Shannon Eastin (born 1970) is a former NFL official; she was the first female official of the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

(NFL). She has spent 16 combined seasons officiating for the

Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference The Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) is a collegiate athletic conference whose full members are historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the Southeastern and the Mid-Atlantic United States. It participates in the National C ...

, high school games, and for the Arizona Cardinals Red and White game. She was hired as a replacement official in 2012 during the lockout of full-time referees which began in June. She officiated her first game on August 9, a preseason game between the Green Bay Packers and the San Diego Chargers as the line judge. Eastin's first regular season game came on September 9 between the Detroit Lions and

St. Louis Rams The St. Louis Rams were a professional American football team of the National Football League (NFL). They played in St. Louis from 1995 to the 2015 season, before moving back to Los Angeles, where the team had played from 1946 to 1994. The arr ...

. Although several NFL players expressed support for Eastin being the first female NFL official, several writers such as Darin Gantt of Profootballtalk.com and Sam Farmer of the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...

'' lamented that she broke this gender barrier while being a

strikebreaker A strikebreaker (sometimes called a scab, blackleg, or knobstick) is a person who works despite a strike. Strikebreakers are usually individuals who were not employed by the company before the trade union dispute but hired after or during the st ...

. The NFL Referees Association also stated that Eastin should not have been allowed to officiate NFL games due to her participation in the

World Series of Poker The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is a series of poker tournaments held annually in Paradise, Nevada and, since 2004, sponsored by Caesars Entertainment. It dates its origins to 1970, when Benny Binion invited seven of the best-known poker p ...

. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said about Eastin that "she's well prepared for it, and I think she'll do terrific." ''Forbes'' magazine stated that Eastin being hired as an NFL replacement official only put a "...crack in the glass ceiling of NFL officiating, and she did so only as a temporary labor scab until the male officials later return." Some players like Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker

Larry Foote Lawrence Edward Foote, Jr. (born June 12, 1980) is an American football coach and former linebacker who is the co-defensive coordinator for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the National Football League (NFL). Foote previously served as the lineback ...

expressed concern about her on-field role, with Foote explaining to the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. ne ...

, "Women are more honest and fair than men and they know how to catch a man cheating. I hope she's just a line judge. Don't want her to get hurt." Eastin is also active in

judo is an unarmed modern Japanese martial art, Olympic sport (since 1964), and the most prominent form of jacket wrestling competed internationally.『日本大百科全書』電子版【柔道】(CD-ROM version of Encyclopedia Nipponica, "Judo"). ...

. At age 11, she was the youngest judo athlete to train in the U.S Olympic Training Center. She has won six national judo championships. Eastin owns a company called SE Sports Officiating, which trains officials in football and basketball. She currently lives in

Tempe, Arizona , settlement_type = City , named_for = Vale of Tempe , image_skyline = Tempeskyline3.jpg , imagesize = 260px , image_caption = Tempe skyline as se ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Eastin, Shannon 1970 births Living people American female judoka National Football League officials Sportspeople from Worcester, Massachusetts Women National Football League officials 21st-century American women

See also

References