Sundays, he turns foul-mouthed.

• Position: Tom Dooley, owner of R.T. Dooley Contstruction Co. - People - Brief Article

Most of the time, Tom Dooley stays busy running his Charlotte general-contracting business, R.T. Dooley Construction Co., which pulls in about $25 million in revenues a year.

But at least 20 weekends a year, the yellow hard hat comes off, and the white ball cap goes on. Dooley, 57, is a National Football Leaque referee. "Construction is my life," he says, "but refereeing is so much fun it's frightening. It's my hobby." A hobby that pays between $600 and $2,200 a game.

A Roanoke, Va., native, Dooley says he was an "overachiever" as an end on Virginia Military Institute's football team. He graduated with a civil-engineering degree in 1956 and earned a master's degree specializing in soils and foundations at Georgia Tech a year later. He worked 18 years for the Charlotte general-contracting firm F.N. Thompson Co. before starting his company in 1977.

On the side, Dooley began officating, working his way up through the leaques: Pop Warner, high school and the Southern Conference. In the late '60s, he applied to the NFL, launching an arduous selection process. "They investigate your capabilities secretly," Dooley says. "Over five, six, seven years they send out different observers to watch your work." He underwent a battery of interviews and psychological tests, and in 1977 he finally got the word: He had made it to the NFL.

But the evaluation is never over. "Every play of every game you are graded on being in the right...