-suffering team.)

Tunney’s understanding of team dynamics comes from more than just sports. His day job out of college was as a teacher and varsity basketball coach at a high school in Los Angeles. After eight years, he began moving up the ranks of school administration, from assistant principal to principal, then from assistant district superintendent to district superintendent. Tunney said his coaching skills were honed in this environment as much as anywhere.  

“As a faculty we had to work together,” Tunney said. “As we got a young teacher in, I always felt you should use a department head to help them out. It’s a similar thing with football. One of the guys gets knocked over, another teammate comes over and picks him up. When a teacher has a bad day, they need a buddy to come and help pick them up and let them know they’re not struggling alone. Everybody has issues from time to time.”