Jim Tunney, the legendary NFL official known as the dean of referees, died Thursday at age 95.

A cause of death was not announced.

NBC rules analyst and former NFL official Terry McAulay called Tunney “an absolute legend of the game” during Sunday’s Packers-Seahawks game. Broadcaster Cris Collinsworth added he was a “first class guy”.

Tunney attended over 400 NFL games from 1960 to 1990, including officiating three Super Bowls.

“In the world of officiating, Jim Tunney is Babe Ruth,” CBS broadcaster Jim Nantz told the LA Times earlier this year.

Tunney attended some of the most famous weather-related games, including the Ice Bowl in Green Bay for the 1967 NFL title and the Fog Bowl in Chicago during the 1988 playoffs.

“Jim Tunney is really the first referee in our community who had to deal with television,” said former NFL referee Gene Steratore. “He projected himself into our living rooms to understand what those guys in the striped shirts were doing. And he did it in a way that was wholesome.”

Perhaps his most famous decision was ruling out a Packers field goal attempt by Don Chandler in the 1965 playoffs – even though it may have been way to the right. Green Bay tied the game and defeated Don Shula’s Colts in overtime.

“We started out as opponents,” Tunney said of Shula.

“He said, ‘I never want to argue with you.’ “Every time you came to the sideline and we argued, you always won. I would tell him, ‘I had to win.’ I represented the league, I didn’t represent you.'”

But in retirement, the legendary official and the coach with the most wins of all time became golf buddies and watched football together.

“He still thought it was wide,” Tunney said. “I would tell him, ‘If you had won that game, you would have won 348 instead of 347. You’d have to change all those hats and logos.’ We joked about that for years.”

Tunney also became friends with John Madden, who wrote the foreword for Tunney’s book Impartial Judgment.

Tunney was also the first referee named to the All-Madden team.

While working for the NFL, he spent his weekdays as a school principal.

“School was closed on Friday afternoon and the next morning I got on a plane at LAX and flew alone to Detroit, Green Bay, Miami or somewhere else,” Tunney said.

His students often received feedback.

“On Monday morning they came back and said, ‘Oh, you really messed up that play,'” he recalled. “I just laughed and said, ‘Yeah, I probably did.’ ”

Tunney’s father worked as a football official.

Tunney graduated from Occidental College and became a high school teacher and coach.

To make some extra money, he began working prep and junior college football games before moving up to the Pacific Coast Conference.

In 1960, he received offers from the AFL and NFL, but chose the latter for stability reasons.

He and his wife Linda had six children and 16 grandchildren.

When asked what he wanted his legacy to be, Tunney said: “Every game, when I left the field in the locker room, I said to myself, ‘Did I leave that game better than I found it?’ If (yes is the answer), then I’ve done it.”