Dean was the referee that night, and he was driving and telling stories about years past in the business of officiating high school sports in southern Arizona. Dean was a legend in Arizona among officials, and had a deep pool of friends, state wide. When Dean brought a crew into town, they always got a great reception from the hosting school’s administration, as Dean was a wonderful guy, and an enormously respected former science and math teacher and coach, who was then an administrator at a Tucson high school.
Ladies young an old would greet him with hugs and kisses, and school athletic directors and principals would arrange after game parties, where all the officials would be fed and beered up to their hearts content, and Dean loved his after game beers as much as any of us.
Dean was a bear of a man, about 6’5" and maybe 280 pounds. He had hands the size of catcher’s mitts, and a booming voice. As we made the 80 or so mile drive down the Interstate that night, Dean told some old stories and new stories about the life of a high school sports official back in the 1960’s and 1970’s.
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| 5 man crew. Can you spot me? |
The classic, oft-repeated story was that back in the day some officials would tell their wives and girlfriends that doing a football game at Benson was an "over-night trip," even though Benson was only about 50 miles from Tucson. The idea was to plant a seed that you may not be home that night, as it was way too far to drive. There are (or at least used to be) hundreds of vehicles in the Tucson area that had "Where the hell is Benson?" bumper stickers.
I was never sure where that all came from, but it wouldn’t surprise me if one or more old high school sports officials came up with the idea? If a guy’s lady actually believed him, it set up a way to cat around, or at least get drunk, without having to answer any questions. I know that any idiot can look at a map, but I was told a few women really believed this story.
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| Where the hell is Benson? |
Once, however, a guy who had "sold" the over-night trip story to his wife happened to take his spouse on a long drive one day which took them past the Benson exit.
"Dear, I though you told me that Benson was a long ways away, and that’s why you needed to spend the night?" his wife quizzed as they motored past the exit.
"Oh, well, no honey, I am talking about the other Benson," and he shrugged his shoulders.
"Oh," his wife answered, "I see."
Dean recounted another story, of how he and another crew were driving back from a game one time years ago when everyone in the car was extremely drunk, including the driver. It was a gentler time regarding drinking and driving back then, as stupid as that may have been.
The guys got lost repeatedly on some really bad roads, and there are hundreds of them out in the Arizona boondocks, but they kept drinking, and kept on driving. The combination finally won out, and the driver slid the car hard into a big, wet ditch. No one was hurt, and it took hours for someone to eventually come by and haul the car out.
Dean sighed and wistfully said, "Those were fun times, even if we were really stupid. I’m just glad in all those trips we never had an accident."
"Uh, Dean," I broke in, "doesn’t driving a car into a ditch count as an accident?"
"Huh? Yeah, yeah…well, yeah, okay, but you need to be thinking about the game, and your mechanics as the Field Judge. What’s your most important responsibility…you and the Head Linesman?"
"Forward progress," both of us answered. We knew the drill.
I was a part of a number of crews that took road trips to places like Thatcher, Safford, Clifton and Morenci – all of them well over 100 miles away. Once, returning from a game at Eastern Arizona College where Thatcher High School played their home games, the driver wasn’t drinking, but my two other crewmates were slamming beers down like water. They’d showered, changed, and hopped into the car in record time so they could begin pounding all the icy cold beer in the coolers. It was an unwritten rule that the crew chief was required to buy enough beer to see the crew back to Tucson, but these two buddies downed a six-pack each before we got off campus.
Our 4-man crews consisted of a referee, umpire, head linesman, and field judge. The umpire that evening was a guy who was an excellent official, even though his primary sport was baseball. In 1995, he was one of the replacement umpires that worked a number of games when the MLB umpires were on strike. I can’t recall his name, so I’ll call him Ken.
As good as Ken was at football, he’d had an awful moment in our football game that night, probably the worst moment an official can have – an inadvertent whistle. He had been suckered on a fake run into the line, and hit his whistle, which immediately stopped the play. I was working a wing spot, and the actual play was coming right at me. A running back heading for the sideline, with only one man to beat to go 90 yards for a touchdown in a very tough, low scoring game.
I don’t know if the back would’ve turned the corner and gone all the way or not, but I think he would have. When the whistle sounded he just stopped and looked at me. This wasn’t a minor error, where the play was of no consequence, plus an umpire in a football game should almost never blow his whistle, so it made it about as bad a blown call as one could have.
Ken was drinking the game off his mind, and before long on the drive back, two things occurred almost simultaneously – we ran out of beer, and Ken really needed to take a leak.
By the time we got to Willcox and a convenience store, Ken couldn’t take any more – he had to go! Our driver hopped out to buy more beer, and Ken headed for the rear of the store. My other mate drunkenly popped into the driver’s seat, and drove the car towards the back of the store, head lights off.
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| 10 yards for illegal urination |
As we howled with laughter, our driver Jim remarked, " Ah, I wonder what MLB would think of Ken if they had a video of this?"
We got to Willcox that evening, and as we readied for the game, I saw some familiar faces of the men that would serve as the chain crew. A few years earlier when I had first met one of them, he’d told me a story about the Willcox versus Benson rivalry from almost 20 years earlier.
For a number of years, the two towns had played twice a year. They were in the same conference back then, but they would play one another in the first game of their respective seasons in a non-conference game along with their regular league game.
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| Willcox Cowboys -- go figure. |
This guy was a (Willcox) high school student at the time, and he and a few friends thought of the ultimate prank one night while drinking too much beer and tequila. They would outline a huge "W" in the middle of the Benson football field, and then soak the inside portion of the W with gasoline, and set it on fire! They’d burn a W into the Benson field.
Things went well for the five of them, though my friend told me that the field smelled bad – "Crappy" was the word that was used, but none of the guys were deterred. Someone joked about Benson players shitting their pants in fear about having to play Willcox in another 5 days, and that’s why the turf smelled like dirty underwear.
The moment was reached when the boys spread out, and all matches were all struck.
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| Magnificent! |
Their sneakers and legs (all were in shorts – it’s very warm in southern AZ in September) started to get really hot, and they howled in pain as their leg hairs began to singe and burn off by the dozens, but they got away, at least for a time.
A day later and both towns were all aware of what had happened, and a search began for the vandals. It wasn’t hard to find them once one boy was noticed with burned off leg hairs. Willcox is a small town.
Some 18 years later, the storyteller was very proud of his and his friends inspired idiocy that night, even if the field was burned so badly, they couldn’t play the game on that big burned W.
That night’s game began, and at some point early pretty early on a kid returning a punt got hurt, and we had to stop the clock while the player was attended to.
Whenever a kid would get hurt, which was often, it reminded me of another official named Chris, who would always play a joke on an unsuspecting rookie official in one of the rookie’s first games. Chris would sidle up to the rookie (as he did to me years before) and ask him "Why did you let that kid get hurt like that?"
Invariably, the rookie would begin to feel awful, and start apologizing, and the rest of us would have a laugh.
Once in a while an official would get hurt, which could be pretty funny too, as I found out when my chain crew forgot a cardinal rule, and did not drop the chains on a play right towards us one night. As I back-pedaled out of bounds watching the play come at me, I tripped over the chain and landed hard on my butt. I was fine if a little sore, and we started to get ready for the next play.
During the entire game, I had three very lovely young ladies following along the sidelines, watching the game. They were all very pretty, and about 15 or 16 years old.
As I looked out at the field readying for the next play, one of them said "Mister Referee, are you all right, did you hurt yourself?"
Without turning around I said, "I’m fine, thanks for asking."
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| It's good! |
Back to the Willcox game, and when play was again ready to resume, Dean chopped down with his right hand while blowing his whistle, meaning the play clock should begin. In error, he also started winding his right arm to start the game clock. The prior play was an exchange of possession, and the game clock should not have begun until the next snap of the ball. Not a big deal, but an error.
Things moved along for a while before another stoppage of play, at which point Dean came over to me and said I’d made some sort of minor error in my mechanics – nothing to do with the actual game.
Dean was talking loudly and a mile a minute, and told me "That’s two picchers you owe me after the game!"
"Two pictures?" I asked.
"Yeah, yeah, two picchers…yeah, one for criticizing my story in the car, and the second for your mechanics on that play earlier…two picchers!"
Dean was about twice my size, and was all about having fun, but I had no idea what the hell he was talking about.
"Pictures of what, Dean?" I asked him.
"Huh…pictures, no, no…no no no not PICTURES…pitchers! PITCHERS of beer! That’s what you owe me for your two mistakes. After the game, tonight, after the game you owe me two pitchers of beer."
I laughed, and Dean laughed. The other two guys in our crew laughed along.
I said, "Hey Dean, since we’re talking about mistakes, I have one that you made tonight."
"Huh, no, no no whaddya mean…what mistake," and I told him his error in winding the clock after the injury.
He was silent, and thought about it, and realized that I was correct.
"Well, okay…I mean all right…but we don’t have off-setting pitchers!"
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| We need one more, please. |
And if you’re wondering, my butt’s not sore any more either.
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