Crew Nears 700 Games Officiated—Together
Sports fans thrive on records—Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa hitting 60-plus home runs; Ron Dayne rushing for more yards than anyone in college football history; Michael Jordan scoring 63 points in a playoff game; the New York Yankees winning an astonishing 25 World Series. But, here’s a record of which most sports fans are unaware. A crew of Illinois High School football officials is closing in on its 700th game—together.
The crew consists of Wayne Endicott of Palatine, Bob Foster of Glen Ellyn, Joe Hall of Winfield, Ed Stanley of Lisle and Greg Williams of Chicago. Their records are impressive enough when considered individually. Endicott, the senior member of the crew in terms of year’s officiated, has just completed his 38th season. Next in line is Hall with 34 years, Stanley with 33 years, Foster with 30 years and then Williams, who just finished his 27th year. That puts the total number of years of officiating accumulated by the quintet at 162. Each has officiated more than 1,000 games as an individual.
Impressive as that total is, the combined effort of the five is even more astounding. After completing their 1999 season, Endicott, Hall, Foster and Stanley have been on the field together for 684 games, spanning 29 seasons. The crew "rookie," Williams, joined forces with the other four in 1988, when Illinois schools added a fifth member to their officiating crews. He has recorded "only" 280 games with the other four.
Most games in the streak occurred on high school fields. The string features three state championship contests—the 1988 Class A game, the 1989 Class 5A game and the 1993 Class 4A contest. The five, by the way, were the first to work as a 5-man crew in a state final in Illinois. They officiated the first game of the championship weekend in 1988, the initial year 5-man crews were employed in the state playoffs.
The total includes 52 state playoff contests. It also counts a number of small college contests, a smattering of semi-pro games and even one game inside the walls of Stateville, the Illinois maximum security prison located in Joliet. It does not take into account the fact that Hall and Endicott are both regular members of the Chicago Bears chain crew and that Foster, Stanley and Williams serve as alternates on that crew. Endicott is also the alternate play clock operator at Soldier Field for Bears home games.
Some other statistics to ponder in this incredible streak. Figuring just 30 players per team—a conservative estimate in the suburban Chicago football hotbed—the crew has touched the lives of more than 40,000 young men (and one young woman, by the way). If each school had 750 fans in the stands (again a conservative number), their act has played before more than 1,000,000 people. At just 50 yards in penalties per game, they have walked off more than 20 miles. And figuring approximately 2 hours and 15 minutes per game, they have been together the equivalent of two straight months, 24 hours per day.
The long-running act is, not remarkably, winding down. But the run is not yet over. The crew boasts a full slate of games for the 2000 season. As the crew motto goes: "We’re going to keep doing this until we get it right."