Off topic - non-profit referee?

Mark Padgett

I was watching an old rerun of "What's My Line" on GSN from 1954 or 1955 (I think) and one of the guests was a guy named Len Dobbins. He was a college football referee and had just worked the Army-Navy game. During the questioning from the panel, he said he worked for a non-profit organization, but it was never explained. Any ideas what he meant? At first I thought he was alluding to "working" for the Army or Navy but he also said he didn't work for any governmental agency. On that show, they always include the military as being part of the government. Frankly, I was puzzled, which is my usual state.

Odd Duck

He may have been part of an association that assigned him the game. Said association may have had their 501( c)(3) certification...making them non-profit. He may have also, as his regular job, worked for a non-profit organization. While he answered the question correctly, it was meant to confuse the panel and had nothing to do with the reason he was on the show.

Back In The Saddle

I guess I don't understand the confusion. I assume when he says he works for a non-profit organization that he's talking about his day job. There are a lot of non-profit organizations out there.

Mark Padgett

Back In The Saddle wrote
I guess I don't understand the confusion. I assume when he says he works for a non-profit organization that he's talking about his day job. There are a lot of non-profit organizations out there.

The way the show worked back then was if he was referring to his "day job", the moderator, John Daly, would have given a clarification. Since he did not, the reference then was to the job the panel was trying to ascertain, which was football referee.

Dan_ref

Mark Padgett wrote
The way the show worked back then was if he was referring to his "day job", the moderator, John Daly, would have given a clarification. Since he did not, the reference then was to the job the panel was trying to ascertain, which was football referee.

I'm going with the guess that his real job was in the non-profit sector. But maybe he was talking about working for the NFL... was it a for-profit business back then? Before you laugh the clubs that belonged to the NFL were for-profits for sure. I don't think the league had a profit motive back then as they do today with logo'ed apparel sales, superbowl revenue, NFL sponsored dwarf throwing events... all that stuff

oh yeah, can I buy a vowel?

JugglingReferee

Dan_ref wrote
I'm going with the guess that his real job was in the non-profit sector. But maybe he was talking about working for the NFL... was it a for-profit business back then? Before you laugh the clubs that belonged to the NFL were for-profits for sure. I don't think the league had a profit motive back then as they do today with logo'ed apparel sales, superbowl revenue, NFL sponsored dwarf throwing events... all that stuff

oh yeah, can I buy a vowel?

JR? Yoohoo, JR? Where are you? 😀 😛