Oxford native and former Mississippi State baseball player Brad Freeman will be on one of the biggest stages in North American pro sports next month as he was named to the eight-man refereeing crew for Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas.
Freeman will be the back judge during the game on Feb. 11, a position that he has served primarily in the National Football League (NFL) since the 2019 season.
He was selected from a pool of 28 officials who worked the divisional round of the National Football League (NFL) Playoffs, having worked as the back judge during last weekend’s Detroit Lions/Tampa Bay Buccaneers NFC Divisional round game. He also was the highest-rated eligible official at his position under the NFL’s current officiating program evaluation system.
Super Bowl-eligible officials are required to have worked at least five seasons in the league and have previous playoff assignments.
Freeman has worked in the NFL since 2014, first starting as a field judge and side judge through his first five seasons in the league. Freeman has worked 165 total NFL games over the past decade, including 11 playoff games.
At Mississippi State, Freeman played between 1995-98, hitting .305/.398/.447 in 237 career games with 23 home runs and 151 RBIs.
He was the primary shortstop for the Bulldogs during that time and after finishing out his MSU career, he was drafted in the 7th round of the 1998 MLB Draft by the St. Louis Cardinals.
Freeman played two years of minor league baseball, reaching High-A ball with the Potomac Cannons in 1999 before calling it a career.
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