NOBLE CALLING : Football Officials Don’t Make Much Money, but There Are Great Dividends

The Clubhouse, as they call it, is a red building in Mission Valley.

It is a sanctuary on Friday nights during the fall, a place where men go to tell stories and release tensions.

It is Boll Weevil.

Hey. We all need a place to unwind after work, and after you and your colleagues have been scattered around county high school football fields, dressed like zebras and running like cheetahs, Boll Weevil is as good as any.

So when the final flag is thrown and the last whistle blown on Friday nights, members of the San Diego County Football Officials Assn. (SDCFOA) gravitate there. They eat their burgers, slurp their beers and discuss business.

There are about 175 members in the SDCFOA. They range from school teachers to lawyers to firemen. Almost all have played football, and they have quite a few other things in common.

“You have to have a working knowledge of the game to be a referee, an ability to get along with people and yet not have them run over you, and you have to be in good physical condition,” said Benny Dyas, 55, a 20-year member.

You also have to have a lot of guts. That helps you deal with things such as out-of-control coaches and . . .

MISSING FINGERS

Jim Sibbet, 51, doesn’t remember the year. He can’t even remember one of the teams. But he can still see himself standing out there on the football field looking down at the fingertip lying by his feet.

It was at Vista High School, and Palomar College was playing somebody. Sibbet was the umpire, a play ended, and suddenly a kid was grabbing his hand and screaming.

“Blood was pouring out of his finger, so I told the kid to hold it and run to the sideline,” Sibbet said. “Then I looked on the ground, and there’s the tip of this guy’s finger. A great big tackle was standing there, and he said, ‘Oh, that’s gross.’

“I told the tackle to grab it and run it to the sidelines and maybe they’d be able to save it. He did, but by the time he got there he realized what he had in his hand, and he screamed and passed out.”

So next thing Sibbet knows, he’s standing on the field watching attendants on the sidelines work on two people: the kid who lost part of his finger and the delivery kid, passed out, with his hand clenched around the finger.

“Just another day at the football field,” Sibbet said.

You have to prepare for those days on the field, and it’s not easy. The SDCFOA holds weekly classes on rules beginning in July. George Schutte is the instructional chairman and has been referred to as the “Godfather” of the organization.

Schutte, 65, is an instructor at San Diego City College. Roughly half of the members in the SDCFOA are teachers; it’s easier for them to work as officials because their work day is finished early, and they can make those afternoon freshman and junior varsity games on Thursdays and Fridays. The SDCFOA supplies officials for freshman, junior varsity and varsity games as well as Pop Warner and community college games on Saturdays, and most officials work three or four games a week. So you can imagine you have to scramble when . . .

YOUR REAL JOB INTERFERES

The name has been changed to protect the guilty, but a certain lawyer in the SDCFOA--we’ll call him Arnold Becker--has been known to ask the judge for a recess in a trial so he can officiate an afternoon football game.

“He’ll tell the judge he needs a continuance to gather more evidence,” one member cackled.

He isn’t the only one who has to juggle his schedule. Most are able to do what Al Thomasson does. He works as a fireman and takes vacation time or holidays on the weekends when his schedule conflicts. The teachers in the SDCFOA are usually done for the day by game time.

Schutte runs the rules meetings. This year, those began on July 5 and continued every Wednesday night through the end of September. The group then will meet every other Wednesday until the end of October.

There is no national or state governing body for officials in California, so the SDFCOA governs itself. Members take exams, both written and oral. They evaluate each other on the field. Observers at games evaluate them, as do coaches.

Schutte, though, would like to see more coaches be more critical. After this season’s first week, Schutte opened a couple of evaluations in a row, and both were positive.

“I hope the rest of your games are as well officiated as this one,” wrote Bonita Vista Coach Jim Wilson, whose team tied Mt. Miguel, 26-26. “It was excellent.”

Grossmont Coach Judd Hulbert, whose team beat Calexico, 48-0, wrote: “Excellent crew. Knowledgeable, polite, professional and great control of game.”

Said Schutte: “It’s lonely as hell being an official. We love strokes (compliments), but I’d rather be working with the critical stuff.”

It’s the honest, constructive criticism that keeps officials on their toes. And that helps them to deal with things like . . .

RUNAWAY CENTERS WITH THE BALL IN FUNNY PLACES

It was a junior varsity game, maybe 10 years ago, when the ball was snapped, and Schutte realized immediately something was wrong.

The ball was stuck between the center’s legs.

The center began moving downfield to block, and the ball stayed put. The quarterback, meanwhile, was following the center, chasing after him and yelling for him to come back.

It didn’t take Schutte long to make the call.

“Of course, it was an illegal snap,” he said. “Cripe. You get all kinds of crazy ones.”

Schutte said you should get one thing straight. Football officials aren’t in it for the money.

“You’re not going to officiate for the money,” he said. “Our primary function is to provide a professional service. We try to make it a social thing as well.”

Most say they officiate because it is a way of staying on the field. For officiating a high school junior varsity game, the referee is paid $35, the other officials $34. For officiating a high school varsity game, the referee is paid $45.75, the other officials $43.

For this, they get to run around the field all night and listen to people disagreeing with their calls. Then, they go meet others at Boll Weevil. And there’s always the chance of getting . . .

ARRESTED

One night a few years ago, Sibbet had picked up the other officials in his crew in Mission Valley. Then he drove to Oceanside to officiate a junior varsity game, left there to officiate a varsity game in Carlsbad, then went to Del Mar with his crew for pizza and beer. Finally, he dropped them off again.

So you can understand that by the time he was heading for home in La Mesa on I-8, he was tired. It was one of those drives where he was thinking about everything but driving. The California Highway Patrolman behind him thought he was drunk.

Sibbet was asked to get out of his car to take a sobriety test. It was late, it was cold, and he had been accidentally kicked in the ankle by one of the players earlier.

“So I stumbled out of the car,” Sibbet said. “Strike one, right? The officer asked if I had been drinking, and it just rolled out of my mouth: ‘I just had a couple of beers.’ How many times have they heard that, right?”

All went well through the motor skills, but by the time he took the oral part, Sibbet says, he was spooked. He couldn’t remember the alphabet.

“Click” went the handcuffs and “slam” went the squad car door. Sibbet was whisked to the police station and underwent some tests. Those proved he was extremely . . . sober.

“There was only one other problem,” Sibbet said. “By that time, my wife was on her way down to get me. Now, I’m so sober I could preach a sermon. She was really understanding.”

So were the other officials. They understood a good laugh when they saw it. This one, though, stayed in the officials’ fraternity. Sibbet never heard about it from a coach.

Most of the members of the SDCFOA work Pop Warner, high school and community college games. A handful work local major college games: Two work as Western Athletic Conference officials, two work for the Far West Conference, and two work for the Pac-10.

Why are people interested in becoming referees?

“There are three or four answers to that,” Schutte said. “Most of our guys have been in athletics and want to repay a debt they feel. Also, it’s a night out--it beats sitting at home and watching television. And, it’s an exercise vehicle by which you can stay close to the game and maybe relive it. Some guys do it for the money, but if that’s your reason, you might as well forget it. People get into it because it’s a challenge.”

It’s especially challenging when you’re working a game while . . .

YOUR DAUGHTER IS UP FOR HOMECOMING QUEEN

This happened to Dyas seven or eight years ago. His daughter, Michelle, was a nominee for queen at Mt. Carmel. Dyas was thinking of taking the night off, but former assignment secretary for the SDCFOA, the late Bob Ganger, was good enough to assign Dyas to the Torrey Pines-Mt. Carmel game.

Dyas worked the first half of the game, then sprinted off the field and into a nearby electrical storage area. Doing his best Superman imitation, he changed into a three-piece suit and made it back in time to escort Michelle at halftime.

Then he changed back into his officials’ suit and worked the second half.

All went well: Michelle won, and Mt. Carmel lost, so nobody could accuse Dyas of slanting his calls toward Mt. Carmel.

Dyas is retiring as a manager of salary stations at Shell Oil Co. at the end of this month but plans to continue officiating.

The SDCFOA has a banquet at the end of each season. Local merchants contribute gifts that are presented, things such as sweat socks and weekends in a motel.

The Skull Award, a bronzed human skull presented in jest, goes to the official who makes the biggest mistake during the season.

One official won for popping the football with a yard marker. The chain gang came on to measure for a first down, and the official impaled the ball.

Another won for his deft way with dealing with an injury. The official stepped backward to call time out and stepped back onto the kid who was laid out on the field.

“Now the kid was really hurt,” said Sibbet, the banquet chairman each year.

Said Bill Tellous, a 28-year veteran of the SDCFOA: “I’ve seen an official get hit on the head by a punt and get knocked unconscious, and I’ve seen an official with a metal brace on his leg be exhausted at the end of a game in a lightning storm because he kept running to avoid the lightning.”

But not all of the itinerary at the banquet is light-hearted. This year, the SDCFOA will honor 30 members who have 20 or more years of continuous service. The patriarch is Frank Rustich, who is in his 50th year. Rustich, in his 70s, refereed the Muhammed Ali-Ken Norton heavyweight fight in San Diego in the 1970s and has refereed in both the NFL and AFL. He is still officiating high school games.

You make the call: That’s a lot of hours logged at Boll Weevil.

But to most of the officials, it doesn’t get old. No, no matter how many years you’ve been an official, you look forward to . . .

NEW YEAR, SAME STUFF

No matter how experienced you are. Take Benny Dyas and last Friday.

Dyas sat in the coaches’ office at Grossmont High School last Friday talking with several coaches for 30 minutes. Finally, half-dressed, he began filling out the certificates to make sure the officials got paid. The coaches thought they had requested a four-man officiating crew, but Dyas said the contract was for a five-man crew.

Finally, Dyas realized the problem. He was officiating the San Dieguito-Patrick Henry game at Patrick Henry. He had driven to Grossmont High School.

He scrambled to his car and made it to Patrick Henry with about five minutes to spare.