While everyone is glued to the tube watching Super Bowl 50, it’s a nice time to consider one of Ocean City’s strongest connections to the game: Bob McElwee.
This year, the NFL is emphasizing the history of the big game, as Sunday’s edition will mark a half-century of Super Bowls. And though he never donned a helmet or shoulder pads, very few individuals embody that history more than McElwee, a year-round resident of OC.
McElwee was an NFL official for 27 years and is the only man to referee three Super Bowls in three different decades: Super Bowl XXII in 1988, Super Bowl XXVIII in 1993 and Super Bowl XXXIV in 2000. He is one of only five refs to officiate three Super Bowls regardless of the decade.
Each one of those games was special in their own way,” McElwee recalls. The first one pitted the Denver Broncos against the Washington Redskins. That is when Doug Williams, the first African American quarterback to win a Super Bowl, threw five consecutive touchdown passes. His second assignment was one of the Buffalo Bills’ four straight Super Bowl losses, this one to the Dallas Cowboys. “Buffalo was up at halftime but Emmitt Smith, Troy Aikman and that bunch were just too strong and took control of the second half.”
His final appearance saw the St. Louis Rams earn a last-second win over the Tennessee Titans. That game was noted for the final Tennessee drive ending at the one-yard line as time expired.
“I ran into (Tennessee coach) Jeff Fisher a few months later and he said ‘Bob I really screwed up.’ I asked him what he meant by that and he said ‘I was on the rules committee the year before and if I had convinced them to change the length of the field to 99 yards, we would have won the game.’”
McElwee estimates he officiated more than 500 NFL contests over his career, including many playoff games. Before that he officiated college games and before that, South Jersey high school contests. A native of Camden, he played at Haddonfield High, where he was a three-sport letterman, and then at the Naval Academy. At Navy, he was a linebacker on the 1955 team that won the Sugar Bowl. But his biggest thrill in the sport may have been the very first NFL game he worked as a line judge.
“Here I was, fresh out of the college ranks and my very first game was Oakland, coached by John Madden and featuring Jack Tatum and Kenny Stabler, against the Pittsburgh Steelers with Terry Bradshaw and Franco Harris. That made quite an impression.”
No interview with a retired NFL ref is complete without a discussion of replay.
“Let me be clear,” Bob said. “I really wish they would scrap it. I refereed half my career with replay and half without. Today, there are plays that seem obvious, the coach throws the challenge flag and now the game is held up for 10 minutes. It used to be the league backed up the officials. A catch was a catch if we said it was. If we said the runner was down, he was down.”
McElwee had such a good reputation for fairness; he was selected as ref for the television show “American Gladiators” and for ESPN’s “Battle of the Gridiron Stars.” He is active in charitable organizations and co-founded Renew, which provides inner city housing for the less fortunate.
McElwee’s career spanned 1976 to 2003. His final game was the 2003 Pro Bowl. And though he witnessed many changes in the game, he still looks back fondly on his entire career.
“When I think about game day, and heading out onto that field,” he said, “each and every one of the games I worked was special.”
