Ryan McGee - Sidelines and Bloodlines: A Father, His Sons, and Our Life in College Football

Contents

Foreword by Rece Davis

In the summer of 1997, just a couple years into my tenure at ESPN, I got a call from one of our executives. He said, Wed like you to host the weekend version of RPM2Night . It was a nightly show on still-new ESPN2 dedicated entirely to motorsports.

Now, in the minds of those who make such decisions, this probably made perfect sense. Hey, Rece is from Alabama. He probably loves motorsports! At least, thats what I imagine they thought. It didnt make as much sense to me. First, I was hosting NBA2Night and I had just been the studio host for the NBA Finals on ESPN Radio. That role gave me an elevated courtside view of the Michael Jordan Flu Game. I was working with play-by-play legend Brent Musburger and ESPN legend Dan Patrick, who was covering the Finals for SportsCente r. I was having a blast. My primary ambition was plotting how to parlay the NBA hosting role into working on the sport Id grown up loving most, college football.

So, I replied to the executive on the other end of the line, If youre thinking, Hey, lets get the Southern guy to do the car racing show, then youve got the wrong dude. Dont get me wrong; I know the show is important, and Ill work my tail off to learn it. But I have to tell you that I only have a functional knowledge of the sport. I knew that Jeff Gordon drove car No. 24, Dale Earnhardt was No. 3, and Rusty Wallace was No. 2. Thats about it. They wanted me to take the host role anyway. Becoming the weekend host of RPM2Night was how I met Ryan McGee.

Ryan was a production assistant on the show and a rising star. He had great vision and insight for television production. He was patient and helpful while I got my racing knowledge up to speed. When he brought me a shot sheet (the script page an anchor uses to describe the highlight) or a story idea, he included plenty of extra detail to help me along. Maybe he did that for everyone, but he probably felt an obligation considering we were among the very few Southerners working in Bristol. Ryan claims we were the only two. We were definitely the only two who fully appreciated real sweet tea (you cant just add sugar after its brewed) and the Third Saturday in October, between his Vols and my Crimson Tide.

Even if we bled different shades in the Alabama-Tennessee rivalry, there was a near-instant bond. For Ryan and me, there was a kinship that transcended allegiance to our alma maters. It was a similar deep appreciation for how college football becomes almost like strands of our DNA. Ryans college football DNA extends a little past that of a typical fan, given that his father, Jerry, was one of the top game officials in the sport.

Ryans passion is not an irrationally rabid, paint-your-face, hate-every-wretched-breath-a-rival-sucks-into-his-greedy-lungs, smash-your-television, and tweet-fire-the-coach-after-every-loss fervor. Its understanding how that sometimes over-the-top zeal dovetails with and mysteriously reflects the more rational deep devotion to the sport, and how it makes college football unique among all sports in America.

In 2019, we worked together on ESPNs College Football 150 project titled The Greatest , in which we ranked everythingthe top players, coaches, mascots, stadiums, moments, and everything in between. Ryans extraordinary grasp of why college football is so ingrained in our culture was evident. It wasnt just knowing the stories. He has an uncanny ability to share them in a way that connects with people.

Im also proud to be a small part of Ryans most important connection. We were still on the racing beat in 1998 when Ryan told me he wanted to propose to his girlfriend, Erica. But it had been a long-distance romance for a while, and his ring funds had taken a hit by going to visit her. I told him I knew a guy who could help. My father-in-law was in the jewelry business and helped Ryan expedite the engagement.

Twenty years later, I finally got a good look at the ring when our families ran into each other at Walt Disney World. He recounted the ring story to my wife with the warmth, sincerity, and self-effacing humor that are his trademarks as a reporter and a writer. Those qualities are captured perfectly as Ryan shares how college football has provided celebration and solace in Sidelines and Bloodlines : A Father, His Sons, and Our Life in College Football.

Rece Davis is the host of College GameDay , ESPNs flagship college football program. He also hosts the networks on-site coverage of the College Football Playoff and has been a regular contributor to SportsCenter and other ESPN shows and platforms since he joined the network in 1995.

Prologue

One Last Time For Real This Time

2009 BCS National Championship Coral Gables, Florida January 8, 2009

You think we can get them to slow that clock down?

My father spoke to me in a conversational, almost quiet tone. Well, as quiet and conversational as one can be while talking on the sideline of a football stadium surrounded by 78,466 other people. The game clock was ticking toward 00:00 in the 2009 BCS National Championship Game. To everyone else in the nation, that countdown was moving toward the end of college footballs 139 th season and the coronation of the Florida Gators as champions, entering the final minutes of icing a 2414 home-state victory over the Oklahoma Sooners.

But for four of us there in Dolphin Stadium that night, the end of the game meant the end of the officiating career of my father, Dr. Jerry Edward McGee, also known as the gray-haired guy with the big white F on the back of his black-and-white-striped jersey. After 404 college football games, 300 at the sports highest level, this onethe biggest one hed ever workedwas going to be it.

Or so hed promised. For real this time.

Dads officiating career had included two Rose Bowls, a pair of Army-Navy games, and two dozen postseason contests in all. Three of those games, including this one, had determined the national championship. But before this night on this stage, there had been much smaller games played in much smaller venues under much dimmer lights and under the gaze of exactly zero TV cameras. The first time hed stepped onto a collegiate football field with a whistle was nearly 37 years earlier, at a small college game in Greensboro, North Carolina, between Emory and Henry and Guilford College. That day there were at best a few hundred people in attendance and maybe a few dozen more listening on AM radio. This night in South Florida, nearly 27 million Americans were watching on television.

From that first game to this last one, there had been two constants. First, my father was on the field. Second, there was one loudmouth guy also in attendance whod made it his mission in life to remind my father that he was a blind idiot. No, it wasnt the same guy. But it might as well have been. Like some sort of Dickensian Ghost of College Football Games Past, he was there as a proud representative of every man, woman, and child whod ever shouted at Dad, a lifelong verbal assault stretched out over every game hed ever worked. This guy screamed from the first row of Dolphin Stadium, convinced that the seven men in stripes had cost his beloved top-ranked Oklahoma team their eighth national titlebecause, you know, it couldnt have possibly been the Sooners suddenly inept offense, gassed defense, two interceptions, or their inability to convert on third down.

No, it was the field judges fault.

YOU STUPID ACC REFFFFF!

Dad never heard him. Just as he never heard anyone at Guilford in 1972. He was focused on the next play. He was always focused on the next play. Even as he talked to me in that moment, his eyes never left the field. He was treating these final plays the same as he had the other 158 plays of the night, and the same as hed handled every play in every single one of those 403 games before this one. He moved into position, employing second-nature mechanics that had become muscle memory, though as the years had ticked by and the game had sped up, that positioning had been adjusted to cover a much faster brand of football play and football players. He counted the Oklahoma defensive players on the field, one to 11. He awaited the snap. When it happened, he watched his zone, monitored the players who came into that zone, and managed it all accordingly.