“First they love me then they hate me then they love me again.
LOVE ME AGAIN.” – Jay-Z
These events are true, the situations are true, and names are true. I stand behind mine, and no one is under a bus. This all happened, one day ago. Please, no one take offense – I never take offense when
someone gets at me when wearing the shirt.
“The 50 x 94 is a very emotionally packed, competitive environment in which that’s just one side of who we are as people, that sort of gets overlooked to the event, and start looking at people in their competitive environments, that’s a very narrow or one-sided view of the total person and I think starting to have empathy for the stresses.”
– Monty McCutchen
#1 – Love Me:
Monday Night, 7:02pm – Outside, It’s dark, raining. Inside it’s radiant; the calm before the storm. I’m in a jovial mood because of who is about to step on the mic. I’m waiting for Carl, a mentor of mine, in this crazy officiating game. He’s been there me through and through. In the midst of recording #therant, we were trying to decide if we were going to record in my 20-day-old-rent-a-car, or in an office. Either which way, it would be nondescript and before the games we were about to do.
The recording lasted almost 20 minutes. Within the contents when the red button was live, I asked him what the most stickiest situation.
Forgive me for the spoiler alert::::
Carl: “As far as on the court as an official, man – there’s too many you can think of!”
Ralph the Ref: “There’s been a couple of sticky situations that you and I have been in, in this very facility!”
Carl: “It can happen any day, any time. But, you stay in your rule book, you have a good partner, or even if you don’t have a good partner, as long as you know what your doing is at the right thing, and even if it’s not it’s a learning experience.”
8:00pm – It is expected that we be on time, even though all players, adult league it seems, is that it’s ok to be late. We understand that as an official. We don’t count, oftentimes in that equation.
8:12pm – The game is about to be live. While it’s dead, I exchange pleasantries to the players, some are familiar faces from officiating previously, some of them, I’ve officiated in previous adult leagues, or even ref’d their kids elsewhere, in other sports.
“Make sure you give me all the calls I don’t deserve,” one of the players said.
“It’s also good to share the perspective of a referee, and what the role of a referee is. For me, I think any time you start to question the role of a referee, you first have to question the role of sport. And sport, for us, we would have to test ourselves by staying alive; but as we’ve grown as a civilization, sport has taken on that ideal of how can we test ourselves against otherness; how do I answer some of the questions I have about myself and we do that through challenges though otherness? And if we’re going to do that in collectiveness, i.e. team sports, then it’s IMPORTANT TO HAVE REFEREES, OR UMPIRES, OR OFFICIALS, THAT REPRESENT the idea that you are on a level playing field that what we have here is something that test; that what I’m testing up against is real, so that if I fall short, I know that I have to work at things, and if I succeed, then I can enjoy the fruits of all that hard work. Referees play that role, and some of the tension is from accuracy, and our desire to get everything right, and some of it is based on this idea that we want to make sure we create an environment of fairness, that we create an environment or a contest that is based on integrity, based on respect, and based on sportsmanship – so when it’s all said and done, I know whether I have areas to improve on, and what those areas are, or
I can enjoy the fruits of that success.” – Monty McCutchen
#2 – Hate Me:
8:13pm – The ball goes up. White team is doing what they want. Shooting 3’s, making layups. The black team is stuck in-team squabbling. They aren’t focused on the game at hand. The see then saws, black now has the upper hand. Passion gets to an nth degree, and now the white team is off balance.
“You have to work harder at not enjoying people.” – Monty McCutchen
The game is even, with the exception of a one-point lead, that has gone back and forth for 22 whole minutes. The reason was blurry, but I do know that Carl and I were putting out conflagrations, all night. At one point we Carl and I had a whistle(s), his primary, my secondary, nonetheless the same call. We are both putting up, being patient, with nth-level vitriol. It’s ok to be upset with calls. What we are not ok is when they start disrespecting me as a man.
One of the players, on the white team, said, “You are f*cking terrible.” Another one, on the white team, seconded that notion, but was nicer about it. “Just because you are nice, doesn’t mean that you are right.” I liked the way that rhymed.
As regulation ended, we weren’t done yet. The score was tied, and Carl and I were both fried. We would put up with this for 2 more extra quarters. We called a few technicals that could have been replaced by many, but they forced our hand. We’ve even had emails go back and forth between members, administration, and the zebras on how we can have a better relationship. Carl and I can attest we have a great relationship. We never come there with an agenda. We flush every negative experience we’ve had that we’ve reffed before. I know for sure we don’t carry any enema from the past.
I even asked the person that called me ‘f*cking terrible,” where he worked. He asked why. I said, I want to see if it’s ok that I yell at him at his job. He said, GO AHEAD.
#3 – Love me Again. LOVE ME AGAIN: the Case of Mac and Cheese
The same team that had all the technical fouls, they won. Did the bad guys win? Did the good guys lose? I’m not sure, referees never put it in that context. One team wore white, the other black, and I wore both.
“F*cking terrible,” comes up to me and tells me I’m a great official, and that I have patience like he’s never seen. He ends up telling me where he works, and Carl even tells me that the Mac N’ Cheese is legit. I can’t wait to have dinner there, with Carl, and start yelling.
“In any human interaction, at least when communication is at stake, tone, context, and grammar matter. Using a curse word as an adjective can be more accepted – no one is expecting to approach this without passion. I do think though that we’ve lost sight of poise as a championship quality as well. And poise in conjunction or in tandem with passion is a very successful recipe. When we find someone doesn’t have passion, it’s hard to compete at the level that they need. We also find that when people compete without poise, it’s hard for them to be focused, and sometimes game decorum for us is a matter of getting the game to be a focused event, so the game itself can be highlighted – the game that drove you to love it, the game that drove me to love it, it’s the game that our players, and our coaches, and our fans love. Let’s keep the focus on the game we love, and we want to do that with equal parts passion, and equal parts poise, and I think we do that with sort of having some ground rules of having respectful conversations on how do we disagree on things. And I think that, yes, all those things are in concert to give a context to a situation and is it important that referees to be open to listening? Yes, we aren’t perfect! If you are incapable of listening and your that rigid, you aren’t very successful as an NBA referee; conversely, if you don’t have the resoluteness and firmness to run the game properly, you’re not successful as a referee, and so what we are looking for is on ALL sides is this idea of a balanced approach to our disagreements so we don’t shut down conversations.”
– Monty McCutchen
That was yesterday. Written today. Until Tomorrow.