Blowing Whistle on Retirement : Septuagenarians Stay Active as Official Administrators

Recognized as pioneers and revered as father figures to generations of sports officials, Cal Houston and Burt Davis keep each other humble with humor.

“Where’s your cane, Burt?” Houston asks as Davis spryly enters a Ventura restaurant.

“You get awfully cocky when you’re younger than me,” Davis replies, noting that he turned 76 in December, leaving Houston behind at 75.

No grumpy old men, these two.

As inseparable as Bert and Ernie, Burt and Cal are frisky zebras in winter, deans of the Channel Coast Officials Assn., an organization of more than 500 that provides high school and college officials from Calabasas to Santa Barbara.

Cal, who began officiating in 1944 after moving from Alhambra to Ojai, has assigned officials to every event since he founded the CCOA in 1950. He is sounding board, answer man, PR flack and liaison. Got a problem? Call Cal.

His phone rings when a coach complains about an official--and when an official complains about a coach. He relays the concerns of schools to officials--and those of officials to the schools.

Burt, a lifelong Fillmore resident, began officiating in 1935 and has served as secretary-treasurer of the CCOA since 1960.

He is the bean counter, negotiating fees for officials and keeping the CCOA in the black.

In their heyday as officials, the pair called a long string of Southern Section championship football games at the Coliseum and numerous NCAA Division I and Division II basketball games.

Burt, sporting a perpetual grin, ran the crew. Cal, quick with a one-liner, kept the calm.

As accomplished as they were with a whistle, their nurturing of other officials--several of whom now call Pacific 10 Conference games--is their greatest legacy.

“Cal and Burt are the Channel Coast Officials Assn.,” says Bob Hird, a Royal High administrator and a CCOA official for 30 years. “They nursed this thing, coddled it, and made it one of the most professional officials’ associations around. It is almost like it’s one of their children.”

Of which there is no shortage. Cal and Dorothy, his wife of 53 years, have four children, 10 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. Burt and Phyllis, his wife of 52 years, have three children and 10 grandchildren.

“We’re on the move a bit keeping up with the family,” Cal says.

He is quick to add that CCOA officials indeed are a second family.

About a dozen of them--including retired officials such as Paul Morgan, 83--spend a guys-only week every year at Cal’s cabin near the Snake River in Idaho.

Cal: “We have a roaring time, don’t we Burt?”

Burt: “Gawd.”

Weeks spent in the woods build camaraderie. And to officials that is as important as learning the rule book, voices of experience attest.

“No one outside officiating really understands officials,” Burt says.

For years, postgame gathering places have included the Elephant Bar in Ventura and Harry’s Plaza Cafe in Santa Barbara. There officials sit, four and five tables full, reviewing the games.

They put away their whistles and pull out the needle, joking and razzing like a group of fraternity brothers. For 40 years, socializing with Cal, Burt and the rest is a sure-fire way of earning the black and white stripes officials wear.

“Officials, like policemen, get a feeling of ‘It’s us against the world,’ ” says Bob Barrett, a CCOA official from 1969-92. “Most people, even people in athletics, do not have an understanding of our job.”

The CCOA’s reputation for developing top officials grew during the ‘50s and ‘60s primarily because there was little of the infighting and back-stabbing typical in many associations. J. Kenneth Fagans, the Southern Section commissioner from 1954-75, repeatedly called on the crack CCOA crew led by Burt and Cal to officiate large-school championship football games.

“Other associations were griping, but Kenny said, ‘Until they screw up, I want them,’ ” Burt says in an approving tone.

Fagans, who lives near San Diego with his wife, Norma, is one of several men Burt and Cal admired as young officials. Another they speak of fondly is Red Kennedy, now deceased, who assigned officials before Cal.

Kennedy was football and basketball coach at Fillmore High in the 1930s. These guys go way back.

Now it is Cal and Burt whose exploits call to mind a bygone era.

They officiated the 1956 football final between Anaheim and Downey that drew 41,383 at the Coliseum, still the largest crowd to see a Southern Section game.

In 1966, Mater Dei and Anaheim played before 33,374 at Anaheim Stadium with Burt and Cal making the calls. Ditto for the 1970 final between Lakewood and Pat Haden-led Bishop Amat at the Coliseum.

The chosen crew wouldn’t think of leaving their brethren behind, however.

It became a ritual: Barrett would fill his motor home with CCOA officials who would attend the game and join the crew for the all-important socializing afterward, invariably at Lawry’s.

“We’d be getting near the end of the game and Burt would sidle over to me and say, ‘Two minutes till beer time,’ ” says Tony Musial, 69, a member of several of the crews that worked the finals.

A light touch worked well with players too. Etiquette was tightly controlled by Burt, invariably the referee and crew chief. If a player danced exuberantly after making a tackle, Burt would say, “I thought the prom was Saturday night.”

Cal, always the umpire, occasionally heard complaints by a defensive lineman who claimed he was being held. Cal’s response: “Maybe he likes you.”

The pair also had a knack for disarming confrontational coaches with a smile or a quip.

“People didn’t stay mad at Burt very long,” Hird says, adding that Davis was the best official he has seen. “He had this silly grin that made you want to hug him.”

Burt’s smile still radiates through stadiums and gyms, although now he sits in the bleachers. He looks for all the world like a kid at his first ballgame.

“I still call ‘em from up in the stands,” he says with a twinkle.

Side by side, Cal and Burt view games and rate officials, claiming to see nearly every CCOA member each season.

Burt: “We know when we see an official who can work.”

Cal: “We have some dandy officials, don’t we, Burt?”

The unyielding support officials receive from their ageless administrators begets undying devotion.

“There are hundreds of men who see them as father figures in their lives,” says Rick Scott, a basketball official. Scott is also football coach at Buena High, and he occasionally hears from Cal after a game.

“I’ve been scolded by him more than once,” Scott says. “Cal will call and say, ‘Rick, I saw you throw your clipboard last night.’

“You certainly don’t argue back to him. He and Burt see sport in its purist sense.”

And they spread the word unabashedly. Dial Cal’s number--it’s listed--and he’ll pick up the line.

“He’s on that phone from early morning on,” says retired official and longtime Cal pal Fred Lloyd. “That phone rings constantly.

“He doesn’t have one of those goofy answering things, either. He likes to talk fresh.”

Don’t believe Cal is too old to appreciate the technology of the ‘90s. He has call waiting (“best thing that every happened,” he says) and a fax machine.

His wariness of answering machines is well thought out.

“I don’t believe in them,” he says. “It would take me an hour a day to call all these people back. I’d be making a long-distance call to tell a school secretary how much to pay an official when all she has to do is look it up in the book.

“You wouldn’t believe the stupid calls I get.”

How long before he kicks up his feet and forwards those calls to a new assigner?

Barrett asked Cal that question a few years ago at a barbecue.

“Well, I’ll tell you, Bob,” Cal replied. “See that old lady? You go talk to her for a while. That’ll tell you how long I’ll be around.”

Barrett walked over and discovered the woman was 90 years old. He also learned she was Cal’s mother. “She was spry, looked you in the eye; she was a wiseacre just like Cal,” Barrett recalls.

The consensus among officials is that no one person will step into either Cal or Burt’s shoes. There will be an assigner and secretary-treasurer for each sport.

But that day will not come anytime soon.

“If it wasn’t for this, we’d be a couple of old men looking for something on TV every night,” Cal says. “We’re so lucky. This is what life is all about: Youth. We don’t want to get old yet.”