As precocious as I was as a kid, I was equally emotional, on everything. If things didn’t go my way on the playground, I would pout. If I didn’t get something that I wanted from my parents, I’d pout – even more. But catch me on a good day, I could wear my heart, aside from my heart, on my sleeve. My emotion was written, not in these words, but all up in my face, defacing what would be a poker one. The same is true if I was happy. I couldn’t contain my excitement, being ecstatic. It ain’t hard to tell. I excel, then travail.
In officiating, the chips are down, so to speak, quite often. Someone is in your face – whether it be a player, a spectator, a fan, or coaches – and constantly. We are vulnerable and culpable for any of their mistakes, our mistakes, and anything in between. Now, I’d imagine being that precocious child at that precocious age, commanding a crowd, managing a game, and co-mingling with disparate egos all the while, officiating. Good. Luck. I wouldn’t get far.
In terms of the law system, officiating is like being a judge in a courtroom: you have the license to litigate like a lawyer, debate and argue, but that isn’t the capacity in which you are supposed to serve. You have a plaintiff and a defense, and they flip-flop constantly, and you are here to adjudicate the rules in which you are given. In soccer, an unsportsmanlike play with malicious intent deserves a red card – that’s within the rules. If a pitcher makes a play to deceive a batter that’s illegal, that’s a balk. Often, players and coaches, and everyone involved alike want to become their own defense attorney. We aren’t trying to lawyer up – we just trying to judge what we say and get the play right.
“Witness and report. Our job is to be in the
position to know what happened.”
– John Ottavino – Episode 10, The Rant
But therein lies something; that conundrum is an art to execute; that art to come to mutual respect with all the parties involved in which you have a temporary fiduciary responsibility – to agree to disagree. Never be too high, nor never be to too low. And hopefully, never more. You don’t want to let them see you sweat, yet you don’t want them to see you as unapproachable, stoic, and obdurate to speak to. That balance, that we speak on, is:
TEMPERAMENT.
“One day your up, next day your down,
as long as you stay the say,
it’ll come back around.” – Jay-Z
OBSERVANCE OF THE RULE
SPORT – FLAG FOOTBALL – December 2018. Emotions were high for everyone involved. It was 2:00pm in the afternoon on a sideways-rainy day on a turf field in Bethpage, NY. The championship game was being played between two 12-year old teams, both being undefeated. They never lost the whole season, combined. I haven’t reffed neither team, either, and either of them was going to take an L.
But here we are: they are getting to know my draconian style of calling everything super-strict in championship games like these, no matter how old the kids be. That’s not to say I’m not approachable. That’s not to say I’m not reasonable. They are disappointed, often, that some of the things they have been getting away with ALL season, isn’t something they can get away within this moment in time. I often tell them that whatever they got away with during the season is good for them. They very well may have gotten to this point with that luck. But that has nothing to do with me, now. They have to adjust. To. Me.
“Right here, right now
There is no other place I want to be
Right here, right now
Watching the world wake up from history.”
– Jesus Jones
I like it that way because it’s hard to transition from calling the rules loose in the beginning, and then tight, when the game is tight at the end. That strategy is a Pyrrhic victory that never, through experience I find, ever, works. I’d rather call it tight from beginning, middle, and end, that way there is no question on what’s illegal today.
A parent found this to be an issue. His son, who was a running back for his team, was scampering to and fro on the field, back and forth, but was using his hands to swipe away the hands of a defender that were ready to grab his flags. This – is illegal. A ten-yard penalty and a loss of down. We call it, Flag Shield.
“We never got called for that!”, the incensed coach pleaded to me, but to no avail. You got called for it now, and now it’s up to you and your running back for it to be the last time I called it.
It wasn’t. And now a parent ready to unleash his brand of histrionics made a spectacle. From nearly 50-yards away, he begins his diatribe laced with profanities, and maniacal mannerisms. I stop the game in the midst of his hate speech, that way his show has the proper audience:
“YO REF YOU RUINING THE GAME. I THOUGHT YOU WAS BAD IN FLAG FOOTBALL! YOU EVER WORSE IN BASKETBALL!”
I’d be lying if I told you that I didn’t feel any heat. I’m a human, not a cyborg; I have feelings just like Kawhi Leonard, and you. That doesn’t mean I’m going to show it. Instead, I went to the head coach of that team. Morosely, I discussed his options, as if I was telling him that they contracted stage 4 Lung Cancer. “You have two choices,” I said. “We can end the game if he wants to stay (said parent) or, he has to leave, and not until he does, can we continue.” Both choices were grave – and I’m here to dig it.
“PETER. I’M GOING TO HAVE TO ASK YOU TO LEAVE,” the coach said embarrassed by the whole tableau.
In a walk of shame, all eyes were on the disgruntled parent. As he walked some 200 yards to his car, he can only imagine what transpired after his line of fire; he missed the 200 yards rushing his son had, en route to winning the game. I never had to raise my voice. I never had to argue back.
INTERPRETATION OF THE RULE:
Officiating is a riddle – a way to interpret rules, live. There’s multiple ways we can solve this – but one is not stooping down low to a parent berating an official with no leg to stand on. Stand behind yours, know you are here for a reason. Be the calm amongst all the drama.
“Six million ways to die; choose one.”
TRANSGRESSION OF THE RULE
June 2019. This is so fresh in my mind, and so raw for others, involved, that I have to leave out so much detail, but I can still get vivid with it, and have the point still come across. This also involves Flag Football as well, in which, I was reffing with someone, who we will name Julian for anonymity’s sake. Julian is an 8-man ref through and through. The reason we must discern this fact because it’s a much different game that I have a stranglehold in, the 5-man game. 5-man Flag Football consists of no contact. 8-man Flag Football is nothing but. Stiff arm, sh*t talking, the closest you can get to football sans the tackling.
I understand his sentiment. If you are a resident from New York, and you consider yourself a New Yorker, you would perceive locale’s outside of NY in a certain way. You’d think everything is laggard, not as fast-paced. 8-man is similar in comparison to 5-man, as you would find the non-contact portion of 5-man, comical. It would color the way you would officiate – even go so far to say that you would let some contact go because of the experience an 8-man ref would come find. That’s all well and good, but not this Sunday. This was a playoff game, and it was a 5-man Flag Football game. Ready, set, go.
The team in question is a brash young group of men, that enjoy Flag Football, and welcome confrontation. They want calls their way, they want it called the right way, whatever that definition may be in their eyes, at that time. I’ve had my run-ins with them, but never to the point where I had an issue. They get heated, but not to the point where I get out of the kitchen. There was some fire today.
“Ignorance versus the innocence
It’s not he temperature for you in Timberlands”
– Rick Ross
That team, which we will call the Fire Starters, have the competitive spirit of champions. But they lose their cool, when it affects their game overall. They have gripes with Julian, who’s supplanted in the backfield. They feel as though he is missing all the contact that is happening.
“Yo ref, what’s up with your partner? Why the f*ck am I paying him for? He’s not making no calls!!!”
This was passive aggressive af. Julian can hear everything, and they are asking me questions that I can’t answer. I couldn’t. I halt the game, and talk to captains. I say, explicitly, that no matter what I will back my partner up. That fell on deaf ears, yet Julian wasn’t doing anybody any favors.
It was the right mix of the team being rubbed the wrong way, and the right amount of ennui that Julian possessed. He became ostensibly peeved.
“If you look at me the wrong way, I’m throwing a penalty.”
I couldn’t stop the way he reffed, and next thing you know, the other team made a gesture, boom – all hell broke loose. I was disappointed in myself, that I worked hard to de-escalate the problem, in which the dream got fed kerosene making it a nightmare. Punches were thrown from all of the Fire Starters, all while Julian was fending for himself, getting pummeled by the second. I tried my best to break it up, but I also tried my best to not lose my teeth. I failed momentarily to restore order, teeth remain.
I was disappointed the way Julian handled the situation. Yes, as officials, we have authority, we have power, but there is a finesse, a grace, an art in being affable-yet-firm. Easy-going-yet-stern. Julian turned into a mobster, and got mobster results.
“Speak the wrong words man and you will get touched
You can put your whole army against my team and
I guarantee you it’ll be your very last time breathing
Your simple words just don’t move me, you’re minor, we’re major
You’re all up in the game and don’t deserve to be a player
Don’t’ make me have to call your name out
Your crew is featherweight, my gunshots will make you levitate.” – Prodigy
Interpretation
Someone asked me what I would have done if I was in the position. Without drinking Honest Tea, I can honestly say that I wouldn’t be in that position. Because Julian was already one foot out of bounds with his attitude, and had an air that breathed that he didn’t want to be there. But he was, and the teams thought that he wasn’t there, and his presence was felt, when he rubbed everyone the wrong way. On top of being present in the moment, had his temperament wasn’t so keyed up, had his emotions didn’t run high, we could have walked out of there unscathed. At least I did.
“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” – Abraham Lincoln
KEYS TO TEMPERAMENT.
Perhaps your personality has been lended to your natural disposition from what you were born with, but as most things, getting good at something takes work. Temperament is no different. Focus on these attributes to gain the proper patience to smooth out your temperament:
THICK SKIN – The game of officiating comes a place of duress – to teams, two competitors wanting the same thing. Not everyone will be satisfied. Find satisfaction in knowing that someone’s going home unhappy, and the only reason they are getting at you, is because you are the only one that can hear your grevience, and affect change. Don’t take personally when someone says something personal. It’s not you that they getting at. They are getting at your identity in that moment – the shirt, the stripes, the official.
EVEN KEELED. – This translates to to real life as well as referee life – Be weary of being to ecstatic when you receive life changing information; never show eternal depression in your face when something catastrophic happens. Stay stoic in your posture when things get chaotic – for you will always be the voice of reason, the only thing standing when the sh*t hits the fan. Stay you.
FLUSH IT – Being thick skinned, and being even keeled, comes from having a short term memory that you can quartinine and move on to the next present. Don’t let things rattle you. Don’t let it fester. In fact, don’t let a prior beef with a player or coach, move on to the next time game. Just move on.
