Posted tagged ‘basketball referee’

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Crazy Youth Sports Parents

June 20, 2019

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                     June 20, 2019

                              

They just don’t get it!

Parents of kids and youth who are playing sports, they just don’t quite understand the purpose of and their role in it.

When I say “they”, it’s like saying that one bad apple destroys the barrel. Most parents sit in the bleachers and offer appropriate applaud and encouragement. Others focus on their cell phones as the games go on. 

But…there’s the few who are like a bad case of flatulence. They smell up the whole area.

A few days ago a fight broke out at a baseball game played by 7 year olds in Lakewood, Colorado. The fight was between the adults, not the kids. The fracas erupted when there was disagreement about a few of the umpire’s calls. The umpire happened to be 13! He was umpiring because no one else wanted to do it. Like a lamb foolishly wandering into a den of wolves, he did it! 

I have experience with out-of-control parents. I officiated basketball for 16 years. Most of my games were at the high school level. The last few years before I hung up the whistle I also did small college games. 

But I also did my share of youth games on Saturday and Sunday afternoons involving teams as young as 3rd grade. It’s part of the journey of an official, doing games at different levels to get more experience. 

I can tell you this! I despised doing youth games because…because of the parents…and a few coaches. Sometimes the coach happened to be a former belligerent parent who decided he could do better, and get more of a hearing, if he was on the bench. 

I remember a 6th grade boys game I was refereeing where a mom was shouting to her son, “Kill him! Kill him!” She sat underneath one of the baskets within a couple of feet of where her son was doing battle on the low post. I stopped the game and told her that she would need to move to the side of the court where chairs were situated. She was adamant that she had paid her admission fee and that she could sit there. I let her know that the game would not resume until she moved, and we waited. After a couple of minutes she huffed and puffed her way to the side. 

And I swore I would never officiate another youth basketball game for the organization that ran that tournament! They were negligent in making sure there was adequate site management people that could be called upon to handle situations such as that one. My pay for doing that game? $18! Most high school officials don’t do youth games for the compensation. They do it for the game experience and to practice the mechanics of officiating. 

They also do it because there’s a shortage of officials and they want to help out. And guess why there’s a shortage of officials? Because of crazy out-of-control parents who think a baseball game between 7 year old boys is a life and death situation. 

I don’t remember it being that way when I was growing up. I don’t even remember parents being there. What I remember is running for a 60 yard touchdown for the Williamstown, West Virginia Little Travelers “B” football team when I was 12 against Vienna, West Virginia. I can remember when I was 11 lacing a pitch for a line drive headed for the third baseline, seeing Mick Mullinix leap, and snatch it out of the air. I remember winning the Wood County 50 yard dash for 8 year olds. I remember, as a ten year old, stealing the basketball from Mike Flowers, who was about two feet taller than me, and making a layup…my only basket the whole season in the Williamstown Saturday morning league at the high school. 

Funny, how I can remember the details of each of those happenings, but I can’t remember any of those memories involving yelling parents who were still trying to relive their childhoods!

I wonder what some 7 year olds in Lakewood will remember about their growing up days in a few years?

Categories: children, coaching, Freedom, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
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In Appreciation of Great Parents of Young Athletes

November 12, 2018

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                           November 12, 2018

                              

One of the main reasons I decided to stop officiating basketball after the 2017 season and 16 years of wearing the stripes was out-of-control parents. Many of them have added to their resume’ and are now not just “helicopter parents”, but also “helicopter fans”!

Irrational and belligerent, abusive and hostile, they bring a dark side to youth athletics. When their son or daughter has an official make a marginal call that goes against their child you would think that the kid just got a reject letter from Harvard!

BUT there are “the others”! That is, there are the parents who are awesome and supportive; the parents who understand that the world does not turn on the basis of a roundball’s rotation; the parents who allow their son or daughter to experience failure and also success and don’t feel like they need to pave the path that only leads to victory.

Parental guidance and encouragement are the vital elements for a kid growing up and trying to figure out life, but they are elements that are too often missing. They are elements that many parents have pushed to the side in favor of outraged entitlement and having a messed-up view of what is really important in life.

The parents of my 8th Grade boys basketball team this year were awesome, and here’s why!

They let the coach coach! Their analysis and evaluation of the game and their son’s play didn’t happen until after the game, if at all! Never once did I have a parent shout instructions to their son from the bleachers. They applauded and encouraged, grimaced and smiled. I’ve heard too many horror stories of coaches being hounded and ridiculed by parents. My parents modeled how things should be!

They understood that we coach student athletes, not athletes who also happen to be students! None of my players had to sit out a week of games because they were academically in trouble. Their son’s grade point average is much more important than his scoring average or how many rebounds he gets in a game.

They modeled maturity! I’ve seen my share of parents who have been asked to leave gymnasiums because of their behavior. Last year the mom of a player from the team we were playing that day sat in the row behind our team bench…in our gym! Her voice was the loudest voice in the gym. If it was Cameron Indoor at Duke and the Blue Demons were playing North Carolina I could understand it, but this was a 7th Grade boys game. I had our security person ask her to move at halftime. She was not pleased! There were plenty of seats behind her team’s bench. The coach, a friend of mine, said to me after the game, “Great! You moved her down behind my bench and then I had to hear her!”

Some parents just don’t get it! And then you see their son or daughter turning into mom or dad!

Here’s the harsh truth! Officials and referees are hanging up their whistles because of parents! And coaches are calling it quits because of parents! 

My parents this year were awesome and that’s why I’ll be back for my 19th season next year…and consider myself blessed to be able to do it!

Categories: children, coaching, Community, Freedom, Grace, Parenting, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
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The Troubling of Sports Officials

August 8, 2018

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                  August 8, 2018

                          

It’s a situation that basketball game assignors started dealing with a few years ago: too many games and not enough referees to cover them safely and effectively. So a trend started! Games on heavy volume days began to be rescheduled…or, in a few cases, officials had to cover three games in one day…often at two different locations. 

It was a warning sign that most wanted to pretend wasn’t happening; that the number of people officiating basketball games was gradually decreasing while the number of games being played gradually had been increasing. A few people saw the impending crisis, but most went on like there wasn’t any problem. After all, how do you fix the part of the basketball game that is best seen but not heard. That is, officials long to run up and down a court where the participants with numbered uniforms play the game fairly and under control, to the point where a whistle rarely needs to be blown.

I still remember a girl’s varsity game I officiated several years ago at St. Mary’s High School in Colorado Springs. St. Mary’s was hosting Trinidad. Two excellent coaches, George Dasko and Mike Burkett, led their teams. I can even remember my officiating partners for that game: Rachel Martinez and Kevin Kizewski. We rarely had to blow our whistles in a contest that was well-played and close the whole way. I remember that, even with the ten minute halftime and the uncertainty of the outcome down to the last few seconds, the contest was finished in an hour. 

Unfortunately, most basketball games are not like that! And that hints at the problem. It gives us an inkling of why the number of people willing to put on a striped shirt, run up and down a court with a whistle in their mouth, and have their intelligence questioned is slipping.

I’ve been on both sides of the sidelines, wearing a black and white striped shirt inside the lines and a shirt and tie on the other side of it. I’ve asked coaches to stay in their “box” (the designated area in front of their team bench that runs now from the baseline to the 28-foot line) and also been the one standing in the box.

Sixteen years as a basketball official and twenty plus years as a basketball coach. After the 2017 high school basketball season I decided to hang up the striped shirt. I made that decision for several reasons. 

The first two were quite simple; I wasn’t getting any younger, and I enjoyed coaching much more than officiating. Two good reasons…except for the acknowledgment of my advancing age as an AARP member!

The other reasons, however, were troubling. 

Parents! How do you fix parents, specially parents of young athletes? In the increasing of games that need to be covered, youth basketball games are like a locust storm. In helping out our game assignor in the covering of some of these games I had to deal with parents that were belligerent, unrealistic, and obnoxious. One mom, who I asked to relocate from underneath one of the baskets to the side of the court because of her language during a 5th-6th grade game, told me she had paid admission to get in. Since I heard her urge her son (I’m assuming it was her son!) to kill one of the opposing players I moved her and informed her that we weren’t going to start the game again until she relocated. She had lost perspective! She forgot that this was a game that was being played by young boys and it was for their enjoyment, not for her “revenge on life” attitude!

How do you fix parents? I tell the parents of the players I coach to keep perspective on what it is we’re about. If anything needs to be said to an official I’ll say it, not them. 

In saying that let me also say that most parents are great! They understand that having their child’s team beat the archival is a great moment, but not life-defining. Finding a cure for cancer would be life-defining for the discoverer and the people helped by it. Being a community peacekeeper would be life-defining. Walking with a family through struggles and heartaches would be life-defining. Most parents understand that and help their adolescent athletes develop a balanced view on life.

Here’s another reason! The blurring of authority. That is, the minimizing of the respect for the ones blowing the whistles. The disrespect comes from fans, coaches, and players. For every coach with integrity like Mike Burkett there’s a coach on the other side of the fence who sees the referees as the enemies. In recent years the number of assaults on referees has increased. A recent basketball game between two club teams ended with players from one of teams physically attacking the officials. Physical assaults happen just as much at contests between teams of younger-aged players as they do with high school teams.

In other words, those wearing the striped shirts have become the targets to aim at for frustrated players, coaches, and fans. People have forgotten what the purposes are for there to be people wearing the stripes. Perhaps it’s simply a smaller arena example of how authority has become blurred in our culture. 

Ask public school teachers if changes have occurred in regards to the respect of their authority during their teaching career! 

Ask coaches about the attitudes of their athletes. Even though the size of the ball has remained the same the way they coach their players has to now contend with some attitude warts.

The examples of the abuse of authority has contributed to the disdain of authority. 

As a coach I keep perspective on how things are. Last year I coached two middle school basketball teams and a freshman team. The officials we had were often new officials who still make the same boneheaded decisions that I made in my first few years of refereeing. So I would tell my players that new officials need to start someplace, and we’re the place they usually start…so it is what it is! Let me be the one to ask them questions! My players saw that I wasn’t contentious or abrasive, but rather that those wearing the striped shirts and I each had a role and a purpose and we, in most situations, tried to work together to be participants of a great athletic contest. 

After all, if there aren’t any people to wear the stripes and officiate the games who will do it? 

The parents?????

Categories: children, coaching, Community, Freedom, Grace, Parenting, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
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Turning My Basketball Players Into Basketball Officials

March 11, 2018

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                March 11, 2018

               

I hand a black and white striped shirt to each one of them. Each of them is also given a whistle, and they stare at me!

“Okay, boys! Here’s what I want you to work on to begin with.”

“The boys” are the players who are a part of my freshmen basketball team. They are being asked to be the officials for the kid’s basketball program that our varsity coach has operated for the past few years. The varsity and junior varsity players are the coaches for the eleven teams of boys between the grades of three and six. “The boys” have all played basketball for several years, but none of them have ever officiated a basketball game.

They look like a herd of deer in headlights, wide-eyed and unsure of how this is going to play out. If asked I am sure each of them would rather be shooting a game-deciding free throw in front of a packed gym than blowing a whistle to indicate that a third grade boy just ran down the court with the basketball and forgot to dribble.

I have them practice their referee mechanics, the hand signals that indicate what call is being made. However, I know that once the game starts they will be like the third and fourth grade boys who are practicing dribbling using two basketballs, but once the game starts they will all dribble to the right corner. My players will practice their mechanics, but once the game begins they will blow their whistles inconsistently and weakly.

“Don’t let your whistles sound like tweety-bird! Strong whistles and strong voices.”

“Coach, I’m going to be awesome!” one of them boasts, but then goes through the entire first half without his whistle making a peep.

“Coach, watch this!” The boy in front of me is doing the hand signal that indicates he is doing a ten second count.

“That’s great, but I don’t think getting a ten second back court violation is our biggest concern with third and fourth graders.” He stares at me as if I mortally wounded him.

“Let’s keep it simple. Arm up with a closed fist means…”

“Foul!”

“Good! Arm up with an open fist means…”

“A really bad foul?”

“No, space cadet! It indicates a stoppage in play because you are about to give the signal for a violation that has happened, or that it’s a held ball, or that the ball is dead.”

“Dead? So, do we get another ball when that happens?”

I don’t have to respond. The player who asks the unintelligent question is hounded by his teammates.

The games begin and I conduct an official’s clinic as the afternoon progresses, instructing these fifteen year olds on where to stand, what to look for, how to use their voices, and how to sell a call that could go either way? I ask them questions about situations and other questions that seek to help them cultivate the common sense of officiating. We laugh together and they get better each game they do.

“You’ve got to have a whistle on that play!” I yell at them.

“Yes, but-“

“No, yes but’s! If you were doing a high school game right now would you stop the game and say to the irate coach ‘Yes, but!’?”

I hung up my whistle last year after sixteen seasons of officiating high school and junior college basketball, but I enjoy these moments of helping my players see things from the perspective of the person with the black and white striped shirt.

And then the reward! A parent comes up to me and says, “Coach, your boys are so much better at officiating than those who have done it in past years.”

I smile and thank her. It’s a comment I share with my players who still at times resemble deer in headlights…but not as often!

Categories: children, coaching, Freedom, Grace, Humor, Parenting, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
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The Wisdom of Ray Lutz

December 3, 2017

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                          December 3, 2017

                                    

As I drive through Calhan, heading to Simla, this morning out of habit I’ll look to my right as I pass a certain street two blocks this side of the county fairgrounds. Down this street on the right Ray Lutz has lived. It’s a nondescript home that has seen its share of pie consumed by numerous visitors. The number address, in fact, should be 3.14!

Ray passed away on Friday, December 1. He had been a sports official for so long people were prone to call him Methuselah.

Ray would greet me with “Reverend” or “Reverend Wolfe”. Always a kind word or gentle jab. He told me he was Methodist. I told him I’d pray for him. The more I got to know him the more he didn’t resemble a Methodist. Method was secondary to common sense for Ray. The rulebook might say one thing, but sometimes basketball game situations required that common sense trump the rules of the game. Don’t get me wrong! He knew the rules, but if everybody on the interstate is driving 85 when the speed limit is 65 you sometimes have to inch that speedometer up a bit more to not get rear-ended. Common sense driving!

The first time I met Ray was at a class he taught for brand new basketball officials. Twenty or so of us were seated at desks in the classroom and listened to Mr. Lutz explain how a person officiates a basketball game. He was interesting to listen to then, and I wasn’t even sure what he was talking about. At the end of our six weeks of sessions we took a test to see if we would be able to actually blow whistles at basketball games that season. As I sat there mulling over possible answers he came by and told me that I should probably think about what I had answered for a certain question. It was his way of getting me past the cut-off. For sixteen years, until the end of last season, I proceeded to blow my whistle and wear the stripes. He was my officiating shepherd, and I was one of his striped lambs.

One year he encouraged me to run for one of the elected positions of our basketball officials organization. I did, and I lost! My first reaction was disbelief, not because I had been beaten, but rather because Ray had been the one to get me to do it in the first place. I thought it meant victory.

For several summers I went to a basketball camp for officials that Dave Hall conducted. Dave Hall has done NCAA championship and tournament games for a number of years. Ray was always one of the clinicians for Mr. Hall. It was where I was able to talk to him the most, sitting beside him by a court and taking in some of the wisdom that would naturally ooze from his personality. It was also at those courtside chats that he encouraged me with flattering remarks on how good I was doing, that he expected big things from me that coming season, and other remarks that made me think I was all that. Of course, I think Ray, the encourager, made those remarks to most officials at the camps he was a part of, but either way it caused me to want to be the best I could be.

A few years ago he was in the hospital for a serious medical condition, so I went and paid him a visit. I walked in the room and he looked at me.

“Reverend!” he greeted me, and we talked about life, basketball, health, and blessings.

Some of us are privileged enough to make a mark in the world in some way. The most effective people are those who influence others in their craft or passion. They are the folks who people can look behind and, like the waves behind a motorboat, see the number of people who are following faithfully in the wake of the same pursuit.

Ray Lutz will always be that. A wise mentor, a professor of common sense basketball officiating philosophy, and perhaps…even a Methodist!

Categories: children, Christianity, coaching, Death, Faith, Humor, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized
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Making Decisions That People Yell At

January 26, 2015

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                  January 26, 2015

                                         

There were groans and catcalls from one side of the gym, and, ironically, cheers from the other side. It was a “jeer cheer smoothie”, a mixture of abuse and praise that left you unsure of the quality of the taste. For the next hour and twenty minutes I received a lifetime supply of the sweet and sour partial satisfaction and partial disgust.

     Although basketball coaching is how I spend most of my free time when I’m not with family, I still officiate a few high school basketball games each year and a few Junior College games. If my calculations are correct this is my thirteenth year of blowing the whistle. Last Saturday I was blowing the whistle as the “R” of a three man crew. “R” for those who aren’t fluent in “referee language” stands for “referee”, and for that game is the head official for the crew. I talk to the captains, talk to the coaches, check the scorebook, and make decisions where there might be a discrepancy.

Saturday’s game was one of those hotly contested games where players from both teams were prone to make unwise decisions…at the same time! The result was that every other time down the court one of the three officials had to blow his whistle and announce a verdict. A decision had been made in his mind and the results produced people pulling their hair out and others jumping in celebration.

Most basketball games are not like. I’ve been wearing the black and white stripes for many games where it seems as an official I just seem to be there watching the players run back and forth…under control…playing smart…playing as a team.

The games, like Saturday’s game, where the officials feel like they have to continually render judgment calls are the toughest games to referee. It takes common sense, the ability to instantly slice a play into pieces in your mind to determine what caused the contact, how much unnecessary drama was added to the moment, who played smart and who played dumb, who wants a bail-out, and whether or not we had a similar play at the other end of the court. As an official fairness is paramount on our list of values. We recognize that their are two different parties with vested and different interests. No one wants to be the game loser, and each play of the game is just a smaller version of that win-lose scenario.

As a coach I know the officials that are wise and that I trust, and I know the officials who whenever the whistle is blown it is like a mystery is about to be revealed. It’s interesting that my “seasonedness”, or less kind people would say “old age”, has brought me to a point where I have very few disagreements with coaches who have been around for a few years. I have to earn the trust of new coaches, but, on the other hand, they need to earn my trust as well. When they recognize my fairness and consistency they know that the verdict of the game will be on them and their players; and, on the other hand, when I as an official see how they coach their players, adjust to game situations, use common sense, and manage the game, I become more open to hearing their concerns about certain plays and questions that sometimes I don’t even have an answer to.

Fans are a different story. Fans are spectators. Games and decisions are never to be determined or swayed by spectators. They are their to watch and cheer…and yes, to jeer. I watch a lot of basketball games as a fan, and do not always agree with the decisions of the officials, but I never feel it is justified or acceptable to yell obscenities at the officials.

Many people have asked me over the years why I officiate? Why do I allow myself to be subjected to such verbal abuse and ridicule. In an increasingly unpredictable world where people feel compelled to shoot one another, throw sucker punches, and intentionally minimize your humanity, why put yourself into that arena?

Because I love the game! Pure and simple, uncomplicated and yet sincere, I love the game!

Don’t get me wrong! I blow calls. I have whistles that I wish I could take back. I replay certain situations in my head as I struggle to fall asleep that night. I’m not perfect…far from it!

In fact, ask most spectators after any game and they will usually tell you that I was wrong close to half of the time…sometimes more!

Categories: Grace, Humor, Parenting, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
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