NFL referee says on-field hit helped save his life
(CBS/WJZ) - Whenever the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens take the field, things get rough. These two rivals love to hit, and hit hard. But one on-field scuffle may have inadvertently saved a life.
It's an amazing set of circumstances that goes back to the Sept. 11 season opener of this football season. A battle between the Ravens and the Steelers had a referee caught up in the action- first in a bad way, but ultimately good.
The Ravens-Steelers season opener was a rough one, even for the guys in stripes. During one scrimmage, referee Tony Corrente tumbled to the turf and suffered from what he believed to be a head injury. He would continue to work the game.
Weeks later, while seeing a doctor for what he thought were symptoms of the head injury, Corrente was diagnosed with throat cancer, according to CBS station WJZ.
That's news he shared with the Ravens recently.
"He said probably if not for that circumstance they would've never discovered it. And so he got a little emotional and felt like the Lord works in mysterious ways," coach John Harbaugh said at a news conference.
Corrente sought out Matt Birk and Michael Oher - two of the players that knocked him down during that season opener scuffle - essentially to thank them for saving his life.
"The one thing I know I'll probably take with me for the rest of my life is being told that story and how it related to him in saving his life. You always try to see your glass as half full. And when this whole thing happened, he said he finally realized that his glass was all the way full. I just thought that was awesome. And certainly talking to him was a very humbling experience," Birk said at a news conference.
Corrente started cancer treatments in October but incredibly continues to work playoff games. His future as a referee is unsure, but he is one of the few people who can ever say that taking a hit on the gridiron may have saved his life.
It is also a remarkably similar story to Jerome Harrison earlier in the season. The Detroit Lions running back was rejected in a trade to the Philadelphia Eagles because a physical revealed Harrison had a brain tumor. Harrison never would have known about the tumor were it not for the trade, the same way Corrente's cancer may have gone unknown if not for two rambunctious Ravens.