Ben Hiner Tompkins (October 4, 1929 – April 28, 2023) was an American college and professional athlete and National Football League (NFL) referee.
At the University of Texas, he played baseball on the first back-to-back college World Series champions in 1949–50 as an All-Conference third baseman and was the starting quarterback for the Longhorns conference championship football team in 1950.
He later played six seasons of minor league baseball in the Philadelphia Phillies organization, and then spent 20 years as an NFL referee who officiated two Super Bowls.
Later in the season, Texas upset #1 SMU, the first defeat of a #1 ranked team in school history (and a feat only repeated four times since).
For his play, he led he Longhorns in passing yards and total offense, Tompkins was selected as an Honorable Mention to the 1950 All-Southwest Conference team.
[4] In 1951, the first season with coach Ed Price, it appeared that Tompkins would again compete with T Jones and Dan Page for the starting role, but in February, with one year of eligibility left, he signed a $50,000 contract to play infielder for the Philadelphia Phillies.
[2] When his military obligation was completed, he returned to the Phillies organization and played second base for six years in their farm system, landing on 5 different teams.
At that point he started the firm Reynolds and Tompkins, and did insurance defense work with them and others for the next nine years before moving over to the plaintiff's side with Bailey, Galyen and Gold.