They say bad men wear black.
Well, in this case, black and white. Stripes, that is.
Once he finds his whistle, referee Todd Moore has no problem cleaning up post play at the Community Building.
Todd Moore is all business when he arrives 15 minutes before tip-off. As a referee for Lawrence City League Basketball, he's the law-dog of the Community Building. He walks in the gym, surveys his territory and strides to the scorer's table. Everything seems to be in order. But then it dawns on the man in black and white: It's hard to call a game without a whistle. Quickly, he heads home. It's an inauspicious start to his evening.
He makes it back to the gym quickly and finds that chaos is not reigning supreme. In fact, no one may have even noticed he was gone. It seems that his partner, Andrew Lonard, was doing a fine job by himself. So Moore quietly takes his place on the court. Moments later, he stops play with his newfound whistle.
"What?!?" shouts a player. Welcome back, Mr. Moore. Only three more games to go tonight.
Invisible touch
It takes a special type of person to put him or herself in the position of being a referee. A good referee goes unnoticed, a bad one gets accosted. In today's society, going unnoticed hardly seems like any type of reward. Yet that's what these refs strive for. Even Moore himself admits "special type of person" might not be the appropriate way to describe a person who enjoys being a referee. He tells me "weirdo" might be more suitable.
"Weirdo" because the reason Moore finds himself out there getting yelled at by out-of-shape men who can't play basketball isn't for something as simple as extra income. No, Moore believes that undergoing this punishment is his way of giving back to the Lawrence community.
I guess it's not enough that when he's not calling games, he's at work doing public relations for Big Brothers and Big Sisters in the Lawrence and Topeka areas. Some people might consider that a way to give to the community. But not Moore. That's just his job. Having one of the cooks from a local restaurant threaten him over a questionable call, now that's community service.
It's a Monday night at the Community Building, and it's consistently Moore's least favorite night. Not because it's the most physical division that plays on Mondays, or even something like loud crowds. No, the reason Moore hates Mondays: Too many coaches, not enough players.
"It's like there are five to six coaches on every team instead of five to six players," Moore explains. "All these guys think they know more about the game then you. I might miss one call, but these guys will miss eight layups, and because of that one missed call, it's still somehow all my fault."
Things get ugly
Moore started his career as a ref more than seven years ago, when he was still in college at Kansas University. Back then he refereed games in the KU Intramural league, a place where the only qualification to wear the black-and-white is to have the lung capacity to blow the whistle. Since then, he's been all over the place, making calls on basketball, football and softball games, from Lawrence to Manhattan. He's called kindergartners for traveling, just like he's called 50-year-olds for taking too many steps.
In seven years of calling games, Moore has a fair share of stories of times when things went bad. But he tells me, almost like it's a relief, he's only feared for his life once in his officiating career.
The moment happened right here in lovely Lawrence. While calling a softball game, things got out of hand. The better of the two teams was losing because the members were too drunk to play effectively. The game was on a time limit, and the more inebriated team was about to lose. Moore saw his girlfriend arrive at the game with a bottle of Gatorade, so he took a brief timeout to get a drink. He returned to the game, and several minutes later, time expired, with the drunk team taking the loss.
"They were all up in my face, like, 'Hey short stuff, this game's not over, we want another inning... you were over there all trying to be sweet on that girl and took too long,'" Moore says. "Meanwhile, I was dying of thirst, and it only took me a minute to get the Gatorade."
The real drama came when he had the same team later that night. A home run was hit, and a player turned to Moore and told him that he should do something with himself that wasn't very nice. Moore forfeited the game that same moment.
Unfortunately for him, he couldn't forfeit AND get out of there quickly. It was the last game of the night, and he had to pick up all the bases. While collecting the bases, the players let Moore know that they didn't think very highly of him.
"I don't take much crap especially off these hillbillies," Moore says. "So I start yakking back. But my insults weren't personal, they were about the game. That's when they started calling to me to come over and fight them."
Outnumbered and carrying a load of bases, Moore did the wise thing and got out of there as quickly as possible.
"I'll admit, that was pretty spooky," Moore laughs. "That's the bad thing about being a referee: you're on an island, you're all by yourself. I wouldn't have had anyone to support me out there. You have to be your own team."
They say bad men wear black. But once in a while, the good guys wear black and white stripes.
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