Mesa Musings:

During Sunday night cross-country flights home, Laird Hayes watches NFL football on his laptop.

That’s not so unusual.

Lots of folks turn their attention to America’s favorite sport on transcontinental flights.

But Hayes, a former catcher for Princeton University’s baseball team who has a doctorate in higher education from UCLA, sits in his first-class seat and breaks down a DVD replay of the game he officiated earlier that day. Laird, an Orange Coast College dean, professor and head soccer coach for the past 33 years, is an NFL side judge.

The Newport Beach resident is set to begin his 15th NFL season Saturday night. He’ll officiate the preseason game between the San Francisco 49ers and Oakland Raiders. He wears striped jersey No. 125.

“Those Sunday night flights are my first opportunity each week to evaluate my performance,” he says.

Some flights are better than others.

“I usually feel pretty good about my performance,” he says with a smile. “But, I’m human and human beings make mistakes. Nothing gives me more pain than missing a call, and I’m pretty hard on myself. But I move forward. I don’t allow a bad call to get to me.”

Bang-bang sideline pass plays present Laird with some of his biggest challenges. A receiver catches the ball at the sideline, toe-taps with the grace of Anna Pavlova, then careens out of bounds. Santonio Holmes of the Pittsburgh Steelers made just such a grab of a Ben Roethlisberger end-zone pass with 35 seconds left in the 2009 Super Bowl.

“First, I look at the feet when evaluating that play,” Hayes says. “I make certain that both are inbounds, then I quickly look up to see if the receiver has possession. If he’s bobbling the ball, it’s not a catch. It’s a tough call, but we get it right nearly 100% of the time.”

Laird’s greatest aspiration during a season is to steer clear of — dah-nuh-nuh, dah-nuh-nuh — SportsCenter.

“Yeah, our crew jokes about that at our weekly meetings,” he says. “We don’t crave SportsCenter attention.”

An Orange County high school and junior college football official in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as a small-college referee, Laird will be 60 in October. He officiated in the Pac-10 from 1983 to 1994, and joined the NFL in 1995.

“Officiating is a huge challenge,” he says. “Every time you move up a level you wonder, ‘Can I handle this?’ You must prove yourself.”

Some fellow passengers who notice Hayes studying the NFL rule book on his weekly flights, or reviewing a DVD, figure he’s got something to do with football.

“’Do you work for the NFL?’ they’ll ask,” he says. “I say I do, and then they ask me what I do. I tell them I’m the guy running up and down the field wearing the stripes that they love to hate. Their eyes get like saucers. They usually say something like, ‘You guys do the greatest job! You’re so accurate.’ I smile and say, ‘I think you’re pulling my leg, but I appreciate your kindness.’”

The NFL’s regular-season schedule runs 17 weeks. Seventeen seven-man officiating crews work the games. One crew has a “bye” every weekend. Each officiating crew ends up having two “off” weekends during the season, and officiates 15 games.

A total of 120 officials work NFL games, and 17 fill every officiating position. That means there are 16 other side judges in the league at Laird’s position. The officials are rated weekly and, during his 14 years in the league, Laird has finished almost every season ranked among the top third at his position.

He’s been selected to work two Super Bowls (2002 and 2004), numerous playoff games and a Pro Bowl. He’s also worked pre-season games in Tokyo, Mexico City and Vancouver, and he worked eight NFL Europe games. His wife, Maggie, daughter, Katie, and son, Andy, have made some of the big trips with him.

Because only four of the 32 NFL teams are situated on the West Coast — and 26 are in the Eastern and Central time zones — Laird usually finds himself flying east Saturday mornings to officiate a Sunday afternoon or evening game.

After checking into his hotel, his seven-man officiating crew — plus a replay official and video operator — meets two to four hours in a hotel conference room. They watch an officiating DVD provided weekly by the NFL Office. They’re fed a room service dinner.

“The NFL wants to make certain that every officiating crew is briefed on the same issues. Consistency is important. We also take a weekly written exam prepared by the league, and we discuss officiating specifics.”

Laird is up at 7 a.m. on game day, and breakfast is at 8. The officiating crew arrives at the stadium three hours before the opening whistle. Crew members prepare two dozen game balls, as well as six to eight kicking balls.

The crew is on the field 60 minutes prior to kickoff.

“We talk with players and coaches, and meet with team PR directors to answer questions and confirm rosters,” Laird says. “I work closely with the ball boys. Good ball mechanics are essential. The NFL is adamant that games not exceed three hours in length. I’m often accused of being a ball-mechanics Nazi, but I make certain that the balls come in and out of play quickly, and never touch the ground. That shaves minutes off the length of a game.”

Working the sideline, Laird gets an earful from coaches and players, as well as from fans in the stands. He makes it a habit to ignore the fans.

“Once, early in my career, I was working a game in New Orleans. I heard a guy behind me yell: ‘Laird! Laird Hayes! Laird Hayes, Princeton!’ I thought, ‘I must know this guy.’ I turned around and discovered that I didn’t know him. He was flipping me off.

“I wondered how he knew about Princeton? After the game, I saw that officials’ bios were printed in the game program. No other NFL team does that.”

Laird hopes to work 20 years in the league.

“I’d like to go this season and five more,” he says. “It gets physically tougher each year, but I work hard to stay in shape.”

He loves what he does. For Laird, officiating in the NFL has been a dream come true.

JIM CARNETT lives in Costa Mesa. His column runs Wednesdays.