This article was re-published with permission from Jim Holleran, a former editor at the Democrat and Chronicle and basketball official. Read more of his work at https://hollerangetsitwrite.com/blog.
My high school basketball season ended last Friday. Not as a player – that stopped at Morristown Central School in 1975. But 17 years ago, I donned a different jersey with black and white stripes.
For the past three months, I have been running up and down basketball courts, making instantaneous judgments, relying on my recall of rulebook minutia, hearing but ignoring “experts’’ in the crowd, and dealing with players who hammer an opponent, then feign the innocence of Mother Teresa.
I worked 36 games this season, and I am forgoing sectional playoff consideration to visit an aunt in Arizona, son in Los Angeles and Cleveland Guardians spring training. After too many weeks of four or five games, fatigue sets in. But I never loaf. I remind myself of the JV ref, walking half a court away from the action, who said he didn’t need to run because the game was a blowout. There was a reason he remained on JV games after six seasons.
The season had its challenges:
ROAD WARRIOR
When you are a 67-year-old retiree with white hair and a Guinness Stout stomach tumor, you don’t get big games. They go to the younger, sleeker college officials. Because I’ll go anywhere, anytime, I get the “Tripadvisor specials,’’ the ones where I thank the Lord for GPS:
Red Creek: You know you’re far from home when the sign states Oswego is only 16 miles away. This game was a one-hour drive each way, but thankfully it didn’t snow.
Kendall: This was played in the hometown of former Syracuse All-American Roosevelt Bouie, but he didn’t come out on this night. The 40-mph westerly wind blew drifts across north-south roads. It was a one-hour adventure among the flurries.
Ovid: This was another emergency fill-in game. Sixty-one miles each way. I was in the car so long that I looked up Ovid’s biography. He was married three times and gave up his privileged life in the Roman upper class to become a poet. Writers get a bad rap. Writers who referee are worse.
Attica: This one was another fill-in job. It was 55 miles through thick snow on greasy roads both ways. But I complimented myself for not making the same mistake from 15 years ago. That was when I missed the turn and ended up staring at the front gate of Attica Correctional Facility, the maximum-security prison and home of the 1971 riot. Before I could turn the truck around, I had a vision from The Shawshank Redemption. At least I didn’t pick up any hitchhikers.
BLOCKS
I’m not talking about fouls. I’m talking about the option to avoid teams or coaches. Referees can block a coach when they tire of his/her lack of bench decorum. Perhaps the ref’s children remain in high school. It is best not to work games there to avoid any semblance of favoritism.
Hours before my first game, my assigner asked me to switch from a soft game to a challenging one, including the only team I had blocked. Last season, I assessed two technical fouls to the coach, who would wave his arms, run up and down the sideline, and even walked onto the court. Regardless, I accepted the switch.
“Are we gonna be good this year?’’ he asked before the opening tip.
“That depends on you, coach.’’
His team won a tight one. He behaved.
FAILING PARENTING 101
If you’re the fan who blurts out “call it both ways’’ or “go back to Foot Locker,’’ not only have you embarrassed yourself, you have used an uninspiring, tired cliche. Time to enter this decade.
Fans want virtually every call. When they don’t get them, some resort to insults. I recently watched a boys’ game and listened to the parents.
“That was terrible.’’
“We can’t get a call.’’
“C’mon ref, you’re missing a great game.’’
During the third quarter, the same man – Mr. Call It Both Ways – had nothing to say when his son, who lost the ball off the dribble, drove hard through the defender, pancaked him to floor, and left him with an injured wrist. At minimum, it was a push, most likely an intentional foul, and probably an ejection.
With .6 seconds remaining, the boy was injured a second time. While trying to stop the clock with a foul, a player threw him to the ground. Thuggery.
Not every game is contentious. I hugged a colleague from Parish Council before an opening tip. I shook hands with former teaching colleagues at least four times. Three times I refereed games where the coach was a former official. Twice I worked freshman games where my morning basketball buddies had sons playing; these dads chirp just to needle you. They’re benign and hilarious.
But this remains the Age of Entitlement. I had junior high boys on the sideline trying to disconcert free-throw shooters with catcalls and whistling. I had an adult male (wearing a ref jersey under his coat) doing the same to a high school girl.
Of course, there was one ejection. With his daughter’s team having tripled the score on a hapless team but remaining in a full-court press, the fouls were piling up. That’s when he bellowed one of the dumbest lines all refs have heard: “You know it’s 7-0 on fouls.’’ It’s surprising he didn’t scream “call it both ways.’’
I stopped to tell him it was difficult to watch from the parking lot.
Usually you can engage a security guard and look over that way, and the fans gets the message. When I mumbled to the coach that I wasn’t going to put up with the loud father in the blue hoodie and stared in that direction, he stood up to wave and taunt. That was his ticket out the door.
Why expose myself? It goes back to when my daughter Claire played AAU. I watched guys loaf or swallow their whistle to expedite games. I knew I could do better, or at least give maximum effort.
So I have stowed my gear for another season, and packed my luggage for vacation. When I return, it will be time to get out another bag – for lacrosse season.
Morristown native Jim Holleran is a retired teacher and sports editor from Rochester. Reach him at [email protected] or view past columns under “Reflections of RiverRat” at https://hollerangetsitwrite.com/blog/
