FREEPORT - Even NFL officials get hurt.

During a NFL preseason game between the New York Jets and New York Giants last August in the Meadowlands, head linesman Tom Stabile crumpled to the turf.

His right hamstring had torn away from the bone.

"I literally thought I got shot," he said while taking in a game at the Freeport International Baseball Invitational Tournament Thursday. "It just snapped."

That ended the season for the 1968 Slippery Rock University graduate almost before it had begun.

But Stabile is healthy now and ready to return to the field for his 11th season as a NFL official.

He was scheduled to report to Dallas Friday for a four-day officiating camp. He is hoping his hamstring will not cause him to miss another season.

"I had never been hurt before in anything," said Stabile, who played baseball and football at SRU and was inducted into the school's sports hall of fame in 2001.

In Dallas, Stabile will undergo a battery of physical tests, as the NFL takes no chances with the health of its officials.

If he passes, he will begin a season-long odyssey that will take him all over the football globe.

When the season starts in mid-August, he will have to re-acclimate himself to the climate of a sport where even preseason games are intense.

Stabile remembers his first year as a league official and his first preseason game.

As a head linesman, Stabile is in point-blank range of a head-coach's ire, and, on this day, he received a particularly stern rant from then-Denver coach Dan Reeves.

"He initiated me," Stabile said, smiling. "You get an earful. I grew up fast because of him."

Stabile said, for the most part, NFL coaches are professional, and, while they seem out of control at times when voicing their displeasure to the officials, they get re-focused quickly.

"Every game is big," Stabile said. "It's different than other sports. In baseball there's 162 games, 80 in basketball. In the NFL, we play only 16 games, and if they lose one, it could be the difference between making the playoffs or missing them. The pressure is intense."

Stabile has done several Monday and Sunday night games. He loathes them.

"They are probably the most difficult games to officiate," Stabile said. "They gear up for it at every level. Monday and Sunday night - it's a circus."

Stabile, who lives in Natrona Heights, didn't begin his march to the NFL until he was 33. His goal was to become the head football coach at Highlands, where he worked as the middle school principle until he retired recently.

But that job never came.

"My dream was basically crushed," he said.

Instead, officiating NFL games became his new dream job.

It was a long journey to the NFL. He spent eight years officiating Division II and Division III college football games, then moved up to Division I-AA for one year.

He then spent another five years in Division I before moving on to the World League, where he finally got noticed.

Stabile said he probably progressed as an official faster than most because of his playing and coaching background.

"I was able to see the intricacies of the game," Stabile said.

While in Amsterdam, preparing to do a World League game, he got the call that he was hired as a NFL official.

"To put it in perspective, I remember where I was when Kennedy was shot and where I was when I became a NFL official," Stabile said. "It was 5 p.m. Amsterdam time and my phone bill was $300 because I called everybody."

Before each season, NFL officials have to take two 200-question tests about the rules and the new interpretations of them.

Last off-season, officials were asked to crack down on illegal contact between defensive backs and receivers that occurs beyond five yards of the line of scrimmage. This off-season, there is push to limit tackles made by grabbing the back of a player's shoulder pads, a.k.a. the Roy Williams rule.

"You have to be completely focused at all times," Stabile said. "You can't be worried about your kids at home. You can't be worried about what your wife is doing. You can't have any distractions."

That's why Stabile said officiating pro football is the toughest job around.

There's the ever-increasing speed of the game, the bodies moving and colliding at breakneck speeds. And then there is the constant scrutiny from everyone from the water boy to the fan to the NFL commissioner himself.

"At the end of those three hours, you are drained," Stabile said. "It's the biggest challenge physically, mentally and emotionally out there. It takes its toll on you."

But Stabile wouldn't want to do anything else on Sundays in the fall.