ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - Joe Larrew will know what Super Bowl referee Bill Vinovich and his crew will be going through Sunday evening when over 100 million match watch the Super Bowl nationally. Because he was exactly in their shoes 11 years ago.
Larrew is a lawyer primarily in the area of Worker’s Compensation with St. Louis law firm of Hammond and Shinners, P.C., but for two decades, he was an NFL referee, working as a side and field judge, from his first game in 2002 officiating the then-Washington Redskins and Jacksonville Jaguars to his last one in January 2022 officiating the Los Angeles Rams dominant Wild Card victory against the Arizona Cardinals.
Larrew got to see plenty of action during his two-decade career, with Patrick Mahomes first NFL start in the Chiefs final game of the 2017 NFL regular season and the Baltimore Ravens defeating the San Francisco 49ers to win their second Super Bowl in franchise history in the infamous 'Blackout Bowl' or 'Harbaugh Game' depending what you call Super Bowl XLVII.
"When your standing on the floor down (in the New Orleans Superdome) in the darkness, your on the field and thinking 'oh this is really weird'," said Larrew on Hancock and Kelley Friday (interview starts at 33:09). "Initially they thought it was terrorism but they figured out it was some mechanical thing."
Larrew joined the show to look back at his career as NFL referee along with discussing what how an NFL referee is preparing for gameday, digging into the relationship between a coach and a referee. Larrew also discussed some officiating controversies from this past NFL season like the controversy of the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys during the holiday and the shock of having a Super Bowl in Vegas.
