Gene Steratore Biography
He wore uniform number 114. Steratore was chosen to be the alternate referee of Super Bowl XLIV, which was held in Miami on February 7, 2010, and was chosen to be the referee for Super Bowl LII, played on February 4, 2018.
Gene Steratore Age
Gene Steratore was born on February 8, 1963, in Uniontown, Pennsylvania United States. He is 56 years old as of 2019.
Gene Steratore Net worth
Gene Steratore earns his income from his businesses and other related organizations. He also earns his income from his work as a National Football League (NFL) official. He has an estimated net worth of $ 2 million dollars.
Gene Steratore Family
Gene Steratore was born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, the United States to Gene Steratore, Sr. but his mother is not displayed in the media. He has two sons. He has an older brother Tony, also an NFL official, who is a back judge currently assigned to Jerome Boger’s officiating crew. His father, Gene Steratore Sr., was a college football official and a basketball referee.
Gene Steratore Wife
Gene Steratore married Lisa Mauro. The couples were blessed with two sons. He lives with his family in Uniontown, Pennsylvania United States.
Gene Steratore Career
National Football League
Gene Steratore took over briefly as a referee during a regular-season game on December 28, 2003, between the Carolina Panthers and New York Giants after Bernie Kukar, the crew chief, was injured during a play in which he was hit in the back by the Giants’ Clarence LeBlanc after a blocked punt. Steratore and his brother are the co-owners of Steratore Sanitary Supplies in Washington, Pennsylvania, outside of their NFL officiating duties.
Steratore worked his first NFL playoff game as a referee between the Arizona Cardinals and the Carolina Panthers on January 10, 2009, at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina. Exactly one year later, he refereed the Baltimore Ravens’ 33–14 victory over the New England Patriots in an American Football Conference (AFC) Wild Card game at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts.
Steratore was involved in a controversial instant replay call during week 1 of the 2010 NFL season between the Detroit Lions and the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field in Chicago. Late in the fourth quarter, Lions receiver Calvin Johnson caught what was originally ruled as the winning touchdown for Detroit.
After Steratore conferred with the officials he overturned the call to an incomplete pass, ruling that Johnson lost control of the ball while going to the ground before he “completed the process of completing the catch”. He was supported by the NFL and backed by its former vice president of officiating, Mike Pereira. The rule has since been referred to as the “Calvin Johnson rule”.
Steratore was selected as the first referee to officiate a game following the 2012 NFL referee lockout on September 27, 2012, a Thursday-night contest between the Cleveland Browns and the Baltimore Ravens. The Baltimore crowd cheered Steratore and his crew as they entered the field. Steratore was named as the referee for the NFC Championship game on January 19, 2014, between the Seattle Seahawks and San Francisco 49ers.
Steratore was the referee during the NFC divisional playoff game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Green Bay Packers on January 11, 2015, when a fourth-quarter, fourth-down catch by Cowboys wide receiver Dez Bryant was overturned using the “Calvin Johnson rule”. The Packers challenged the call and after review, it was determined that the ball touched the ground before Bryant completed the catch.
In a game on December 17, 2017, between the Dallas Cowboys and Oakland Raiders, Steratore took the controversial step of employing an index card normally used for recording penalties to assist him in determining whether the Cowboys had made the line to gain for a first down. His ruling that they had done so allowed Dallas to kick a late field goal in their 20-17 victory. Steratore was the referee for Super Bowl LII.
Retirement from NFL
On June 22, 2018, NFL Senior Vice President of Officiating Alberto Riveron announced Steratore’s retirement.
NFL Football
Following retirement, he joined CBS Sports as a rules analyst replacing former referee Mike Carey. He worked on the broadcast of Super Bowl LIII on February 3, 2019.
NCAA Men’s Basketball
Steratore is also a rules analyst for College Basketball on CBS and NCAA March Madness on CBS/TBS/TNT/TruTV.
NBA Basketball
Steratore is also a rules analyst for NBA on TNT.
SEC Football
Steratore is also a rules analyst for The Home Depot SEC on CBS.
Gene Steratore Referee
Steratore was widely known as an NFL referee who went straight from calling Super Bowl LII to joining CBS’ NFL broadcast team this past June. Steratore’s more anonymous job was as a college basketball referee. He recalls going through the same process that teams do on Selection Sunday, without the pageantry of a bracket reveal.
“We received an email or phone call that Sunday as well that said, ‘Congratulations you are one of the 100 referees selected to be in the NCAA Tournament,’ ” Steratore said. “The excitement as an official is almost as identical as what you see from the young men to be part of the spectacle also.” Officials advance round by round depending on performance in the previous rounds as judged by NCAA higher-ups and an on-site grader.
There will be no such stress this year for Steratore after he traded in the stripes for a microphone. Though, it might surprise some fans to see him breaking down charges and blocking controversies the same way he does pass interference calls, given the notoriety NFL referees receive compared to those in college hoops. “One of my greatest compliments is when I see that someone said, ‘I didn’t know you refereed college basketball,’ ” Steratore said.
“That meant I did a pretty decent job because I wasn’t being recognized for mistakes. As social media grew over the last decade and there was the tying in of the fact that, ‘Isn’t that guy who is calling the basketball game also an NFL referee?’ ” Steratore, 56, will work the First Four to the Elite Eight in the studio before going to Minneapolis for CBS and Turner’s Final Four coverage.
He is the first to cover multiple sports in the growing position of rules analyst in broadcasting and the first time the networks have utilized one for the NCAA Tournament. Steratore is used to following multiple NFL games each day, but the wall-to-wall action in the opening Thursday and Friday of the NCAA Tournament will be a unique challenge.
“It’s a little different than football with the game staggered in 20-25 [minute] increments between games, so there won’t be that pause at halftime for five minutes,” Steratore said. “It will be nonstop from the first jump ball next Thursday to the end of those 10 o’clock games. “It will be a challenge for all of us working 12-14 hours [a day], but it’s a labor of love. And there’s an excitement to jumping from arena to arena every five minutes and going through this process.”
It’s been a crash course in the television game for Steratore, whose father and brother both have long histories as referees as well. His first season with CBS was well received and included covering the Super Bowl alongside Jim Nantz and Tony Romo. It was a welcomed sight for the network after its first referee hire, Mike Carey, was a disaster from the jump.
Steratore will be able to sympathize with his former colleagues as he watches the tournament unfold, hoping his screen time won’t come at their expense. “It’s all about handling the pressure and emotional roller coaster of it.,” Steratore said. “The way that a game changes in the emotion of it minute to minute, dealing with high-intensity situations of coaches, players and environments knowing that things may come down to a final decision. Believe it or not, that’s why you really do officiate. All really good officials are doing this to make a decision that one way or the other, will allow the game to finish the way it was meant.”
Gene Steratore NCAA Tournament
Gene Steratore served as an NFL referee from 2003 to 2017 and ended his career wearing a white hat in Super Bowl LII and spent last season as the network’s rules analyst for NFL broadcasts. The native of Western Pennsylvania had an even longer run on the college basketball court, working Division I games from 1997 to 2018, including seven consecutive NCAA tournaments to close his career.
He’s the first dedicated TV rules analyst in college basketball. “It’s been exciting and fun,” he said earlier this week. “We’re learning as we move forward as well. It’s enlightening.” Staggered tip times during the tournament’s opening week meant 12-plus hour days for Steratore in the studio, accompanied by assistants, including his son Andrew, a Division II and III college basketball official.
They watched 2-4 games at once and he was always prepared to offer instant rules explanations and analysis. At the top of his field as an official, making split-second decisions in real time, Steratore joked that his accuracy rate has soared with the luxury of a high-definition screen and three or four slow-motion replays. He’s not naive to how the average fan feels about officials, either.
“My hope was to come on and not only say I think the officials will say X, Y or Z but hopefully to get the opportunity to then maybe bring the viewer a little closer to the human element that the officials are experiencing,” he said. “That might be in basketball, the intensity of the coaches and that conversation and that part of the management of the game that takes place in real time.
Steratore felt the heat of March, dealt with college coaches who are the legends in the sport, he can relate to what the officials are facing as he communicates it to the television audience. “You don’t treat (the NCAA tournament) like it’s another game. You acknowledge that it is this big, and you should and enjoy all the pressure, from getting the assignment to the tip. Once the ball is tipped, you apply your ability to put yourselves in the game at the appropriate moment.”
During his first playoff run as a broadcaster, Steratore smoothly handled an AFC Championship Game that hinged on a series of controversial calls, criticizing when warranted and explaining when necessary. But basketball presents new challenges. For one, NFL fans have grown used to rules analysts chiming in since Mike Pereira joined FOX in 2010. Steratore has fewer predecessors in the hoops world, though Steve Javie has provided a former referee’s perspective on ESPN’s NBA telecasts since 2012.
Injecting analysis into a basketball telecast is also tougher given the continuous action, not to mention the number of subjective could-be foul calls that can pile up in a single possession. Plus, with most fouls coming on the ball, viewers are more aware of every decision a ref makes. “You start to realize the portions that are different [than football], and that’s why I’m really excited,” Steratore said Tuesday. “This is kind of the unknown.”
Beyond all that, Steratore hopes to highlight the more subtle role officials play. “There are times when I think it would really be beneficial for the public to know how well they’re doing, maybe handling coaches or handling emotions,” he said. He has no hesitation calling officiating an “art.” Maybe he’ll be able to explain that, too. Steratore will join Nantz, analysts Grant Hill and Bill Raftery, and reporter Tracy Wolfson in their fifth year as the lead broadcast team.
A cliché this time of year is that freshmen like Zion Williamson aren’t really freshmen anymore given the experience they’ve accrued to this point. Heading into his first tournament, the same can be said for CBS’ new rules analyst, especially given the familiarity he already has with Nantz and Wolfson. “He’s so comfortable and it makes the transition really easy,” Wolfson said. “It’s like nothing’s ever changed.”
