Digger Phelps Likes Idea of Neutral Refs

Digger Phelps rather likes the sound of the unfamiliar whistles he’s been hearing at Notre Dame basketball games this season.

Even better, he likes the unfamiliar faces on the men carrying those whistles up and down the floor at the Athletic and Convocation Center.

Phelps, long a critic of Big Ten officiating, this season simply stopped hiring refs from that league for his home games.

Instead of choosing another conference as exclusive supplier of officials, Phelps and Athletic Director Gene Corrigan spread the work around to basketball referees from several other sources.

“We decided we would try using what we felt would be neutral officials, guys that don’t see our team play very often,” Corrigan said.

Atlantic Coast, Big Eight and Mid-American conference refs all have worked games at Notre Dame this year. It’s more expensive for the university, but makes it easier to get fresh faces, officials with no history of good or bad relations with either Phelps or visiting coaches.

In a sense, Phelps figures, you’re better off with the devil you don’t know than the devil you do.

“Right now, I don’t know who’s coming in here next, and that’s not all bad,” Phelps said. “You don’t have to sit there all week before a game and worry, ‘Oh no, not this guy again.”’

At the same time, Phelps said, a ref who has never been to Notre Dame or comes only rarely cannot be labeled a “homer” -- and has no reason to bend over backwards to avoid giving that impression. A “neutral” image takes a lot of pressure off the referees, he argues.

“It’s a much easier situation for any official if he’s in there as a neutral,” said ACC supervisor of officials Fred Barakat, a former coach at Fairfield University.

“Being an ex-coach, I think when you had your own officials in an inter-conference game, you always felt he’s there to help you. It is a wrong feeling to have, but it’s there from a coaching point of view.”

Phelps would like to see his little experiment blossom into adoption of an idea he has advocated for years: creation of an NCAA office to hire, train, assign and evaluate all college basketball officials nationwide.

For now, though, that seems highly unlikely.

“I have been hopeful for a long time that there would someday be a national officials organization,” said Corrigan, a member of the NCAA basketball committee. “There’s been some talk about it. I don’t know that it will ever happen.”

Many conferences strenuously object to an NCAA takeover of officiating assignments, claiming it would destroy their internal quality control programs, such as the clinics, game evaluations, film seminars, camps and junior varsity feeder group in the ACC.

“Who in the hell would know better than we do about who are good officials and who aren’t?” asked Bob Wortman, supervisor of officials for the MAC. “We have our own league associations where we can work with our people. We are judge, jury and executioner on our own men.”

John Carr, a MAC referee who worked two Notre Dame home games this year, is afraid a national officials bureau would be too political, that the “personal touch” of smaller groups would be lost and assignments would become a question of “who you know.”

He concedes that Phelps’ “fresh face” idea might take some pressure off referees who now see the same coaches over and over again. But he says there is another side to that story.

“The other aspect is that sometimes, after you’ve worked for coaches for a while, they accept you and respect you,” said Carr, a Dayton, Ohio, architect with nine years’ experience in the MAC. “They dont have to try you out to see what you’re made of. They have confidence in you.”

Barakat, in his fourth year as ACC officials supervisor, said a national assignment system is impractical for most games.

“You’re dealing with people who already have jobs,” he said. “I’ve got guys that are professors, guys that are doctors, guys that are lawyers.

“Are you going to send them across the country three times a week? Are we going to send people from Philadelphia to Colorado, and from Colorado to California? Can it really be national?”