His name is Lance Easley and he’s the official who somehow signaled touchdown on the final play of the Green Bay Packers loss to the Seattle Seahawks.
What does this guy do when he’s not fucking up the outcome of football games? We’re glad you asked.
Here are the bullet points.
- vice president of small-business banking at Bank of America
- president of the Los Padres Officials Association (they officiate high school sports)
- officiates high school and junior college football and basketball in central California
- has never officiated a game at higher than the Division III college level prior to this season
- attended the Stars and Stripes Academy for Football Officials, a three-day training academy earlier this year
The guy that runs that training academy — former Division I official Karl Richins — had this to say about Easley.
“I got to know Lance at a June academy I worked at in Reno and when he came to my academy in July,” Richins said. “He’s a very polite, good Christian gentleman, a good father to his son, Daniel, who was at my academy as well.
“But was Lance ready to work at the NFL level? Absolutely not.”
“At no time do we say, ‘We can train you for the NFL.’ After three days at our academy, Lance was determined by our staff not to be ready for Division I officiating.”
Good work, NFL. You’re a real solid operation.