My apologies for the mistake on James Berry&8217;s name last week. I don&8217;t know how &8220;Buie&8221; came out of &8220;Berry,&8221; but I should have caught the error.

I am still tracking down addresses and phone numbers for the athletes who will fall into the &8220;Whatever Happened To?&8221; group and anticipate that I&8217;ll be able to open the book on them next week. I&8217;ve found that James Berry resides in Fairburn, Ga., a suburb southwest of Atlanta, and that he has a son who is a highly rated high school quarterback.

I hope to find more details when I talk to James. Bill Priester is a dentist in Memphis (actually, a maxillofacial surgeon and a prosthodontist). Perry Lee Dunn lives in Brandon.

I understand Louie Brown has moved back to Natchez. As I find more on these and other athletes, I will bring fans up to date about them.

My former boss in the SEC, Bobby Gaston, retired recently from his position as supervisor of football officials. Bobby, 82, had been involved with football officiating since 1956.

He retired from active officiating in 1981 and became an assistant to the late Gordon Pettus, then supervisor of football officials. Bobby is actually the first observer certified by the conference. When Pettus retired in 1988, Gaston was hired by the conference to become supervisor.

Following my final season of on-field officiating in 1989, Gaston took me on as an observer. My initial season as an observer, there were but three of us &8212; Bobby Aillet, Dick Pace and I &8212; along with Gaston who doubled as an observer.

In the years following, several additional retiring officials were named observers. By my final season, 2000, there were eight or nine on the list.

As the number of observers grew, the available number of assignments for each naturally shrank. That led to the occasional resignation of some of the observers (who came to be called &8220;technical advisors&8221;) because it wasn&8217;t worth fooling with.

The system was tweaked annually and then-commissioner Roy Kramer became concerned the SEC was not getting its money&8217;s worth. There were seasons when we were required to spend 1 1/2 hours on a post-game conference and other times we were supposed to just hit the high spots.

From all I understand now, the replay official is also considered the observer. I no longer know the post-game protocol nor the grading procedure.

The SEC&8217;s replay system has gotten high marks from all connected with it. Coaches, officials, fans and the media have all been pleased with the system, and I understand the NFL may be interested in going to the SEC system &8212; at least the electronic part of it.

I have gotten word who will replace Gaston, but it has not been released by the SEC. Gaston will likely stay on and may be involved in making officiating assignments.

And that&8217;s official.

Al Graning is a former SEC official and former Natchez resident. Reach him at

AlanWard39157@aol.com

.