As fans streamed into the Schoellkopf Crescent for Cornell University’s Homecoming football game, a small group of middle-aged and mostly elderly men—all clad in black and white stripes—was huddling on the sideline. They weren’t the referees; they were the chain gang. 

Despite the modern technology that could easily track the position of a football, America’s favorite sport—from pee wee football to the National Football League—relies on a set of markers and chains, and the people that move them. The chain gang wields a set of 8-foot tall orange markers and oversees the 10 yards of chain between them. Every so often, a football game will come down to inches, and fans and innovators will make the case for something that might be more precise than the naked—and often aged—eye. A century ago, high-definition lenses were touted as an objective officiating fix. Now, the NFL is testing Sony’s Hawk-Eye imaging system, “accurate down to less than half an inch.”  Still, the chain gang wasn’t worried about being out of a job. 

While the university’s band warmed up, the cheerleaders donned their pom-poms, and the two teams jogged to their locker rooms to prepare for their final entrance before kickoff, the chain gang was rehashing roles and reviewing the rule book. An official called the head linesman—who oversees the chain crew—towered over the group. As the stadium’s speakers pounded with hype music, the official dished some advice to his crew: “Slower’s better, safety first.” The group nodded in unison, then grinned at another man who joined the huddle.

Gary Hoffman, at age 76, has tired eyes and soft grey hair. He was fashionably late to the meeting on account of his shift as a gameday parking attendant. As he entered the huddle, Gary’s cupped hands revealed a loose chocolate chip cookie atop a packaged Uncrustable and a plastic bottle of water. “That’s unbelievable,” the head linesman quipped, clearly envious. Chuckles rounded the circle, then dissipated as the head linesman continued to go over the rules. Sandy Drumluk, the man in charge of “keepin’ the book,” gazed at a clipboard. The other crew members, including Don Scutt, idled with another official. While Don led a captivating discussion of ham and asked for jokes about the official’s home state of North Carolina, Sandy listened attentively to the head linesman. “Oh! He’s got his glasses on today,” Don snarked over at Sandy. “That’s good!”

Between the chain gang are almost 100 years of reverence, prestige, and wisdom—and while they may trail on tangents, engage in constant banter, and sneak snacks into the game—they take their jobs very seriously. (They also opt to use the more politically correct title of “chain crew.”) There is an air of devout volunteerism about the chain gang, a group of small-town, Upstate New Yorkers committed to public service, who welcome but don’t need the small stipend to stay “on the sticks.” 
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Mutual respect flows between the chain crew and the officials, who are both protected during the game by a dedicated police detail. Although they don’t travel or take tests or talk on the public address like officials, the chain crew feels even more essential. “You guys are good,” the head linesman concluded, as if deferring to his elders, before running off to actually start the game. 

Surrounded by senior expertise, Pat Brennan is the group’s youngest member at 43 years old. He was the only chain crew member who wasn’t wearing knickers. Cornell hosts the only chain crew in the Ivy League which still wears these loose-fitting, jester-like, black and white trousers and the long white socks that accompany them.
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“They look ridiculous,” Pat said, explaining why he opted for a pair of sleek black joggers instead. The rest of the uniform consists of a zebra-striped collared shirt, a shaded black bib, and a white baseball cap adorned with a green “Ivy” logo. “I think tradition is what’s holding on to it,” he said, adjusting his neon blue sunglasses.

When Don Scutt first shook my hand, he introduced himself as Joe Biden. As the most vocal of the group (his voice being distinctly elderly and very endearing), Don is the crew’s (unofficial) irreverent spiritual leader. Clad in aviator shades, Don looked like a colonel. His mission? To preside over a group of oddballs trailing behind modernity, yet somewhat ahead of obsolescence.
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Don reminisced on his younger days: When he was a child in the seventies, Cornell football games were always packed. He’d scamper down the aisles of the Schoellkopf Crescent selling Coca-Cola in glass bottles. By the end of the game, he’d come out with what childhood and inflation made him think was a fortune; Cornell’s football team was much better back then. 

Kickoff. The manicured dance of football commenced, and throughout the short bursts of action, the Cornell Big Red were (unexpectedly) beating up on the Yale Bulldogs.

Bodies thudded, equipment clashed, field goal posts were parted. “We’re getting yelled at every play!” Don recalled of the constant fight for space on the sidelines. Yale’s coaches and players wanted to be as close to the action as possible, but the chain gang had to hold its place. Then, on one fateful play, the action came crashing to the sideline, and Gary Hoffman went tumbling down.

Gary, frazzled and stunned, was loaded onto a white, bedded stretcher. The quiet, wiry man rolled solemnly past the crowd on his way to the ambulance, and the game continued on without interruption—as if a fixture of football hadn’t just gone missing.  The police officer escorting Gary’s stretcher sighed. “It’s a dangerous game,” he said. By the end of the first half, it was pouring down rain.

At halftime, the chain crew shuffled squeakily into Schoellkopf Hall, home to Cornell’s football team, and nestled into a hallway outside the locker room. Don slouched upon a metal folding chair, his legs spread wide open. A piece of his granola bar fell to the floor. “Ten second rule,” he laughed. “Any of ya guys taping the game?” Then Sandy, who also works as a public address announcer for many of Cornell’s sports teams, softly reminded him that live streams couldn’t be saved to a DVR. The two, who had met years ago coaching on two sides of a little league baseball championship, continued to banter. Then, Bill Thompson, who has served on the chain crew for over 40 years, chimed in to tease Don. 

The halftime discussion turned to the gang’s fallen comrade. Don held that Gary was ten yards back from the field, and that ruffians on Yale’s sideline had held him up on his escape from the collision. Pat was more moderate in his retelling: the sideline was a mess and Gary had been hit in the scrum. Sandy, who was on the opposite sideline following the headlines with his clipboard, didn’t know that Gary was now hospitalized. He found out mid-bite of his PB-and-J.

To start the second half, the chain gang jogged out into the rain. The gang took up their orange sticks, returned to the sidelines, and prepared to meticulously track the football. The rain came down harder but the crew continued to move the chains, following the boys who were battling it out on the field. As each team drove down the field in the second half, the chain gang was there to determine if they’d advanced enough for a first down. After hours in the pouring rain, Cornell had held its lead and secured its first win of the season. Only the chain gang and a few soaked fans were there to witness the victory. 

As the referees jogged off the field, the chain crew hobbled closely behind them. Cornell’s band played the fight song. Sandy gave his clipboard to the officials. Don, Bill, and Pat pitched the chains upon the puddling asphalt. Water beads formed on the silver links. Until next Saturday, when the crew would be back on the job, the ancient truth of the chains would go silent. The system would remain an objectively imperfect objective truth.

“Is it perfectly accurate?” asked Mike Pereira, former vice president for officiating in the NFL, in a 2008 interview with the New York Times, “No, I don’t think it is.” And yet for over a century, the on-field measuring system has not changed. I asked Sandy if he thought technology would someday spell the end of the chains. “I don’t,” he replied, foretelling that they’d “continue to live on.”

With age comes solidity, respect, and fondness—attributes akin to truth. Rogers Redding, the 81-year old coordinator of officials for the NCAA who passed away this year, once said that the chain gang was “as accurate as you need.” Pat told me that he didn’t see that changing “anytime soon.” He said that above all, “It’s tradition,” and when describing his fellow members, he called them “lifers.” Gary Hoffman recovered quickly from his collision, and by the next football game, was right back working the sticks.