FREEZER BOWL Published in Referee Magazine: December 2006 by Bob Fulton Referee: Fred Silva Umpire: Art Demmas Head Linesman: Burl Toler Line Judge: Walt Peters Side Judge: Dave Parry Back Judge: Jim Poole Field Judge: Bob Lewis It was the heat that affected referee Fred Silva’s officiating crew at Cincinnati’s Riverfront Stadium on Jan. 10, 1982. Never mind that the officials were working the coldest game in NFL history. The host Bengals whipped the San Diego Chargers, 27-7, to win the AFC championship on a day when the thermometer plunged to nine degrees below zero and bitter gusts pushed the wind chill reading to a dangerously low -59. That eclipsed the old league record of -48, set on Dec. 31, 1967, when Green Bay defeated Dallas at Lambeau Field in the famed “Ice Bowl.” (The Ice Bowl still holds the record for lowest temperature.) The cold in Cincinnati caused all sorts of problems. But then, so did the heat. “During timeouts I would go over to the sideline and I’d cuddle up as tight as I could to those heaters, which were called Salamanders,” said side judge Dave Parry, who is now retired from the NFL and serves as the CCA national coordinator of football officials and Big 10. “It’s basically blowing a little flame out of a chute. Apparently I got too close or the wind pushed the flame a little bit. Singed my eyebrows, singed my hair and actually burned little brown holes in my pants and my shirt. I didn’t even realize it at the time. That’s how cold it was.” How cold was it? So cold that several officials and a number of players suffered frostbite. So cold that not even Cincinnati Coach Forrest Gregg could recall a more frigid game. The same Forrest Gregg, mind you, who started at right tackle for the Packers in the Ice Bowl. Conditions at Riverfront were so brutal that umpire Art Demmas, whose task it was to stand over the football during breaks in the action, occasionally abandoned his post for the comfort of the heaters. Like Parry, Demmas hovered too near the flame and his gloves started melting. Field judge Bob Lewis burned a hole in the back of his pants while basking in the warmth of a Salamander and back judge Jim Poole’s shirt began to smolder. “I can remember somebody saying, “‘You smell something burning?’ It was me!” said Poole. “The long-sleeve shirt I was wearing had some kind of rubberized surface on it which made it better for cold weather. Down by the cuff it was starting to burn. It didn’t catch on fire, but I was starting to.” Away from the heaters, the crew endured bone-chilling temperatures more common to Siberia than Cincinnati. Plumes of breath billowed from the mouths of players and officials like steam from a locomotive. Icicles dangled from the full beard of Chargers quarterback Dan Fouts. A piercing wind only added to everyone’s misery, slicing like a scythe through clothing and freezing exposed skin in mere minutes. Head linesman Burl Toler and line judge Walt Peters rounded out the crew whose members prepared as best they could for the elements. While all sorts of space-age cold-weather gear is available nowadays, back then the men in stripes relied on garbage bags. “We cut arm holes and a neck hole in these polyethylene garbage bags and put them on underneath our uniforms,” Demmas said. “And we took polyethylene baggies and put them between our two pairs of socks. We also wore long johns, gloves and those ski earmuffs that wrap around your head.” The extra layers helped in retaining body heat, but the trade-off was a loss of mobility. “We looked like Pillsbury doughboys out there, just hopping around, because we were wearing a lot of extra pounds worth of clothes,” Lewis said. “Had I found some way to get more on, I’d have put them on, too.” The officials also smeared Vaseline on their faces. But all the precautions in the world couldn’t guarantee anyone’s safety in such a hazardous environment. That prompted Art McNally, at the time, the NFL’s supervisor of officials, to offer an out. “Art talked to us before the game in the locker room,” Poole recalled. “He said, ‘Look, I know it’s going to be bad, so if any of you feel like you have to come out for a few minutes or even go to the locker room, do it. Just tell one of the alternates. Let them come in and take your place. Don’t feel bad if you have to leave.’ But none of us did.” Demmas did worry when he lost the feeling in his left foot just before halftime. “Thankfully, the half ended and we got into the locker room in time for me to rearrange my footwear and get the circulation back in my foot,” he said. The players suffered in the elements, too, especially the Chargers. They’d won, 41-38, the week before at Miami, where a high temperature of 84 degrees and wilting humidity made it seem as if the Orange Bowl were situated on the equator. In contrast, frighteningly frigid Riverfront could’ve doubled for an outpost on the Arctic Circle. San Diego’s high-powered offense, the most productive in NFL history to that point, sputtered in the cold and the wind. Fouts, whose long passes were repeatedly blown off course, admitted later he couldn’t even feel the ball. Bengals quarterback Ken Anderson unquestionably tolerated the conditions better than Fouts. He drilled an eight-yard touchdown pass to M.L. Harris midway in the first quarter to stake the Bengals to a 10-0 lead, then marched Cincinnati to another TD in the second quarter. Anderson drove the final nail in the Chargers’ coffin by tossing a three-yard touchdown pass to Don Bass with 6:52 left in the game. By then, the focus was simply on getting out of the cold. “It was one of those things where you’re worried more about surviving than officiating,” Poole said. “You’re thinking, ‘Man, let’s just get through this.’ And, of course, toward the end of the ballgame we ended up having to get in a couple television timeouts. The players were all, ‘C’mon, ref, can’t we get this thing going?’ It was so bad they just wanted to get the game over with.” When it finally did end, the officials hustled off to the warmth of their locker room. “It was even difficult to get your clothes off because your hands were so numb,” Parry said. “I think we all undressed rather slowly. And then we took a long, hot shower. Praise the Lord for that.” Parry and his crewmates were likewise thankful for the Salamanders, which provided a welcome measure of comfort during the game. An element of danger, too. For the officials felt the heat, even on the coldest day in NFL history. Bob Fulton is a freelance writer and author of the book The Summer Olympics: A Treasury of Legend and Lore. He resides in Indiana, Pa. ■
Posted on: Fri, 12 Jul 2013 00:47:02 +0000
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