Pat Haggerty is the Football Zebras 2025 Pro Football Hall of Fame nominee

Since 2018, Football Zebras has been nominating NFL officials for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Our initial nominee, Art McNally, was finally enshrined in 2022. This year, we proudly nominate the late Pat Haggerty for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

The Pro Football Hall of Fame is still woefully behind in enshrining former officials. The hockey, basketball and baseball Halls of Fame have enshrined several officials, but Art McNally is the only enshrinee in Canton. If the Pro Football Hall of Fame enshrines an official every three years and the Baseball Hall of Fame stands pat, it will take 27 years for Canton to catch up to their umpiring brethren.

A strong case for Haggerty

Pat Haggerty was a talented high school and college basketball and baseball athlete. The Denver native played minor league baseball. Once he determined that a major league career wasn’t in the offing, he returned to Denver and began a teaching career. During this time, Haggerty began a basketball and football officiating career — calling games primarily in the Big Eight and Western Athletic Conference.

The NFL hired Haggerty in 1964 as a line judge. When referee Bill Downs retired after that season, Haggerty was made referee for the 1965 season. He wore uniform number 40 for most of his career (he wore number 4 during the 1979-81 numbering system).

While an NFL referee, Haggerty continued his teaching career. One of his teaching colleagues at Abraham Lincoln High School was Ben Dreith, also a pro football referee, first in the American Football League, then in the NFL joining Haggerty.

In his 28 year career, Haggerty worked 25 playoff games — just 3 off the all-time record — with his first in 1968. He worked 3 wild card games, 15 divisional playoff games, 4 conference championships, and Super Bowls XIII, XVI, and XIX. His final Super Bowl featured a unique coin toss. Long before Zoom, Haggerty oversaw a coin toss via satellite.

Bringing out the best in others

While Haggerty’s on field accomplishments are impressive, his approach to his fellow officials who needed some help make him a Hall of Fame person.

In his book, First Dooowwwnnn … and Life to Go, referee Red Cashion remembered going to California for his first-ever NFL officiating clinic. Cashion recalled that upon arrival at the airport in Los Angeles, he was lost and unsure where to go. As he wondered what to do next, Cashion wrote that Haggerty came up to him and said, “You look like you’re going to the NFL Officials Clinic and you belong with me.” Haggerty took the rookie Cashion under his wing and guided him through his first clinic.

In the early 1980s, the late Jim Poole was a member of Haggerty’s crew. The crew had been together for several years and each official was highly accomplished and enjoyed being part of the crew. Art McNally decided to transfer the line judge off of Haggerty’s crew and bring in another line judge who was struggling and wasn’t meshing with the crew he was on. In the book The Third Team, Poole said that the crew was in a bad mood about being broken up and having to take on a struggling official. They figured the official would be on their crew for a year or so, and then move on.

Poole said that Haggerty got the crew together and told them that he and the rest of the crew were going to help the struggling line judge. Haggerty said that he never had an official fired off of his crew and he, “wasn’t going to start now.” He asked the rest of the crew to come around the line judge and help him become a NFL official. Poole said that the line judge came onto the crew, Haggerty and his colleagues helped him, and the line judge became a solid NFL official.

Haggerty, Poole, and both line judges are dead so speculation on who Poole was referring to is not appropriate. But if it is who I think it is, we saw that official on several prominent games into the 1990s, and the official eventually wore the white hat.

Difficult calls off the field

After the 1988 season, Haggerty didn’t get a playoff game. What the public didn’t know is during that season his wife was dying from cancer. Haggerty would work his NFL game and then rush back home to be with his wife, Jan.

Then in 1991, Pat was diagnosed with cancer. He began treatments and continued to officiate NFL games. Compounding that, he had to make the most difficult decision of his life.

His adult son’s life had gotten off track and he turned to criminal behavior. One night, the news showed a bank video of the suspect, and Haggerty recognized his son, Patrick Haggerty II. The father called the FBI and told them the suspect was his son and where to locate him. The younger Haggerty was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison.

1992 was Haggerty’s last year in the NFL as an on field official. After being assigned as an alternate in the playoffs, new officiating boss, Jerry Seeman, informed Haggerty that his time in the NFL was over and he was being retired. Haggerty briefly considered appealing the decision through the officials’ union, but he soon changed his mind when reflecting upon his career. In an interview with Referee magazine, Haggerty said that he remembered that Bill Downs had retired as a referee to make room for him to ascend to the referee position in 1965. While he thought he had a good case on appeal, he withdrew it and retired. In retirement, the NFL had Haggerty observe NFL crews working Broncos games, and he scouted college officials for potential positions in the NFL.

Sadly, Haggerty didn’t have much time to enjoy retirement. The cancer became too much and he passed away on December 9, 1994 at age 67.

In 2022, Pat’s daughter Kelly wrote a book, Making the Call: The Life and Times of Referee Pat Haggerty. She wrote of her memories of her dad working in the NFL and what life was like as a referee’s daughter.

Haggerty was nominated for the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2005, but like all other nominations except McNally, his case didn’t get past the preliminary stage. It is time to remedy that. For his many accomplishments on the field, and for kind, considerate and steady mentoring of officials off the field, Football Zebras proudly nominates Pat Haggerty for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Football Zebras nominees for the Pro Football Hall of Fame

We will present this list to the Hall of Fame to assist the contributors committee in selecting future officials.

• 2018: Art McNally Enshrined 2022
• 2019: Jerry Markbreit, Jim Tunney, Burl Toler, and Stan Javie
• 2020: Jerry Bergman Sr., Ron Botchan, Tom Kelleher, and Bob Beeks
• 2021: Ben Montgomery, Jerry Seeman, Tony Veteri Sr., and Ron Gibbs
• 2022: Jack Fette and Norm Schachter
• 2023: Ed Hochuli and Dean Look
• 2024: Fritz Graf