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LaVar Ball Incident Affects All Sports Officials

August 3, 2017, 8:22 AM ET [6 Comments]
Paul Stewart
Blogger •Former NHL Referee • RSSArchiveCONTACT
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Officials in all sports face similar challenges. That lesson was drummed home early in my life, because my grandfather was both an NHL referee and Major League Baseball umpire while my father also officiated multiple team sports at the high school and collegiate levels.

Standing in solidarity with one's officiating colleagues is universal, regardless of which sport is involved. For this reason, I am using today's blog space to applaud the National Basketball Referees Association for severing its relationship with Adidas for the company's disgraceful kowtowing to LaVar Ball at the company-sponsored Adidas Summer Championship tournament.

Here's what happened. Ball, a serial attention-seeker, had a meltdown when a female referee had the nerve to issue him a technical foul for his non-stop sideline antics.

Under threat of pulling his high-profile team out of the event, including his much-hyped 15-year-old UCLA recruit son LaMelo Ball, the elder Ball demanded that Adidas pull the referee out of the game and replace her with a man. The tournament sponsor gave in to his threats. The game was ultimately stopped with five minutes left after Ball drew additional technical fouls. Afterwards, Ball made a rambling statement to the TV cameras about how even the best female officials are not suited to referee games involving men.

As a big proponent of equality in officiating -- I care only about refs' ability and don't give a damn about their gender, nationality, sexual orientation, etc. -- I found Ball's comments to be revealing of his limited mentality and tendency to blame others for his actions. No wonder he is such a mediocre "coach" for his players. Hopefully, his sons find better mentors.

All coaches want to win. What separates a great coach -- in basketball, the likes of John Wooden, Red Auerbach, Jack Ramsay, K.C. Jones, Doc Rivers, Phil Jackson and Larry Brown would fit this description -- from a lesser one is the understand of what it takes to PREPARE players to win. Part of doing that is knowing how to deal with adversity. Lesser coaches are reactionary. Great coaches think strategically as well as tactically.

At any rate, I am glad the National Basketball Referees Association told Adidas to pound sand. The company cast its lot with LaVar Ball instead of the integrity of the game, and got much-deserved public relations egg on its face.

As an official, I always tried to keep coaches in the game, although I would sometimes remind them that I knew where I would be at the end of the game but I wasn't sure where they would be.

One time, when Mike Keenan was really pushing the envelope with me, I said to him in front of his players, "I know what you're trying to do, Mike. You've got a dinner reservation on the other side of town and you want to get out of here early. Too bad. If I've got to be here with Hully [Brett Hull] all night, so do you."

The Blues players laughed, especially Hull. Keenan shut up, at least temporarily.

Another anecdote: Pat Quinn, who was coaching the Toronto Maple Leafs at the time had thrown a piece of gum at Scott Driscoll in a Wednesday game in Toronto and got fined by the NHL. I watched it on TV in Montreal on my way to Buffalo for a Friday night fame followed by a game in Toronto on Saturday.

I worked the first game after Quinn got fined. I recall that I stayed at the Eton Center Marriott, from where I could walk to the rink. On the way, I stopped at Mac's convenience store and bought six packs of various flavors of gum.

After the anthem, Quinn waited til it was done to walk out of the dressing room and up the walkway from the Leafs' room. Rick Ley was his assistant.

I skated over and put the gum on the bench. Rick asked what was I doing.

"Give 'em to Pat," I said. "He'll have plenty of ammo for me during the game."

Just before I dropped the puck for the opening faceoff, I turned toward the Maple Leafs bench. Pat was doubled over, laughing. I nodded, he winked and the game was underway.

Another time, I teased old friend Roger Neilson about the famous incident where he placed a white towel atop a hockey stick blade and waved it "in surrender" to the officials. Was it a bit of showboating? Yeah, it was. But Roger would do such things from time to time, and wasn't offended if he was called out for it later. I told Roger if he wanted to surrender again, I'd get him some good tape so that the towel wouldn't slip off the stick blade. He took the joke in much better humor than Ron Wilson.

Then there was the "Wizard of Walpole", Mike Milbury. By the time he was coaching the Maine Mariners, I had been promoted to being a full-time NHL referee. However, officiating director John McCauley asked if I would take on an AHL assignment after Mike had tossed a bunch of sticks onto the ice in of his red-faced tantrums in a recent game. My belief was (and still is) that official or players should always go wherever they are asked to go, so I agreed.

"What are you doing here?" Milbury said before the game.

"I'm just here to make sure the sticks stay on the bench tonight," I said.

These three stories all share one thing in common: There is a psychology to dealing with coaches. During my officiating career, I never once had a coach take things as far as Mr. Ball routinely does on the sidelines. If it did happen, I'd have had no compunction about stopping the game and saying, "Come on, everyone, let's pay attention to him since he's more important than the game. Let's watch the show."

In a management role, I have had the experience of removing an official mid-game. That was solely my decision. The guy couldn't keep up with the pace of play and was so out of shape that he could hardly bend down to pick up the puck. Something had to be done, although the decision was not one I enjoyed having to make.

To me, this wasn't about asserting my power or humiliating someone. It was strictly a safety issue. Keeping the game as safe as possible for the players on the ice, upholding the standard of play and protecting the integrity are the prime directives for those who assign and manage officials.

Removing an official for safety reasons is one thing. Removing him or her because a coach, player, parent, agent, sponsor or owner dislikes a call or objects on the basis of the official's gender or national origin simply does not compute. I also would not want my officials to be associated with sponsors who would support such an affront to the spirit of the game.

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Paul Stewart holds the distinction of being the first U.S.-born citizen to make it to the NHL as both a player and referee. On March 15, 2003, he became the first American-born referee to officiate in 1,000 NHL games.

Today, Stewart serves as director of hockey officiating for the ECAC.
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