A Nationwide Flight Stop Shuffles Referees and Travel Plans Across Sports
The Federal Aviation Administration grounded all flights nationwide for several hours on Friday, and the ripple effects reached referees, college teams and pro squads alike. A ground stop is a federal order that halts departures while air traffic controllers catch up. The Guardian reported that the stoppage forced changes across officiating crews throughout the weekend.
The biggest schedule knot belongs to NFL official Don Willard. He is set to work two games on Sunday. He will officiate the Miami Dolphins vs. Indianapolis Colts game at 1 p.m. ET, then the Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Cincinnati Bengals Sunday Night Football game. Between assignments he will travel 112 miles east. Working a 1 p.m. kickoff and a prime-time game in one day leaves little room for delay.
Basketball crews also changed on short notice. Brian Forte replaced Jason Goldenberg on the Chicago-Minnesota crew, and Jenna Schroeder then replaced Forte for Dallas-Cleveland. In Brooklyn-Memphis, Michael Smith was added to the three-person crew after another referee could not arrive in time. On Saturday night, Brent Barnaky and CJ Washington were added to the Denver-New Orleans game after officiating a game in New Orleans on Friday night.
College teams felt it too. No. 2 Utah's game at No. 22 Arizona was pushed back three hours, and Arizona State's game at Central Florida moved back three hours as well. The No. 19 Mississippi game at Oklahoma was moved to Sunday, with kickoff set for 1 p.m. ET. Auburn chose charter buses after the stop.
Women's teams had some of the hardest days. USC women's basketball was deplaned in Los Angeles on Friday night and pushed its trip to Greenville to Saturday afternoon, ahead of its game against South Carolina. Fairleigh Dickinson's flight to Ohio State was canceled late Friday night, so the team faced a 10-hour bus ride on Saturday morning.
Professional soccer had its own travel puzzles. The Utah Royals were already in the Washington, D.C., area for their NWSL semifinal against the Washington Spirit on Saturday. The Kansas City Current had been scheduled to leave Friday for their semifinal against Gotham FC on Sunday in New York.
For fans, the takeaway is simple. A single federal decision can reshape a weekend's worth of games, from the officials in the striped shirts to the buses rolling toward a campus. The games that were scheduled will still be played, but many teams and officials spent Saturday working around a plan that had been set weeks earlier.
