Adrian Hill | |
|---|---|
_(cropped).jpg) Hill in 2020 | |
| Born | 1964 or 1965 (age 60–61)[1] Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Education | University at Buffalo (BS) Johns Hopkins University (MS)[2] |
| Occupation(s) | NFLofficial (2010–present) College football official (2004–2009) Aerospacesoftware engineer (1990s–present) |
Tracy Adrian Hill[3][4] is an American professionalfootballofficial in theNational Football League (NFL) since the2010 NFL season, who wears uniform number 29.
Hill was born in Washington, D.C. and raised mostly inupstate 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.[1]
Hill earned degrees inelectrical andsoftware engineering andcomputer science from theUniversity at Buffalo before moving to theWashington metropolitan area to work as a software engineer forWestinghouse 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.[1] He made $13 per game as a youth football referee.[5]
Hill's firstcollege football officiating experience came in 2004 in theMid-Eastern Athletic Conference.[1] He was an official inConference USA, where he worked at thereferee position. In 2007, Hill worked four games in the now-defunctNFL Europe league[6] as aline judge.[citation needed]
Hill was hired by the NFL in 2010 and made his first appearance during a September 12, 2010, game between theWashington Redskins andDallas Cowboys atFedExField as a line judge.[7][8] He was promoted to referee with the start of the2019 NFL season following the retirements ofPete Morelli andWalt Coleman.[9] He worked as a line judge,side judge, andfield judge before being promoted to referee, the seventh African-American to receive this honor. In week 12 of the2025 NFL season Hill was carted off with an injury to his left leg. Hill was reported to be OK and a return later in the season appears likely.[10]
On January 3, 2021, Hill called aroughing-the-passer penalty againstDetroit Lions safetyTracy Walker after hesackedKirk Cousins of theMinnesota 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]
After earning his bachelor's degree from Buffalo, Hill earned aMaster of Science fromJohns Hopkins University.[2]
In the 1990s, Hill worked as aNASA contractor atGoddard Space Flight Center for what becameRaytheon Technologies. In 2000, he was hired as an aerospace software engineer at theJohns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory Space Exploration Sector. He was the flight software lead onMESSENGER and had important roles on theNew Horizons mission and theParker Solar Probe.[1] He has served as the flight software lead for the Precision Tracking Space System, has led the development of fault protection systems for theRadiation Belt Storm Probes and has led flight software development for theHubble Space Telescope. While working for Raytheon, he was a developer for theSubmillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite programs.[2]
In 2006, he was named Engineer of the Year by theBaltimore chapter of theAmerican Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.[15]
He was the lead author ofCommand and Data Handling Flight Software test framework: A Radiation Belt Storm Probes practice, a paper presented at the 2013IEEE Aerospace Conference.[16]
As of June 2020[update], Hill resided inBowie, Maryland with his wife, VaLerie.[1] He is the brother of Seattle radio host, Steve "The Thrill" Hill of theKISW 99.9 radio showThe Mens Room.