Richard Reels, 25-year NFL back judge and replay official passes away

Richard “Rich” Reels, a NFL official from 1993 – 2012, and a replay official for five years after that, died March 1. He was 74. Reels was a back judge and wore uniform number 83 for his entire career.

Strong start and a great college career

Born in 1949, Reels worked in education and in law enforcement. He married his high school sweetheart, Kay. Those two celebrated 51-years of marriage. She survives.

The Chicago native got his start officiating in 1973, working football, basketball and baseball. He worked small college basketball. His football officiating career took him to the pinnacle. Reels worked in the Big Ten Conference from 1987 – 1992, at back judge. He worked the 1990 Rose Bowl, and the 1991 Citrus Bowl between Georgia Tech and Nebraska that had national championship implications.

On to the NFL

Jerry Seeman hired Reels into the NFL for the 1993 season. Over his career, he worked on crews lead by Tom White, Bill Carollo, Dick Hantak, Bernie Kukar, Jeff Triplette, Walt Coleman, Ron Winter, and Al Riveron.

While on on-field Super Bowl assignment eluded him, Reels was assigned as an alternate to Super Bowl XLI. In total, he was assigned to five wild card games, five divisional playoff games, and one conference championship.

Reels did have the distinction of working the 2011 Wild Card game between the Broncos and Steelers. It was the first time the playoffs used modified overtime rules – although it was one of the shortest playoff overtimes ever.

A painful object lesson

Unfortunately, Reels made a highlight for something he probably wished he could have avoided. In 2009, the Steelers Percy Harvin returned a kickoff for a touchdown. The Vikings Jeff Dugan tried to tackle Harvin, but ran over Reels. After a few moments on the ground, Reels got up and continued in the game. But, later that week, Mike Pereira revealed that Reels had chest contusions and was quite sore.

Periera used that moment to remind the media and fans that while it might look funny for a middle aged man in a referee uniform to get knocked over, such collisions do hurt.

Officiating upstairs

Reels retired from the field after the 2012 football season and became a replay official. He served in that capacity for another five years.

A native of Chicago, Reels was active in the Central Officials Association and the Metropolitan Officials Association.

Our condolences to all who knew Richard Reels and loved him.