Bill and Keith's Excellent Adventure

By Bill Leavy

NFL officials Bill Leavy and Keith Ferguson encountered a major snowstorm and many detours while traveling from San Francisco to Baltimore for a game last December. It all added up to an “absolute trip from hell.”

It generally is not a good thing when a phone rings at 5:30 a.m. Little did I know how true that would be on Friday, Dec. 18, 2009, when Art McNally (former NFL director of officiating) woke me up and advised me that there was potential for a huge snowstorm to hit the Northeast on Saturday that could affect our crew’s ability to get to Baltimore to work the Ravens and Chicago Bears game that Sunday. Art said that Mike Pereira (NFL vice president of officiating) was sending out an e-mail to all officials affected, authorizing them to make changes to their existing reservations to ensure they would arrive at their respective games on time.

My back judge, Keith Ferguson, and I boarded an 11 p.m. red eye that night from San Francisco to Boston, where we would connect with another flight to Reagan National (Arlington, Va.). There was no way to get into Baltimore’s BWI (Baltimore Washington International) at the time.

I checked with all the other guys on the crew and they had all made alternate plans and would be making every effort to get in either Friday night or early Saturday morning. I was feeling a little more confident that the entire crew would get to Baltimore on Saturday.

At 8:30 p.m. I left my house to pick up Keith and drive up to San Francisco from San Jose. Everything went smoothly, and then Murphy’s Law created some drama as the plane we were to take to Boston was late coming into SFO (airport). That made our departure an hour late, reducing the time window for connecting with our flight into Reagan National. Both Keith and I dozed occasionally on the flight, but neither of us sleep very well on planes.

Upon landing in Boston we immediately checked the board to see that our plane was going to be on time to Baltimore. We were pumped that we were going to be able to get into the Washington/Baltimore area that morning. Not so fast.

Before our plane began to push back from the gate, the pilot informed us that there was “good news and bad news.” The good news was that we were still leaving for Washington, but the bad news was that a landing light was out and needed to be replaced and it would take five to 10 minutes to fix. Right! Been there and heard that many times. Sure enough, 45 minutes later we finally backed out, taxied to the runway and took off. That delay turned out to be critical and would set in motion what would be the absolute trip from hell.

As we approached Reagan National, the ride became extremely bumpy and we knew we were heading into some crappy weather. But we were both amazed and thankful that we had arrived.

Wrong!

Suddenly the pilot tells us that we were going to be rerouted to Raleigh, N.C. Had we taken off on time from Boston we would have beaten the weather, but it was not to be.

Once on the ground in Raleigh I called and checked in with McNally, who had made it to Baltimore and was coordinating with Pereira and all the other guys on the crew.

Clete Blakeman (field judge) was the only official who made it into the Baltimore Airport Marriott on Friday night.

Darrell Jenkins (umpire) had flown into Boston and took a bus to New York City, and was scheduled to take a train to Baltimore, arriving about 8 p.m. Saturday. Wish we had been as smart as Darrell.

Mark Baltz (head linesman) and Greg Bradley (side judge) were stuck in Charlotte, N.C., trying to get a flight, train or bus to Baltimore.

Mark Perlman (line judge) was driving through the blizzard with relatives from New Jersey.

My replay assistant, Al Jury, made it to Philadelphia on Friday night, but his Saturday morning flight was canceled and he was on a train headed to Baltimore.

David Coleman, my video operator, was stuck in Cleveland with flight after flight being canceled.

There were no flights, no buses and no trains scheduled to go from Raleigh to Baltimore on Saturday. Keith and I agreed the only option we had was, ROAD TRIP! That seemed doable as Pereira had advised me that the game time had been moved to 4:15 p.m. from 1:15 p.m. to clear the stadium of all the snow.

At the Raleigh airport we got a GPS-equipped SUV for the 240-mile drive to Baltimore. We picked up the car at 1:30 p.m., set our GPS system to the Baltimore airport and started driving north. The storm was moving north ahead of us and the roads were in pretty good shape. I was driving and Keith was using a map to confirm what the GPS was telling us. At least he was until he lowered his window to get some fresh air and the map sitting on the dash flew past Keith’s face and out the window.

We had now been traveling for 18 ugly hours with little sleep and with no end of the trip in sight. Under the circumstances and the condition we were in, we both just cracked up (maybe you had to be there).

We had no idea where in the hell we were or where we were going. On the bright side, the GPS system indicated a 6:30 p.m. arrival at BWI.

Keith called the other guys to check on their status. Perlman said he was driving in the blizzard. Jenkins was on a train and looked like he would make it by 10 p.m. Baltz and Bradley were experiencing one flight cancellation after another. Jury had already arrived, but it looked like Coleman wouldn’t get in till Sunday.

We were cruising along and were making such good time that we had forgotten about Murphy’s Law. Big mistake. The traffic ahead of us began to slow, then came to a full stop. The snow had begun falling heavily and we were bumper to bumper on I-95 in Virginia. Two California guys navigating snowy, slippery roads made for more than a little yelling. And at times, screaming!

It was getting dark and the GPS told us to anticipate a 10 p.m. arrival. Traffic eventually opened up somewhat after we crossed into Maryland. About 20 miles later, we came to another stop for 15 minutes.

I called Mike (Pereira) on my cell and told him what was going on. Mike, however, said it was not worth it and that we should go to a hotel and drive into Baltimore on Sunday morning. He said the Bears hadn’t even arrived in Baltimore yet due to a mechanical problem Friday night.

Keith and I were whipped, so we took Mike’s advice and exited the freeway. The first two hotels we found were already occupied by travelers. At a Best Western the guy at the desk told us a guy in front of us had gotten the last room. Son-of-a-b——!

Keith said that he had gotten his second wind and wanted to press on. I agreed. After a dinner of Diet Cokes and Snickers bars, we hit the road again. It was now 9:30 p.m., and traffic was a little lighter. It was promising, but that was short-lived.

As we reached the crest of a hill, there was a sea of taillights that extended for miles and three lanes of traffic at a standstill. We were on I-95 40 miles south of Washington, D.C., and about 70 miles from the Baltimore Airport Marriott and much-needed sleep.

We didn’t move so much as a foot from 10 p.m. until 2 a.m. At one point I walked over to a trucker to see if he knew what was going on. He told me that there was a big rig accident at exit 150, about five miles in front of us and that the freeway was shut down. Wonderful. My cell phone was dead and Keith’s was dying. Keith called Perlman, who had finally arrived in Baltimore.

We advised Mike (Pereira) of our situation. He couldn’t believe our luck (or lack thereof) and just wanted to make sure we were safe. He had already alerted Ron Winter’s crew (working the New York Jets game) that potentially one of his officials would have to take a train to Baltimore on Sunday morning.

Traffic began crawling again around 2 a.m. It felt good to be driving as we passed parked truckers and abandoned cars in the middle of the freeway that had run out of gas.

We finally pulled into the airport rental car return area at 4 a.m. After 14 1/2 hours on the road, plus another 18 getting to Raleigh, our travel nightmare was over.

God bless Art McNally for letting Keith and me sleep as long as possible while he organized the crew and set up a police escort for us to get to the stadium on time. At 12:30 p.m. we went to the airport to pick up Baltz and Bradley, as their plane had just landed, and drove to the stadium. Coleman’s flight arrived a short time later and he took a taxi to the stadium.

At 4:15 p.m., the entire crew was in position, right on schedule, as the Ravens kicked off to the Bears after the largest recorded snowfall to ever hit Baltimore in December.

Travel hasn’t been easy since 9/11. I’ve had my share of canceled flights, missed connections and mechanical breakdown delays, but this trip will never be forgotten.

Bill Leavy has worked 15 seasons in the NFL and is a retired San Jose, Calif., police officer and firefighter.