BRETT TRIPPET, Former Liberal coach

My wife Susan will tell you that apologizing is not exactly my strongest spiritual gift.

So what you are about to read should probably be framed and hung on a wall somewhere.

I owe referees an apology.

Not a quiet, under-my-breath, nobody-heard-it kind of apology. A public one. The kind that costs you something. Because the truth is, for decades I watched referees from the coaches’ box and I thought I had them figured out. Missed calls. Bad positioning. Inconsistent whistles. I had a whole vocabulary devoted to letting them know exactly what I thought. “Call it both ways.” “Are you watching the same game I am?” “I just want you call that same thing down here that you are calling on that side!”

I was, to put it plainly, a menace.

Then I went to referee camp this weekend. Ten games in three days. Tired feet. Cramping legs. Sore arms from mechanics I had never practiced before. Evaluators catching every mistake (and there were plenty). 30-40 times out of position. Poor mechanics in every single game.  To top it off I didn’t get paid a single penny but had to pay the camp $125 to attend and be evaluated.

That’s when it hit me. “The Refs” (what I have always referred to them as) show up game after game, gymnasium after gymnasium,  not to ruin your evening, not to pick on your kid, not to collect a check and go home laughing. They show up because they love the game. Because they want to be around sports. Because somebody has to stand in the middle of that floor and make sure the kids are safe and the game is fair.

Unfortunately,  I have spent years making that harder for them.

It reminded me of something Jesus said from the cross. Words I have read hundreds of times but maybe never quite felt until this weekend. “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Jesus was not excusing the behavior of the persecutors.  He was naming the blindness behind it. The people doing the most damage were the ones most convinced they were right.

That was me on the bench and you in the stands.

Proverbs 18:13 puts it even more plainly: “To answer before listening, that is folly and shame.” I had been answering for forty years before I ever bothered to listen. I bet you never asked what it took to get certified. I know I never knew what referees did in the offseason to get better.  I never considered that the guy in the striped shirt had paid his own money to go to camp, driven his own car, and given up his own weekend because he genuinely loved this game.

The referees at that camp did something I did not expect. When I showed up (a coach who had probably made life miserable for people just like them) they welcomed me. They helped me. They corrected me without embarrassment. They wanted me to get better, just like they wanted every member of every crew to get better.   They coached me up before the game, critiqued me during the game and evaluated me as one of their own after the game.  There was a brotherhood there I had never noticed before, because I had been too busy criticizing from the outside to ever look inside.

That is a convicting thing to discover about yourself.

Here is the spiritual application, and I do not think it only applies to basketball referees.  We are remarkably quick to judge the people we have never tried to become.  We question the parent until we have children of our own. We critique the teacher until we stand in front of a classroom. We second-guess the coach until we have to be in charge because nobody else will. Yes, we all shout at the referee until we tie on the whistle.

Jesus called it a log-and-speck problem. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:3) I had a whole lumber yard in mine and I was critiquing specks.

So to every referee I have questioned, second-guessed, hollered at from the bench, or made feel unwelcome on the court, I am sorry. I have seen what you do before the game, during the game, and after the game. I have felt what it is like to miss a call, know it, and have nowhere to hide. I have stood in your shoes (however briefly) and I owe you an apology that is long overdue.

I will try to do better. I will root for my team and let the refs do their job.

And I vow to get in better shape so that someday I can make you proud to referee beside me.

Father, thank You for the humbling experiences that make us better. Forgive us for the times we judge what we do not know, and give us the grace to apologize when we finally do understand.

Amen

EDITOR’S NOTE — Brett Trippett is a former area high school coach and administrator.