Former pilot keeps his cool as head referee of Super Bowl LIII

When John Parry (T’88) took the field at Super Bowl LIII in Atlanta February 3, he stepped onto a global stage at a moment in history when his profession needed his best.

As if the pressure of serving as head referee for the most visible event in sports weren’t enough, Parry filled the role two weeks after an egregious officiating error most likely cost the New Orleans Saints a trip to the Super Bowl and put the officiating community’s foot to the flame.

“One play, four seconds, and then the officiating world was under attack,” Parry says. “This was a different Super Bowl because of it. There was tons of pressure to right the ship.”

Two decades’ worth of professional experience, though, mattered in that moment.

So, too, did Parry’s upbringing; his father was David Parry, a former NFL official himself and former head of officiating for both the Big Ten and NCAA. But over time, John Parry also came to realize that even though he didn’t study officiating, his time in college shaped him nonetheless. An aviation student, he spent his days learning to fly.

“I went through the flight program at Purdue, and of course 50 percent of flight training is dealing with emergencies, dealing with unknowns, and being prepared to handle situations in the flight deck,” says Parry, who worked for several years after graduation as a corporate pilot. “Moving into officiating, it’s the same thing. It can be a very methodical hour of things happening, then all of a sudden, something pops up, and you have to deal with it.”

A flight student by day, Parry spent his evenings dealing with situations of a different kind, officiating recreational sports on campus. There probably aren’t many professions that require a thicker skin than officiating, and Parry says he developed his in part during his time on campus.

“They provided me a classroom all day,” he says — and, as it turned out, a springboard toward the peak of his profession. Parry received the call January 16 that he’d been selected to work his third Super Bowl, second as lead official. The NFL doles out such assignments largely based on week-to-week performance evaluations.

Parry fared well enough during the span of 20 weeks to receive the most important assignment in sports — and the most pressure packed.

“I’d tell you I was nervous — huge anxiety, huge pressure to make sure the crew performed our very best,” Parry says.

“When we were fully dressed and got out on the football field in preparation for the game, the unusual thing for me this time — maybe because it was my third — was all that nervousness and anxiety just disappeared. And it was another game.”