Jerry Markbreit (born March 23, 1935) is a former American football referee in the National Football League (NFL) for 23 seasons and became one of the most recognizable referees in the game. Markbreit officiated football games for 43 seasons. From 1965 to 1975, Markbreit officiated college football games in the Big Ten Conference. He then joined the NFL in 1976 as a line judge on the crew of Tommy Bell before being promoted to the head referee position in just his second year. His uniform number in the league was 9, which is now worn by Mark Perlman. In his 23 seasons in the NFL (he retired after the 1998 season), Markbreit had 25 postseason assignments: two wild card games (1991 and 1994), 10 divisional games (1979, 1981, 1982, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1995, 1997, 1998), eight conference championships (1980, 1983, 1984, 1989, 1990, 1992, 1993, 1996), one Pro Bowl (1978), and four Super Bowls (XVII, XXI, XXVI, XXIX) and was an alternate in Super Bowl XIX, Super Bowl XXII, and Super Bowl XXVIII. To date, he is the only NFL head referee to officiate four Super Bowl games. Until 2008, he wrote a weekly sports column for the Chicago Tribune during the football season.