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)

Adrian Hill is a professional football official in the National Football League (NFL). He has been an official since the 2010 NFL season and wears 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 did not play football in high school. This was because he was smaller than other players. However, he often acted as a referee when his friends played pickup football games.

Hill studied electrical and software engineering and computer science. He earned his degrees from the University at Buffalo. After college, he moved to the Washington metropolitan area. There, he worked as a software engineer for Westinghouse Electric Corporation. To earn extra money, he saw a newspaper ad for football officials. He then spent 14 years officiating high school football games. This was a side job, and he earned $13 per game as a youth football referee.

Adrian Hill's Officiating Career

Hill started officiating college football games in 2004. His first experience was in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference. He also worked as a referee in Conference USA. In 2007, Hill was a line judge for four games in the NFL Europe league. This league no longer exists.

Joining the NFL

The NFL hired Adrian Hill in 2010. His first NFL game was on September 12, 2010. It was a game between the Washington Redskins and the Dallas Cowboys. This game took place at FedExField. Hill worked as a line judge during this game.

He was promoted to referee at the start of the 2019 NFL season. This happened after two other referees, Pete Morelli and Walt Coleman, retired. Before becoming a referee, Hill worked as a line judge, side judge, and field judge. He was the seventh African-American to become an NFL referee.

A Notable Game Call

Adrian Hill was in the news during a game on January 3, 2021. He made a roughing-the-passer penalty call. This call was against Detroit Lions safety Tracy Walker. Walker had sacked Kirk Cousins of the Minnesota Vikings. This happened on a fourth-down play. If the sack had stood, the Lions would have gotten the ball. Lions players started celebrating, but then saw the penalty flag.

Cousins told Walker, "I don't necessarily agree with that call, but I'll take it." Players on both teams seemed confused by the call. The Vikings scored a touchdown two plays later. They went on to win the game 37–35. Many news outlets and social media users talked about the call. Headlines included "Tracy Walker's phantom personal foul penalty causes uprising on social media" and "Ridiculous roughing call on Kirk Cousins sack sets up Vikings' game-winning TD."

Even though it seemed like a bad call to many, Hill explained his decision. In a post-game interview, he said it was a clear penalty. He stated, "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 Crew

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

• R: Adrian Hill
• U: Roy Ellison
• DJ: David Oliver
• LJ: Greg Bradley
• FJ: Tra Boger
• SJ: Clay Reynard
• BJ: Greg Steed
• RO: Kevin Stine
• RA: Desiree Abrams

Adrian Hill's Engineering Career

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

In the 1990s, Hill worked for NASA as a contractor. He was at the Goddard Space Flight Center. This company later became Raytheon Technologies. In 2000, he was hired as an aerospace software engineer. He worked at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in their Space Exploration Sector.

He was the lead for the flight software on the MESSENGER mission. He also had important roles in the New Horizons mission and the Parker Solar Probe. He has led the flight software for the Precision Tracking Space System. He also helped develop systems to protect against faults for the Radiation Belt Storm Probes. Additionally, he led flight software development for the Hubble Space Telescope. While working for Raytheon, he helped develop programs for the Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite.

In 2006, the Baltimore chapter of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics named him Engineer of the Year. He was also the main author of a paper presented at the 2013 IEEE Aerospace Conference. The paper was titled Command and Data Handling Flight Software test framework: A Radiation Belt Storm Probes practice.

Adrian Hill's Personal Life

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