An Age Old QUESTION : Younger, Faster Officials May Have Advantages, but Experience and Knowledge of Seniors is Invaluable.

Speed Castillo saw the writing on the wall.

After 45 years as an official, after running miles up and down football fields and basketball courts, Castillo decided it was time to retire his whistle.

Finally.

Then a heart attack punctuated his decision.

Castillo, 69, is the oldest referee (by three months over Larry Arason) in the Orange County Football Officials Assn. He’s four weeks into his 46th and final season, just a few more games before giving way to Father Time.

He won’t be alone for long.

There are about 230 officials in the association, and its president, Bill Hudson, himself 67, estimates 25% are in their 60s.

This means a couple things. One, there’s a lot of experience on county fields Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. Two, it won’t be there forever.

If football’s officiating ranks include a large percentage from the over-60 set, two other fall sports should be so lucky. There are only three volleyball officials in their 60s and fewer than that in water polo, which is testament to the struggles of these sports to find experienced game management among those blowing whistles.

The Stereotype

It’s easy to assume the moment a white-haired official walks into the gym or onto the field that the game is in the hands of someone who’s blind as a bat with creaky legs.

Chances are, you’d be wrong.

“If I come across Speedy Castillo or Larry Arason or Bill Jordan, my first reaction is a sense of relief,” said Mike Milner, El Toro’s football coach. “Those guys are great officials, whether they’re 60 or 20.

“Obviously, those guys have been doing my games for 25 years, but they were good 25 years ago and they’re just as good now.”

Why?

“They have a tendency to let their crew work the game and let the game unfold like it’s going to unfold,” Milner said. “There’s less chance of a controversial call determining the outcome.”

Coaches, especially those who have been around, know who the good officials are. And the bad ones.

Milner has red-lined young and old alike, meaning those officials won’t be allowed to officiate his games. When it comes to officiating, coaches don’t hold grudges against competency.

Castillo still looks in great shape. After undergoing a double angioplasty and receiving two titanium tubes to ensure blood flow to his heart, he says he feels better than he has in years.

But he also has an arthritic hip, which was the real culprit in his decision to retire.

“The body starts to feel a lot of the aches and pains; you don’t recover as fast. I don’t want to cheat the kids by not being able to cover the area I’m responsible for,” said Castillo, who quit officiating boys’ basketball two years ago.

Football is different. Castillo can still anticipate a play and be in position to make a call.

The same holds true for many of these guys.

“Intelligence and experience will get me there faster than the young, inexperienced moves,” said Lee Phelps, a former NFL player with the 49ers, Cowboys and Patriots who is in his 30th season as a football official.

“Kids are getting bigger, stronger and faster, and we’re fatter, slower and older.”

Ah, the referees’ lament.

The Tough Goodbye

But Hudson doesn’t try to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes, either: “Some officials, they need to be retired, but they don’t want to give it up.”

Many of today’s referees have officiated games played by the parents of today’s high school athletes. It’s a fraternity, their fraternity, and it’s not easy to divorce themselves. And the benefits aren’t only cardiovascular.

“It’s therapeutic,” Phelps said. “Being in your 60s, if you’re in good condition and have an attitude of always trying to improve yourself, it’s not detrimental to officiating. It’s not how well you know the rules, but how well you get in position to apply the rules.”

Officials in volleyball and water polo don’t have nearly the physical demands that come with football or basketball.

Eunetta Pickett, 61, is one of only 16 officials in the Orange County Volleyball Assn. who have earned the highest rating, C-1 (on a scale down to C-5). She still officiates college games, too, often with Joan Clamp, 63, a C-2.

Pickett, who has officiated for 43 years, decided last week to retire from umpiring college softball, and high school softball could be history for her too.

“I would like to spend time with my [seven] grandchildren, and my daughter-in-law’s cancer has come back,” Pickett said. “When I got divorced 15 years ago, it was income for me. But more than that, I do it for the love of the sport, and I feel I’m benefiting the sport.”

And really, all the coaches are looking for is consistency: Don’t call a throw against one side and not call it against the other.

“In the last 10 years,” Newport Harbor boys’ and girls’ volleyball Coach Dan Glenn said, “I’ve gotten two red cards, and they’ve both been from very young officials who, I thought, were trying to take the game away from the kids. I’ve never had a major problem with an older official.”

Clamp left basketball 10 years ago and softball six years ago. “I think I quit before I was bad,” she said. “I think I quit when I was still OK. I just didn’t want to run anymore.

“In softball, it was time to quit.”

But Clamp also noticed the grip umpiring had on her colleagues. “Some of the men,” she said, “don’t know when to stop.”

Clamp, who doesn’t need the big games anymore to feed her ego, says that won’t be a problem for her in volleyball.

“I’ll know when I can’t see the lines, the touches on the ball, the net,” Clamp said. “You have to be able to see the play. I can still do that.”

And, as long as the older officials are competent, players and coaches should be glad to have them.

“Good officiating helps the sport, no matter what it is,” said Hank Vellekamp, 63, a former college swimming and water polo coach, and currently the swimming coach at Rosary. He officiated his first water polo match more than 35 years ago, and has been doing it regularly the last 15.

Giving Back

“I think part of the problem, at least in Orange County,” Milner said, “is that a lot of the really outstanding officials who have been consistent year in and year out, guys you want to officiate your games, are getting toward the twilight of their careers, and they’re having trouble finding guys to replace them.”

Milner’s assessment about football officials is probably right.

“Over the next five years, I think there will be a lot of us fading away,” said Hudson, who gives himself another two years before his probable retirement. “This is the best year of recruiting we’ve had. We got 25 new guys this year. I just hope they stick around to do it.”

The dropout rate for officials at the end of the first year is about 20%. “Most stay 20-25 years,” said Hudson, who assigns officials to their games. “Once they get started and are doing varsity games, they stick with it.”

Phelps, 63, officiates high school games on Thursdays and college games on Saturdays.

“What a 60-year-old official has to do is pass his experience on to younger officials,” said Phelps, who is also an instructor for local and college officials. “Give back to the game so that there’s someone to take your place when you’re not around.

“When you reach 60, they [the NCAA] start weeding you out. Naturally, with your ego, you want to continue.”

A high school football referee receives $54 for working a varsity game, and his crew members get $52; the pay for lower-level games is $46 and $44. Clearly, money is not the motivating factor. The camaraderie is worth more than that.

There are also tests. The California Football Officials Assn. administers a 100-question exam over the summer that is essentially an open-book group study test. There is also the annual 50-question, closed-book California Qualifying Exam for young and old alike. And officials are required to attend six local association meetings each season, where the instructor chairman, 67-year-old elementary school principal Pat Backus, often administers further tests.

If the old guard didn’t exist, how might Orange County football be different? “It wouldn’t be a better game,” said Ted Dickerson, 43, who is in his fifth year as an official and figures he’ll still be doing this in 20 years, if his knees hold up.

“You might have younger and faster officials out there, but you wouldn’t have the knowledge and experience. For a young official, there’s just so much to do in 25 seconds that people don’t understand. The old guys bring stability to the game. Everything they do is second nature.”

Water polo is perhaps the most difficult sport to officiate because so much of the action takes place underwater.

“We have a definite shortage,” said Vellekamp, the only sexagenarian who officiates Orange County games. “Water polo has plenty of good players and young, up-and-coming coaches, but we need up-and-coming referees. Lots of them.”

And if they’re in it for the long run, so much the better.