When Hilary and I moved into our ward this past summer, we received callings to be ward athletic specialists. I was excited. I love sports and was excited to serve in this calling.
My first assignment was to be a scorekeeper for the region softball tournament. No big deal. In fact, it was really fun. I got to know some people better and enjoyed the games.
Next up, basketball season.
One thing we decided to do, in meeting with leaders of the Stake, was to have the Stake Presidency call 30 officials. We all know how church ball goes. You have these nice, worthy, outstanding LDS priesthood holders, fathers, husbands, and church leaders who instantly become these ferocious, blood thirsty creatures when they hit the hardwood.
We wanted to make sure that we kept things in order. And, as anyone who has ever done this knows, it’s almost impossible to find officials for church basketball games.
“Hi Brother Smith, its Ben White from the ward, just wondering if you can help me out by being a ref for a couple church ball games on Thursday night.”
“Oh hi Ben, yeah, looks like my schedule is wide open, but I’m sure something will come up, so…..I better say no this time around, but try me again.”
“Hi Brother Jones, its Ben White from the ward, are you available to help me out on Thursday night?”
“Ben! Good to hear from ya! Yeah, anything I can do to help ya brother!”
“Well great! Can you help me ref a couple games up at the Stake Center?”
“Oh man, I just looked at my calendar and realized that “Without a Trace” is on, I won’t be able to make it.”
“But, “Without a Trace” is on every single night on ION TV!”
“Yeah, but it’s my favorite episode, gotta go!”
Click.
Yeah, pretty much we didn’t want that. That leads to one poor guy having to ref a game by himself. And that never turns out well.
What do you know, but I was called to be one of those 30 refs. Fantastic. In all seriousness, I don’t mind. I believe that callings come from above. I dreaded it, but I knew that even if it was in sports, there was a lesson (lessons) that I needed to learn. And it would work out in the long run.
So I went to the trainings and tried to learn as much as I could. When I watched games, I tried to imagine myself with a whistle in my mouth and what I would do.
Here is how it works in our Stake. We have 7 wards participating in our Stake league. That means we have 3 games a week and one team has a bye. When your ward has a bye, you ref. My ward had a bye last night, on opening night, and I got my chance.
We work in three man crews to make sure that every area of the floor is covered. It makes it so that everyone doesn’t have to do as much. You rotate on free throws so that no one person is in the same spot the whole game.
As most of you know, I’m a basketball junkie. I don’t mean to brag, but you would have a hard time finding somebody who knows more about the history and rules of the game. I think I know just about everything there is to know about this game.
But then something happened.
As soon as the ball was thrown into the air to start the game, it’s like I forgot everything. I literally could not remember who was going what direction, or what to call or anything. It was an awful feeling.
I hear people say “I played a game today and had the worse refs ever.” Or “These refs suck, I could do better.” For those people, I challenge you to volunteer to ref a church ball game. A men’s church ball game. You are not as good as you think you are. I guarantee it. You will feel like a complete idiot, as I did.
I had some memorable moments. Once, I blew the whistle as I saw the ball going out of bounds and pointed that it was the White team’s ball. I felt like an idiot when I realized that there was a red player sitting there with the ball, and it had never gone out of bounds, I had just not seen him and anticipated it going out. A player on the white team came to throw it in and insisted that since I called it white ball, it should be theirs’.
In another moment, I saw three guys swarm a player who was shooting. I heard some slaps and honestly had no idea who had hit the shooter. I blew the whistle and said “Foul on……………………….(long pause)” I looked at three potential suspects and two of them had “You have to be KIDDING ME!!!!!!!!” looks on their faces, so I called it on the other guy.
We had some testosterone-overload moments as well.
Two players were battling for the ball, both fell to the ground. One picked up the ball and threw it at the other one. That earned a technical foul.
I learned a lot about being a ref. I had guys complain and yell at me, and instead of ignoring them, I was tough. I wasn’t a jerk, but I established that I wouldn’t take any crap from anybody. It would be fun to go back and count the times I used the phrase “Oh just shut up and play!” It seemed to cut down on that kind of nonsense.
Most of all I learned that in LDS church ball, you have to expect the unexpected.
