Old Guard Presides at Track, Field Meets : Unpaid But Dedicated Volunteer Officials Are ‘Sticklers for the Rules’

Not even pancreatic cancer could keep Charles (Chip) Armstrong from his beloved track meets.

Armstrong, 66, who died last month, did his job to the end with great enthusiasm.

He had this regular routine: He would tug the right sleeve of his bright red blazer and pull the trigger of his Smith & Wesson .32-caliber revolver after yelling through a white megaphone, often in the draining heat of an all-day track meet.

Then his eyes would follow the muscular athletes who jumped out of the starting blocks and sprinted to the finish line.

After that, he might slip on a navy blue coat and head over to the long-jump pit or the high-jump mat. Or he might help out with the javelin and discus events later in the day.

“It’s just a thrill to watch them run,” Armstrong said while relaxing in his El Segundo home two weeks ago, after working what would be his last track meet. “In every single meet I’ll see something spectacular.”

Local track fans probably have seen Armstrong and the other gray-haired men and women who move about at meets clad in jackets, white shirts, blue ties and gray pants.

They are The Athletic Congress (TAC) officials, and athletes as well as coaches respect them because although they are volunteers, they are to track and field what the U.S. Supreme Court is to the legal system.

“They really pride themselves,” said Debra Larsen, a nationally ranked heptathlete who was a basketball and track All-American at Cal Poly Pomona. “They’re real sticklers for the rules, and I think it’s admirable that they don’t get paid. They must really want to help better the sport.”

Dave Rodda, coach of Nike Coast track club in Long Beach, says TAC officials are not looked down upon because they are volunteers or because a lot of them are elderly.

They are as good as paid officials in other sports, said the former USC jumping coach, who has worked with Olympians Martha Watson, Joni Huntley and Patrice Donnelly.

“They really know what they’re doing,” said Rodda, a women’s track coach for 25 years. “Officiating has become more sophisticated over the years. It’s improved remarkably because they work hard to train the officials. I haven’t seen one case of incompetency.”

That’s because in addition to an initiation exam and an intense clinic, every TAC official is tested and recertified yearly. And most of them have a great deal of experience.

“We have people that are over 80 years old,” said Herman Reininga of Acton. Reininga, an official of 35 years, is the chairman of Southern California officials.

“Some of them are too old to make judgment calls,” he said, “but they do things like record marks or rake the pit. They just don’t drop out or retire because they’re too old. They stick around.”

Armstrong was an example. The former Occidental College football player had held the starter’s pistol and watched athletes bolt from starting blocks since 1952. He was the track coach at L.A. Trade Tech College for 30 years and a high school football official for 23.

Two weeks before his death he said he preferred officiating track. Armstrong would drive up to 500 miles weekly and spend about 25 hours a weekend to do an event. Since battling with cancer, however, he cut down to about 30 meets a year.

“Sure, there are times when my wife and I would like to go somewhere over the weekend,” he said, “but I don’t have the heart to say no to a meet because I know they’re short on officials.”

His wife, Helen, said that despite his poor health, Armstrong couldn’t stay away from the track. She said it was too big a part of his life.

“It’s like a disease,” she said while glancing at him and laughing. “He just loves it.”

So do the other 268 track and field officials in Southern California. Many are former athletes and coaches who cherish the sport. They obviously don’t do it for the money because there isn’t any.

In fact, there’s a $36 fee for those who want to to become officials. Prospectives also have to buy their own uniform and gun and pay their way to all meets, including the big ones such as the USA Nationals and the Olympic trials.

“A lot of people would like to do it,” said Frances Childs, a part-time TAC official from West Los Angeles and a former heptathlete at the University of Pennsylvania, “but when they find out there’s no pay, they get scared and don’t do it.”

Only starters get a minimal fee to reimburse them for ammunition, but even that doesn’t compensate for the time, effort and traveling that a lot of them do. They may get from $40 for a small meet to $100 for a bigger meet. However, most invest from $1,500 to $2,000 in equipment.

“I have three guns,” said veteran starter Walt Smith, “a .22, a .32 special and a .38 special. Plus, I have three sets of ties, coats, shoes and pants that I use only for track meets.”

Smith, 68-year-old dean of student activities at Glendale College, has worn the red coat for 40 years. He was a national champion 400-meter hurdler at USC in the 1940s and a starter at the 1984 Olympics. He says that despite the scarce pay, officiating is well worth it.

“It’s one way to pay back to the sport what I gained from it,” he said. “And you know I gained a lot.”

Mary Backjian, an official of 19 years, says she would never give it up. The satisfaction, she says, is too great.

“It’s been my life,” she said with a sigh. “We’re like one big family. I couldn’t imagine not doing it.”

Reininga, however, plans to quit when he’s about 75. The 68-year-old and his wife, Evelyn, 62, have made officiating a big part of their lives, and he still can’t pinpoint what’s kept him going.

“I really don’t know why I do this,” he said, laughing. “I just know that I really love it. I really just enjoy it.”

Leon Forman, the commissioner of officials in Long Beach and an official of 50 years, thinks he has an explanation. The 75-year-old coached track at Long Beach Poly High for 22 years and says retiring was difficult.

“When you coach,” he said, “it gets in your blood, and this is a great way to keep being involved.”

Pete Clentzos agrees. He was a pole vaulter at USC in the 1930s and says officiating has kept him on the field after retirement.

“It’s the next-best thing to being a competitor,” he said. “You always have the best view when you’re right down there with all of them on the field.”

The 80-year-old from Pasadena became an official in 1935. He was a judge at numerous Olympic Trials in the 1950s and ‘60s, but the highlight of his career was at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles because he officiated the pole vault, the same event he competed in at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics.

“It’s so amazing to watch those guys go skyrocket with those fiberglass poles,” Clentzos said. “When I competed we used bamboo, and we couldn’t do that stuff.”

Thanks to officiating he has a prime view of what seemed impossible when he was a pole vaulter. And like Smith, Clentzos has no intention of giving it up, or at least he doesn’t think he can.

“It’s kind of an obsession, really,” Smith said.