NFL referee Cheffers to New Mexico coaches and officials: 'We are in this together.'

Carl Cheffers has a résumé any football official would envy.

It’s not just the 500-plus National Football League games he has worked in his lengthy career, although that’s impressive enough. It’s also his 35 postseason assignments.

And the three Super Bowls he has refereed.

But before any of that, Cheffers was like most any New Mexico high school official.

“I like to think,” Cheffers said, “I’m one of you. I sat in that chair. We’re part of the same family.”

Cheffers was the keynote speaker Friday as the first day of the New Mexico High School Coaches Association Summer Conference concluded at the Albuquerque Convention Center. Cheffers is in his 46th year of officiating. He began modestly, as all officials do. His start was doing Cal-Irvine intramurals, looking to pocket a little extra cash.

He was immediately hooked, and he worked his way up through the ranks, from high school, to college (including what was then the Pac-10), and then first to NFL Europe before coming across the pond where he is currently one of the most experienced of the league’s 17 referees. (One of those 17, Albuquerque’s Land Clark, also was in attendance Friday.)

Cheffers was the referee for Super Bowl LI (Patriots-Falcons), LV (Chiefs-Buccaneers) and LVII (Chiefs-Eagles).

The Southern California native recalled his days working prep games.

“Officiating high school football is so much fun,” Cheffers said. “I was telling someone the other day how much I miss it.”

And his story is a familiar one to overworked officials, such as those in New Mexico who frequently are stretched thin. As a young man, Cheffers said, he worked as many as five games in a week, and he said efforts must continue to find new officials.

Cheffers first worked games in NFL Europe before he joined the NFL’s home-grown roster.

“It was an amazing day,” said Cheffers, who turns 65 next week. He cut his teeth as a side judge. He was promoted to referee in 2008.

And he spoke of the day he received the call from the league office as it told him he’d be the white hat for New England-Atlanta.

“Nothing prepares you for that,” he said. Cheffers retired a couple of years ago from his career as a car battery salesman.

One of the things that resonated most in his speech Friday was his description of how officials and coaches should be interacting, no matter what level.

“I treat coaches like customers,” he said, “and all my customers are different.”

He emphasized to the audience that simply being themselves, and finding a professional tone in coach-official discussions, should be a large part of the path for both parties. He said coaches often have a hard time ceding influence to the game official, after having total control of the entire week of preparation.

“They know their team. They know the other team. They don’t know us,” Cheffers said. And Cheffers added that coaches should do all they can to stop themselves from letting emotion take over before going after an official.

“If you bury them with emotion, what is the outcome?” Cheffers asked. “Think about the outcome when you interact with officials.”

Too often, he said, citing a national survey, officials feel hostility from coaches or fans, and about half of officials in that survey said they have felt threatened at one time or another.

But he also made a point to let them know this:

“We make mistakes,” he said plainly. “We make mistakes. The last thing any of us wants to do … is make a mistake.”

Ultimately, Cheffers said, it was a joint venture.

“We are in this together,” he said at the end of his speech. “We can’t do it without each other.”

The conference finishes on Saturday with a slew of meetings in various sports, and the weekend ends with a dinner banquet in which the four new members of the New Mexico High School Coaches Association Hall of Honor will be formally recognized.