Everybody is busy during football season but few may be able to claim two full-time jobs related to America’s greatest sport. One exception? Walt Anderson.
The NFL announced that it has hired 21 full-time game officials on Wednesday, designed to “improve consistency, efficiency and accuracy” in their work at the professional level. What does that have to do with college football you might say? Well, one of those 21 officials happens to be Anderson, who also moonlights as the Big 12’s coordinator of officials when he is not busy on Sunday, Monday or Thursday during the NFL season.
“We believe that we will learn a great deal over the course of this initial year working with the full-time game officials,” said NFL Senior Vice President of Officiating Alberto Riveron in a statement. “Our collective goal is to make a positive impact on NFL officiating overall.”
Anderson, who retired from his other day job of being a dentist years ago, has been with the Big 12 for nearly a decade in the same post. A spokesperson for the conference confirmed to NBC Sports that he would remain the league’s coordinator of officials despite being hired “full-time” by the NFL.
"They are actually OK with me doing the Big 12 role," he said. He's technically been a "full-time" ref for 15 years. NFL has accommodated.
— David Ubben (@davidubben) September 6, 2017
According to the NFL, “full-time game officials will work throughout the calendar year on game preparation and game administration, analyzing current game trends, communicating with the officiating roster, and assisting to ensure that there is a qualified pipeline of future officials through scouting efforts.” Anderson appears to have plenty of experience doing that already thanks to his job in Dallas with the Big 12 but going forward he will be quite the busy man pulling double-duty.