Adrian Hill (American football official) facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Adrian Hill
Hill in 2020
Born	1964/1965 (age 60–61) Washington, D.C., U.S.
Education	University at Buffalo (BS) Johns Hopkins University (MS)
Occupation	NFL official (2010–present) College football official (2004–2009) Aerospace software engineer (1990s–present)

T. Adrian Hill is an American professional football official. He has been an official in the National Football League (NFL) since the 2010 NFL season. You can spot him by his uniform number, 29.

Adrian Hill's Early Life

Adrian Hill was born in Washington, D.C. He grew up mostly in upstate New York. He didn't play football in high school because he wasn't big enough. But he often played the role of referee when his friends played casual football games.

Hill studied electrical and software engineering and computer science at the University at Buffalo. After college, he moved to the Washington area. He worked as a software engineer for a company called Westinghouse Electric Corporation. To earn extra money, he saw an ad in the newspaper for football officials. He spent the next 14 years working as an official for high school football games on the side. He earned $13 for each youth football game he refereed.

His Career as a Football Official

Adrian Hill started officiating college football games in 2004. His first experience was in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, which is a college sports league. He also worked in another league called Conference USA, where he was a referee. In 2007, Hill worked four games in a league called NFL Europe, which doesn't exist anymore. He was a "line judge" in those games.

The NFL hired Hill in 2010. His first NFL game was on September 12, 2010. It was a game between the Washington Redskins and the Dallas Cowboys. He worked as a line judge in that game.

In 2019, Hill was promoted to a referee. The referee is the head official on the field. He became the seventh African-American to be a referee in the NFL. Before becoming a referee, he worked as a line judge, side judge, and field judge. These are all different roles for officials on the football field.

A Controversial Call

On January 3, 2021, Adrian Hill made a call that got a lot of attention. He called a "roughing-the-passer" penalty against a player named Tracy Walker from the Detroit Lions. Walker had tackled Kirk Cousins, the quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings. The tackle looked normal, and the Lions players started celebrating because they thought they would get the ball. But then they saw a penalty flag.

Kirk Cousins even told Walker, "I don't necessarily agree with that call, but I'll take it." Players on both teams seemed confused. The Vikings then scored a touchdown and won the game 37-35. Many news outlets and social media users talked about the call. They used headlines like "Detroit Lions robbed by one of the worst calls ever."

After the game, Hill explained his decision. He said, "By rule, one of the categories for roughing-the-passer is full body weight, where the tackler lands with his full body weight on the quarterback. That's the category this play fell into."

Adrian Hill's 2024 Officiating Crew

Here are the officials who work with Adrian Hill in 2024:

• R (Referee): Adrian Hill
• U (Umpire): Roy Ellison
• DJ (Down Judge): David Oliver
• LJ (Line Judge): Greg Bradley
• FJ (Field Judge): Tra Boger
• SJ (Side Judge): Clay Reynard
• BJ (Back Judge): Greg Steed
• RO (Replay Official): Kevin Stine
• RA (Replay Assistant): Desiree Abrams

His Career as an Engineer

After getting his first degree, Adrian Hill earned a Master of Science degree from Johns Hopkins University.

In the 1990s, Hill worked for NASA, the space agency. He was a contractor at the Goddard Space Flight Center. In 2000, he started working as an aerospace software engineer at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. This lab works on space exploration.

He was the lead engineer for the flight software on the MESSENGER mission, which went to Mercury. He also had important jobs on the New Horizons mission (which visited Pluto) and the Parker Solar Probe (which studies the Sun). He has also worked on systems for tracking satellites and developing software for the Hubble Space Telescope.

In 2006, the Baltimore chapter of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics named him Engineer of the Year.

He also wrote a paper about software testing for space missions. It was presented at a big engineering conference in 2013.

Adrian Hill's Personal Life

As of June 2020, Adrian Hill lives in Bowie, Maryland with his wife, VaLerie. He is the brother of Steve "The Thrill" Hill, who is a radio host in Seattle. Steve hosts a radio show called The Mens Room on KISW 99.9.