Ferguson worked his way through the high school and community college ranks to work the Big West Conference, Western Athletic Conference and Mountain West Conference at the collegiate level. Through it all, he continued to work college basketball games.
After five years of working NFL Europe, he was called up to the NFL.
"The year I got the call, I was at work," Ferguson says. The first thing his wife, Pamela, told him when he got home: "Here's the phone — you're quitting basketball."
"I'm the proverbial football widow, in every sense of the word," says Pamela, Keith's wife of 19 years, with a broad smile.
Clearly, both were pleased when he got the call.
"Very few guys make it into that arena," Ferguson says. "I was on cloud nine. I could hardly talk."
"I knew how much it meant to him, and I was very excited for him," adds Pamela.
It didn't take Ferguson long to realize how different things were going to be.
"My first regular season game was in Green Bay, and it was quite humbling just going onto that field," Ferguson says of historic Lambeau Field. "Then the umpire took me over to the end zone and said,`This is where they won the Super Bowl.' I started thinking about all that history."
Then the game began.
"Brett Favre threw the ball from the 40-yard line and it hit behind me — the ball just whizzed by me," he recalls. "Later, Favre throws a ball that looks like it's 30 yards over the guy's head, and the guy jumps and gets his hand on the ball.
"These athletes, the stuff that you see and the things these receivers do, it's unbelievable. It all happens so quickly — in the blink of an eye."
Ferguson was reunited with Leavy when he joined the NFL ranks, and two would become even closer when Ferguson would join Leavy's crew for the 2008 season.
"He has good control on the field with the players," says Leavy of Ferguson. "He's a no-nonsense guy — he's not going to take crap from anybody. But he's also very fair."
It's no coincidence that Ferguson ended up working on Leavy's team.
"I put in a request to see if they would consider putting Keith in with me," says Leavy, who also asked for two other ref-mates from the Mountain West Conference, Mark Derlman and Darrell Jenkins.
"Keith has helped to make us a pretty strong crew," adds Leavy, who worked Super Bowl XXXVI as a back judge and Super Bowl XL as the referee. "He has a good feel for the game, and he approaches the right spirit of the rules.
"He's made good strides to get to where he is now."
Where he is now is a veteran NFL official who just worked his first Super Bowl. And just as it is for the players, the experience is a dream come true.
"Before the game a Pittsburgh player came up and asked me,`Do you get nervous?' " says Ferguson. "So I asked him,`Are you nervous?' He nodded, and I said,`Well, me too.' "
"You're just as keyed up as the players are," he adds.
The experience, too, is just as memorable for the officials as it is for the players.
"I'll remember this for the rest of my life — walking out on that field and seeing my family there," says Ferguson.
In the stands at the game was his wife, Pamela, and their children Roger, 16, a student at Willow Glen High School; Grant, 13, a student at John Muir Middle School; and Arabella, 7, a student at Campbell Christian School. Unable to make the trip was Keith's 23-year-old daughter Jennifer, a teacher in the Alum Rock School District.
"People were asking me,`Who are you rooting for?' " recalls Pamela. "I said,`I'm rooting for the black and white to make the right calls.' We just enjoyed the game and the stadium."
Ferguson, though, could not just enjoy the game — he had a job to do. And as he approved that job, he had just two wishes: "that there would be no blown calls by any of the officials, and that it would be a close game."
As it turned out, his wishes came true. And by participating in the Super Bowl, his dream did, too.
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