Adrian Hill (American football official)

Hill was born in Washington, D.C. and raised mostly in upstate New York. He did not play football in high school because he was undersized. He would play the role of referee when his friends played pickup football.^[5]

Hill earned degrees in electrical and software engineering and computer science from the University at Buffalo before moving to the Washington metropolitan area to work as a software engineer for Westinghouse Electric Corporation. To make extra money, he responded to a newspaper ad for football officials and spent the next fourteen years officiating high school football games as a side job.^[5] He made $13 per game as a youth football referee.^[6]

Hill's first college football officiating experience came in 2004 in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference.^[5] He was an official in Conference USA, where he worked at the referee position. In 2007, Hill worked four games in the now-defunct NFL Europe league^[7] as a line judge.^{[citation needed]}

Hill was hired by the NFL in 2010 and made his first appearance during a September 12, 2010, game between the Washington Redskins and Dallas Cowboys at FedExField as a line judge.^[8][9] He was promoted to referee with the start of the 2019 NFL season following the retirements of Pete Morelli and Walt Coleman.^[10] He worked as a line judge, side judge, and field judge before being promoted to referee, the seventh African-American to receive this honor.

On January 3, 2021, Hill called a roughing-the-passer penalty against Detroit Lions safety Tracy Walker after he sacked Kirk Cousins of the Minnesota Vikings on a 4th and goal play. The sack, which would have given the Lions the ball, appeared to be routine as the Lions players started to celebrate before realizing the penalty flag was against them. The call was highly criticized.^{[11][12][13][14]}