For Sports Officials, Judgment Unswayed by Call of the Riled

Rolfe Rahl has been moonlighting as a high school sports official since 1958. Every December, he makes the transition from football to basketball. It is a more complicated process than merely changing stripes and throwing the yellow flag in the dirty laundry. Because basketball fans get up close and personal, an official is never more than a few feet from the hecklers, rowdies and occasional crazies.

As a result, a basketball official requires an emotional buffer zone to cope with the barrage of verbal cheap shots that are almost constantly fired his way.

It shouldn’t be surprising that Rahl’s most horrifying moment in his 27 years as an official occurred in basketball. At the buzzer during a playoff game, a player for the home team scored what would have been the winning basket, but Rahl called him for traveling.

Three fans immediately ran on the court, one of them carrying a baseball bat. Luckily, the security guards were able to get Rahl out of the gym before batting practice began, but he needed a police escort from the arena to the county line.

For refereeing the game, Rahl was paid $28. He didn’t charge extra for the thrills and chills.

Such is the life and hard times of a sports official. Although the financial rewards are greater in the big leagues, the abuse, disrespect and potential hazards are similar on any level in every sport.

Umpires get dirt kicked on their shoes. Referees are called zebras and are sometimes targets for snowballs and whisky bottles. Nobody puts officials on bubble-gum cards, and the only time anyone remembers them is when they blow a call.

Officiating isn’t a job you take if you want to be loved, admired or noticed.

“There are three reasons a guy gets into officiating,” said Dale Williams, who assigns officials for the Los Angeles Unified School District. “The first reason is that you enjoy sports. The second is that you want to keep active. The third is the extra money you make. But we hope you’re not in it strictly for the money, because you’re sure not going to get rich.”

Los Angeles high school officials are paid an average of $30 a game. Soccer referees get the least, 27. Varsity football referees get the most $37. The money adds up, but they have to hustle. It is possible to work as many as six high school football games a week, and virtually as many basketball games as they can handle. Rahl once refereed seven football games in a day, including a Pop Warner doubleheader in the morning. When Williams was officiating both high school and college basketball games, he would be busy every afternoon and every night except Sunday night.

If a high school official hustles and also picks up an occasional college or municipal league game (at $12 an hour), he could make as much as $7,000 a year. But there’s a flip side to officiating’s financial benefits. If an official is working 200 or 300 games a year, which is not rare, he is being exposed to a lot of nastiness directed at him and his ancestors, usually his mother.

“When you work every night of the week,” Rahl said, “there’s a cumulative effect on you physically and mentally. On Monday, if someone in the stands yells at you, you can laugh it off. But by Friday, no matter what kind of shape you’re in, your body is sore, you’re worn out mentally, and it’s tough to ignore the fans who do the yelling.

“Being an official has nothing to do with being smart or sharp. It takes a certain temperament. Some guys are militaristic, some guys joke, others are common-sense guys. I can always tell when a young official is not going to make it. He takes everything real personal. And those type of guys get out of the business. If you take it all personally, you’ll be crazy in a year,” Rahl said.

An official may manage to keep most of his marbles, but there’s a good chance he may lose his wife. Being away from home seven nights a week can put a fatal strain on a marriage.

“It’s hard on your family life,” Williams said. “I went though a divorce when I was working high school and college ball. The fact that I was hardly ever home had a lot to do with it.” Since 1980, Williams has been able to limit his officiating to weekends in the National Football League, working as an umpire with Ben Dreith’s crew. He also was able to get married again.

“There’s a high divorce rate among officials,” said Bill White, an official and also the principal at Canyon High. “It’s very difficult if you have a wife who does not like sports and is not supportive of her husband’s activities. I’ve been lucky. I’m going to celebrate my 26th anniversary. My wife loves sports. We manage to turn officiating into a social event after a game and go out with the other officials. But for other wives, it’s not like that. They feel left out and put out.”

Officials learn to insulate themselves from the boos and catcalls from the fans, the snarls from the coaches, the complaints from players and parents. But they must also deal with the knowledge that they are always being evaluated and critiqued. Almost every decision is subject to a second guess. Almost every call is open to interpretation. Other jobs have elements of stress and pressure, but not many people work in a place where their every move is put on film. For officials, especially in football, Big Brother is always watching.

“Coaches only send in films if they think there’s been an error, but at the end of a season, they do have an opportunity to send in a card listing the official as either preferred or not preferred,” said Williams, who has 49 schools under his jurisdiction. “I look for patterns. If a guy gets one not preferred, well, you can’t please all the people all the time. But if he gets four or five, that’s different.”

Officials in each sport also are rated by their respective association. In football, for instance, there’s a San Fernando Valley unit of the Southern California Football Officials Association. Members attend clinics about six times a year and are rated as “playoff, varsity, lower division or girls-only,” said Bob McQueen, Williams’ counterpart for 90 Southern Section schools in the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys. In the Los Angeles area, about 1,200 officials are used in football, the same number in basketball.

“You try to know every official in a given sport,” McQueen said. “You try to put the best officials on the most demanding games.” In addition to putting a lot of weight on coaches’ evaluations, McQueen said, “I go to association meetings and talk to instructors and board members. Word gets around real quick. If an official is good, he’ll be seen and recognized, but if he’s bad, the word gets around a lot faster. Usually, if I don’t hear about someone, it means he’s doing an adequate job.”

Twenty years ago, the majority of officials were teachers or coaches or administrators. But teachers, both McQueen and Williams say, have been given additional responsibilities after school and are no longer as available for afternoon games as they once were. Most officials now, Williams said, are either Postal workers or salesmen who have flexible hours. In 1978, City schools did a survey. Out of 371 men who officiated City football games, only 48 were involved in education.

“Teachers used to be recruited to go into officiating,” McQueen said. “Now the principal says, ‘You stay here until 2:45.’ That creates a problem because a lot of basketball games start at 3 or 3:30.”

A lot more has changed in high school sports over the last 20 years. There used to be fewer sports, fewer B-team games and virtually no interscholastic competition for girls. But along came volleyball, water polo, gymnastics and soccer--and Title IX, which required schools to place as much emphasize on girls as they had on boys.

“There used to be an excess of officials,” McQueen said. “Guys used to beat down the door to get a game. Now we have the same amount of guys, but instead of 1,000 assignments in the course of a basketball season, we have 1,700. The result is a shortage of officials. It’s chaos in basketball. On a Friday night, I have to assign 150 guys. Schools have boys teams and girls teams for everything--freshmen, sophomore, JV, varsity.”

The quality of officiating, McQueen says, often suffers, especially in baseball. “It’s almost a foregone conclusion that we can’t cover all the baseball games on Tuesdays and Fridays,” he said. “So you just give them what you can. Sometimes, that means just sending out a body. I don’t like to, but sometimes I have no choice.”

It’s difficult to get qualified officials in gymnastics, Williams said, but baseball is the hardest sport to staff. All the games are played in the afternoon, which eliminates a lot of officials. Because of the aluminum bat, he said, the games have become longer. As a result, a lot of umpires prefer officiating softball games, which are usually half as long as baseball games and pay about the same.

Because of the bull market, officials, especially good ones, are becoming picky. McQueen thinks “they’re not hungry anymore. If they don’t like the game you’ve given them, they’ll go out and horse trade for a better one.” Sometimes, this means playing the City against the Southern Section or the high schools against the colleges.

“Nobody’s ever pleased with his assignment,” McQueen said. “I gave a guy 21 varsity basketball games out of 29 assignments, but he canceled them all because he didn’t feel the schedule was indicative of his officiating skills.”

Most high school officials work at least two sports and it is not unusual to find three- and even four-sport officials. Unlike major college officials, who are forced to retire at age 50 in basketball and 55 in football, high school officials can stay active as long as they’re able to wheeze up and down the court. The oldest high school official in the state is believed to be 76-year-old Irv Delman, who lives in the Bay Area. According to White, there are a couple of septuagenarians in the L. A. area. But most officials start slowing down in their late 40s, early 50s.

Like a lot of officials who are good at their jobs, White advanced from high school to college to pro games. In 1968, he was 32 and working a heavy major college schedule. The money was great--the Pac-10 Conference paid him $300 a game for football and $275 for basketball. A couple of seasons ago, he officiated in the United States Football League for $300 a game. But he no longer works football games and limits his basketball officiating to local colleges. The airplane flights, the long trips and the pressure all took their toll.

“There comes a time in the life of every official when he becomes old and exhausted,” White said. “I’ve been there and back.”

For a young high school official, just moving up from junior varsity to varsity is a major rush. In the City, Dale Williams said he “never gives a first-year official a varsity game.” But, in all probability, the first time a young official pulls on his striped shirt and flips that coin at midfield, he’s dreaming about the NFL. The money is a bonanza--from $450 to $1,300 a game--but for many, the prestige is reward enough.

Only a handful ever get to the big time.

“When you start out, everyone dreams about the NFL,” said Larry Obar, a 40-year-old, three-sport official. “I know I did, but now I have to be realistic--my time is up to get into the NFL. But I still have a chance at major college ball.”

The scoreboard clock ticks off the years. Tick . You’re 22 and working college intramurals. Tick . You’re 30 and doing high school varsity games. Tick. Suddenly, it’s the two-minute warning. You’re 45 and haven’t even moved up to the major college level. Goodbye, Monday Night Football. Farewell, Super Bowl. But when the dreams disappear, you hold on tighter to what you have.

The memories stay with Obar. Regardless of his future progress up officiating’s ladder, he’s been a good, respected official. In 16 years, he has worked the Big Five football championship twice, the City title baseball game eight times. He was behind the plate when Bret Saberhagen pitched a no-hitter to lead Cleveland to a City championship at Dodger Stadium.

“I’ve had a fulfilling career,” he said.

Rahl is 53 and expects to continue blowing his whistle “indefinitely, or at least until I’m not able to do the job.” He teaches driver education and coaches B-team sports at Taft High. At 26, he began officiating “to supplement my teacher’s income and help raise my family.” He handles only high school football and basketball and has “never missed a game or been late to one.” About 15 years ago, he made a decision not to try major college officiating because it would have forced him to give up coaching.

“The toughest part of officiating is trying to stay interested in a very poor game on a very hot day,” said Rahl, a referee in football. “I did a B-team game in October on a lousy field with the weather 100 degrees and smoggy. It was 40-0 at halftime. When that happens, it’s hard not to think about your sore feet and the dust on your face and the sun in your eyes. You have to work very hard to maintain your interest. But we were lucky. The varsity coach came over and told us to speed up the clock in the second half, and the teams ran a hurry-up offense.”

Officials who work football and basketball disagree over which sport is the most physical for them. Rahl feels it’s football

“Basketball is the easiest of the two,” he said. “The floor is flat and it gives. In football, the grass can be too thick in one area and hard to run on, or there can be holes in the field. I know I’m more tired after a doubleheader in football than a doubleheader in basketball.”

Almost all officials concur that, emotionally, basketball is more draining than football.

“In football,” White said, “you only deal with coaches and players. You’ve got a hat on and you’re 50 yards away from the fans. When you throw a flag, they don’t know if you’re right or wrong. In basketball, everybody is a referee. They boo your calls all the time.”

Or worse, after the game, they get in their car and chase you down a Pasadena freeway on-ramp.

That happened to White a few years ago after he refereed a college game. When he stopped, his pursuers bumped his car. He got out. They couldn’t help noticing his crazed expression. Not wishing to go one-on-one, they threw it in reverse and took off.

When an official isn’t worrying about fans tearing him apart, he realizes that there’s always the possibility his body will crumble on its own. In basketball, an official must run as far, and often as fast, as players who are usually half his age. In football, an official, particularly if he’s around the line of scrimmage, can get too close to the action and find himself in need of an injury timeout.

Like athletes, officials frequently must play with pain.

“I worked a year with a torn Achilles’ tendon,” Rahl said. “I broke a bone in my foot and had the usual assortment of sprains and strains. In football, I get kicked all the time. But at least in football you have other officials who can cover for you. In basketball, you can’t let your partner do it by himself, so you have to continue.”

For officials who work both football and basketball, the switch from one sport to the other doesn’t begin with the first slam dunk. By the time Rahl officiated his last football game--in the second round of the playoffs--he had already attended two basketball association meetings and worked a scrimmage. On the first weekend of the basketball season, two doubleheaders put him back in the groove.

“It doesn’t take long to get your eye back,” he said. “At this stage of the season, I’m starting where the kids are. Hopefully, we’ll reach our peak at the same time.”

But no matter how much he prepares himself for those loud, overbearing basketball fans, they always manage to surprise him.

He still remembers a guy in the stands during a big game a few years ago at a parochial school. Not even a minute had elapsed, Rahl said, “when the other ref and I heard the most obscene, vilest words coming at us from the stands.

“The next time down the court, we kept one eye on the action and the other on the stands and saw the guy. He was a well-dressed, gray-haired man with a red face.”

Rahl and his partner called a timeout and had a talk with the home team’s coach. They ordered the coach to silence the heckler, but, Rahl said, “he told us, ‘I can’t do anything. He’s a father of one of the players.’ So we told him, ‘The next time he opens his mouth, we’re going to call a technical foul on you.’ ”

The game resumed and the stands were quiet. Rahl glanced over to see what had happened.

“The guy was still there,” he said, “but now there was a priest sitting on either side of him.”