TOM's Talks | Joey Crawford (Vote 76 Week)

develop the NBA's younger officials. But what led me to joe Crawford at this point in time is his involvement and Get out the Vote initiative. Crawford created a video involving several Philadelphia area basketball folks. Here's my conversation with Joey Crawford. Welcome once again to an edition of Tom's Talks,

and we're joined by former NBA referee Joey Crawford. And this is thrown around a lot, but a truly great guy who goes beyond a man that ran up and not a for nearly forty years with the whistle and Joe, thank you so much. For joining us here today. Thank you for having me. Tom. It's a joy. I love

talking about our sport well. And we rekindled in recent weeks and you got involved with like to put out a message about voting, and you got guys like myself and people in and around the Philadelphia basketball community to make a video. And it was very simple to put out the word if you will vote? What was the genesis behind that? Last year, I was at a function with Senator Anthony Williams, who's an awesome guy. Just it's

like the second time I met him. But my real good friend Moe Howard, who's was a tremendous Philly player, played at Maryland, played now or Lake for a couple of years with New Orleans Jazz, I think at that time and Cleveland Will and I reft MO when the old Baker League. Philly. Mo and I are really good friends. So I just you know, I wanted to do something for the community rather than just throw money at something, you know, people a hunter something. I wanted to try something.

So I called the Senator and I asked the Senator what I could do to help to get people to vote. And my initial my initial thought and this was in conjunction with with moh was to get buses and little vans and run them from community centers to voting polls wherever churches. And that's what the Senator came up with and his legal representative. But every every time that I had a thought and I talked to mo Or, every COVID was it was COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID. So then

I said, all right, how do What do I do? Here? Is? I was watching the TV and I keep thinking, I'm watching vote and I see people saying vote, vote. So Bob Cooney's a real good friend of mine, is on the Fanatic in the morning. It was a beat writer, as you well know Tom, you know him for years. He helped me contacting people. So I started to call people and asked them if they would just send me a five second video saying vote and the community is just awesome. I mean, I was cold. I didn't know.

I was completely out of my leg I didn't I didn't know. I know, refereeing in the NBA, I don't know that kind of stuff. And every person that I went to it was just awesome, like yourself, Tom, can you help me? Yeah? Video d Line and can you help me? Yeah? Bang video? Don Stanley, can you help me? Bang video? It was. It was unbelievable. Coaches in Philly, Malik Rose, Gene Banks, Kevin the Gondhi, I mean all Philly. It was just fabulous. I had more fun doing it

and it wound up as you saw it. And I tried to get legs on it where you know, trying to put it on social media and things like that, but again I'm out of my leg and I you know, so we tried and it's it's gotten some legs. A lot of people have seen it. You know that the same with you, a lot of people. You just have that time and get it. You canting me? It was all it was. It was just fun. It was. It was really good and hopefully hopefully it has some type

of impact. And if you can get five people to see it and and say, you know what I got, I got a register I gotta that's awesome. It's awesome. Well, by my platform, I got a little bit more than five, but it might have just spent tens of people's up in terms of blood stop but listen. And it was.

It was tremendous and the league, the NBA has done a terrific job all of the franchises, many of which have made their facilities available for voting places, some of which have been accepted by local municipalities and others not. The NBA players associated has been incredible. Chris Ball and the teams have done a great jobs in terms of the players bringing awareness. But why does this mean so much to you? Like? What made you take action in

this regard? That's a great question, Great question, Tom, I don't know. I guess in my older age, I you know, when you're you know, I've been in refereeing in the NBA since I'm twenty five. Now when you retire and now I'm working in management and work, you know, as you well know are our life is a grind. And I said, you know, I just wanted to do something other than basketball related. I mean, I get it that it was basketball related. I reached out to my basketball friends,

but this was deeper to me. I guess my my family. I have. My family's a very mixed family. I have two um African American son of laws and seven African American grandchildren. And I just wanted to do a little more. And that was my way of giving back. You know, I just I'm seeing what's happening in our country, and I just I just think that this is a way

for for for me to help. Like I said, I'm completely out of my when I when I stopped talking about offensive fouls and three seconds and stuff, I get, I get a little shaky. It's not talking about voting in politics and social justice is not um my expertise. I mainly listen, but it was I just wanted to give back a little bit him to be honest to me that that's really the honest answer. And it's personal, and that's what makes it special. That is so cool.

And speaking of personal, and we'll get into your professional career. As you said, you reft for thirty nine years and high school and the Old Eastern Basketball League, but it was in your blood. Your father was a major league umpire for again over twenty five years. Shag Crawford, your brother. What was it like growing up with a father who had to be on the road and thus not at home as much as a guy who drove into Center

City and worked nine to five. What was it like to have your dad being up in the biggs again? You you you did your homework. I M I thought everybody did that. You know. My dad was a street guy, Tom. He was a guy came back from the war and didn't He was an old minor league catcher before he went away to to to the war. And then when he came back he started watching. He was trying to

pick up a couple extra bucks. He was delivering ice and delivering milk, you know, working in factory, you know, two bedroom row home in Philly, and he was watching the games. You know, back in the day. Baseball was the thing, you know, back in the forties and the fifties, and he watched local leagues and he said, I can do that, and he took up umpire and I think he was he was making like a dollar dollar fifty a game, you know, and it was totally different back then.

There was only eight teams I think in the National League, eight teams in the American League. And a guy by the name of Goldie Graham. This is wild Goldie Graham, who was a teacher and a coach at Roman Catholic in Philadelphia, was the manager of Roman Catholic's baseball team. And he saw my father did their games, and that coach knew Johnny Stevens, who was an American League baseball umpire. He wrote him, you know you didn't have an email. He wrote him a letter. He said, I have this

kid named Shaggy Crawford ref umpiring my baseball games. This kid was awesome. Sight unseen. Johnny Stevens sends a letter to the New York Penn League, which is like the bottom of the miners. Says, this kid in Phillies are really a good up. They send my father a three month contract. Now I just came along. It was, says nineteen fifty one. He's four kids, and he goes like this, I'm out. He tells my wife. He tells my mom, I'm going. He left. So he nod, you know, and

and you talked about that years later. I said, there are you nuts? He goes, I did it for all you guys. He said he was one of you know, he was one of those guys, Tom And I said, how did you know you were gonna make it? And he always referred to himself as the Shagger, you know, he was Shakrover. He goes, he said, the Shagger hasn't I used to cry lamped at him, but he did.

And he did have it, and that passion he had he conveyed to me and my brother, who about officiating sometimes to hire, you know, too much passion, and but that's where it came from. It was it was all him, you know, it was just watching him daily what he did. He was never at home. I didn't know him, I honest it, God, Tom, I didn't know my dad because when I was eighteen years old, I was out of the house. I started referee, and I was in the going to the Eastern League, doing high school game and

made the NBA at twenty five. I really didn't know my dad. I didn't get to know him, unfortunately until later in life. But he was a passionate man and he about his profession and he conveyed it to his sons. Didn't you get to go sit in the umpire's room while he was rubbing machine off the baseball with the Delaware River mud? And when he came to Philadelphia and go out of the field pre game and get around the cage and those types of things that we think of,

but somebody in baseball would get to do. Yes. When he worked to Phillies, that was my time to be with him. Ten eleven year old kid. I mean time picture this, I mean I start crying even when I started thinking about ten eleven year old kid. I meet Willie Mays and Hank Aaron. I tell these stories to people and they go, you who met him? I said, yeah, I said, I was a kid, and my father was a very professional guy. He didn't let you down on

the field. But if he saw them in the back where the locker rooms were, and you couldn't ask them for anything, you couldn't say, could I have mister Mays? Could I have an autograph? Because he'd say, don't you do that? So he would call you over and say, come on over and meet mister Mays. But can you imagine, Tom, can you imagine? And that that was the great part about it. And then two days later you didn't see

him for two months, three months, whatever it was. We'll have more of my conversation with Joey Crawford after this. In this time of social distancing, Novacare Rehabilitation is offering physical therapy from the comfort and safety of your home. Through their new tell A Rehab program. Novacare will virtually bring their services to you so you may heal, build strength, and get back to the things you love tell a rehab let you easily connect with one of Novacare's licensed

therapists through web based technology that is Hippo compliant. For more information, visit novacare dot com. And now back to my chat with Joey Crawford. Let's get into your career. So you start in the high school ranks right there

in the Philadelphia suburban area. You went to Cardinal O'Hara, and how did you make the transition to get into the Eastern and Eastern Basketball League, which was the predecessor to the CBA and what we now know as the G League, the development league for the NBA, and that began, you know, your baby steps, if you will, tour and

becoming an NBA referee. Yeah. Another great question I was when my father used to take me to games, like back in the day, which you guys will remember the NBA had doubleheaders, so they have a doubleheader down in Convention Hale. Father in the wintertime was driving an oil truck. But if he would get tickets, we go down. But because he was an umpire, he would say, that's Mendy Rudolph,

that's Earl Strom, that's Richie Powers. I just kept watching them, and I said, man, I like that because I knew he would tell me. Joe. He had a huge respect for the players because he knew how hard it was to get to that level. So he said, Joe, you can be you can only get get to be so good, you know, and you know, why don't you think about it? So as I'm fifteen, man, I wanted to be an NBA reth And that's a six sixth statement, but I tell people that all the time. So I was eighteen

years old and I started. I started doing the kids games, and I got into the Baker League in Philly, which was a godsend, and that got me Sunny Hill gave me some games, and then I got used to work in pro players and I had a try out in the Eastern League and I was in heaven. I was in heaven. You're going to Allentown. It was a weekend league. It was Allentown, Scranton, Wilkes Barow, Hartford, Connecticut, and it

was just awesome. You know. You could call an offensive foul like Mendy Rudolph Calden offensive now and you didn't have to put your hand back there. You could call it, you know, punch your fist down. They had threes back then. You called a three. You know in the Eastern League they had a three before the NBA at it three. And it was just I just loved the whole pro and environment. And they scouted you. They would my scout that scouted me. You him, wrote your schedule and you

send it to the NBA office. They only had like ten people in the NBA office back then, and Sid Borgia was my scalt and he would scout me and he'd come to these places and watch me ref And then when I was twenty five, the NBA brought me in very well. You bring me to a subject area

that I was going to get it into. But let's get into it now, because you just mentioned some of those names and I grew up watching the NBA at that time, but Mandy Rudolph and Earl Strom and Sidboard Jokes and even Darryl Garrettson and you had it too, and that was the flare of the call. I mean,

your deal was with the traveling. You know, you would do the motion almost like the flintstone steps and then the walking and I get how the NBA and the refereeing and the attention that you guys put into and I actually want to delve into that because there's so much anything for the referees, but not now, but just

that flare. And I get it too that the people don't come to watch the refereeing, but now it's so automated and there's all these signals and like I'm saying, I'm not saying it's it's actually better, but there was a flare that you know, people like, oh, this is that one wheref it's like an umpire, it has a certain strikeout call punch out. It pretty a little bit of a fun dynamic to the mix. And that's that's missing a little bit. Speak to that if you would,

I will to um. Oh. We gotta remember that. Back then there was there were very few NBA teams and there was only two refs. So what happened is you

would see Earl strom Moore, the fans. You would see Mendy Rudolph the fans, Richie Powers, Jake O'Donnell, Darryl Garrettson, I could go on and all Joe Gush, you, Eddie Rush, all these guys, Hubert Evans, they and you saw them constantly and the fans got to know them and they all did have their The mechanics taught back then, because I came in at seventy seven, is completely different than what we teach today today. We don't tell people not

to have some kind of some kind of flair. You have to have personality because you have to be able to interact with doc Rivers, you have to be able to interact with Joel Embiid. You can't have a referee that goes out there and has no personality. We teach referees have conversation with referees what I excuse me with players and coaches, But what happens is the younger ref Because you know, being in the job that I have today where I'm I'm doing a lot of teaching and

I get to a lot of arenas. Coaches and players will talk about younger refs having no personality and they're arrogant, and I try to tell them they're not arrogant, and they do have personality. They're just young and they don't know what to say. And they're told, hey, keep your conversations to a minimum because really, younger refs nobody believes

what they said. They didn't believe what I did for five years in this leag so but they get back to your point, Earl Strom, and those guys were just accepted. That's her. Oh, that's her, because I used to get it at the end of Mike and I didn't like it, to be honest with him. That's Crawford. He does that all the time. He jacks that, Diana. That's Crawford. That's all. But really and you get it and you laugh at it. But the younger people, Honest to God, Tom, I tell this,

and nobody, nobody believes me. Our younger people that are coming into this leg in the last ten years are so are so good. These people have been looking at referees on the internet and watching since they're ten eleven years old, and they're getting they're good. The problem is is that they're not known. We now have what we have thirty teams. People are wor in sixty five games

to eighty two games. There's three referees per game. Sometimes they don't they won't see a franchise maybe twice a season, so people don't get used to them. They don't they don't know them, and and that's that's unfortunate because we have a lot of talented young, young referees. You bring up so much that I want to delve into, and one is, as you say, talented and young and quality people. I've known James Caper since I went to college at NORTHERNLA.

We actually played on the same Damperial basketball team. Yeah yeah. Tom Washington and our buddy Mark Wonderlick referee our game seven in the CBA Finals when Lacrosse played Rapid City. Anyway, and those two guys obviously went on the long NBA careers. Tom Washington is still in the NBA, and they're police officers and guys and that others probably why they are

a refereeing good people. There's so many and as you say, we don't get to know the referees, but there's a lot of quality people, and that foundation lends itself to be a successful professional in this case in the world of officiaty. That as our PR people know when they're doing a great job, they're doing a much better job. Let's go back. Daryl Garrettson didn't think and he was our boss for a number of years, didn't think that the referees should be out and that everybody should know

who they are. But the NBA as doing a much better job of putting the people out there. And Kelly, listen, these guys are just like you and I. They're really good people and they are hard as you well know. Another thing which is very interesting is that, like you said, you came through that CBA. You knew Tommy Washington, you knew Mark where all those guys were coming through there. And the same thing with the Developmental League. Now most of our people, not most of them, all of them

are coming in from there. So if the players and the coaches are down in those minor leagues, that's why baseball really doesn't have that big of a problem with their umpires because all of them have come up together through that through that system, what happens is a lot of our players that come in to our league are drafted. They don't go down to the g You see what you're seeing what I'm saying, there's a big difference, Tom, when you do things together and you're going through that

grind together. Now you have like when we were in the Eastern League, Charlie Chris was an old time a small guard and remember him, Tom from the Atlanta Hawks. Yep, yes, And when he got into the league, the refs who were hit down in the Eastern League was Pavetta May Jackie Eas. We all went, that's awesome, Charlie Chris got in the NBA. You were happy for one another, do you know what I mean? But our our system is a little different because we have the college that we

get our players from college. They don't know Joe Crawford. I tell this story all the time. It's a funny story, Jamal Crawford. Joe Crawford. Jamal comes in from Michigan. It's his first time I got. I mean, he doesn't know me from Adam. He's in the layup line. He's got him. He looks at me, I said, just before the game, I said, what's happening? Because so he looks at me like,

what the hell's the matter with this guy? So I snuck up to him when he was on the bench during the first time that I said, listen, I wasn't being disrespectful. I said, my name's Crawford. Your name's Crawford. And I said it was a little like a little joke. Honestly, got Tom. It took maybe five years. Every time I walked out unto the court, Jamal Crawford go, what's happening because you know so familiarity does breed, like you get to know one another, you know, you respect one another,

and that's what this is. Referee, player, referee, coaches, all it's a respect. And everybody looks at me because I always say it, said, look at us, Tom. You may say, Joe Crawford just screwed the hell out of that. Paul, It's okay, that's part of your job. You got to say that when I'm not. I'm not holding anything against anybody. You know, you have a conversation. Our our league is a family. It really is a family. And I tell people that all the time and they look at me.

You're just giving it the political crap, but it is, it is. It's a family. I agree, and never more than now with being done. Joe, when I hear you talk about your father and kind of the break he got where you know, somebody like out of the blues you said, sent a letter and that began his professional unplaying career, it brings to mind how you've mentored and discovered referee specifically from our area of the Delaware Valley.

Eddie Malloy, my Cameahan, Mark Wonderlick, I mean Mark if I if Mark's story is accurate, like you found him refereeing in the summer. If I'm not mistaken, I did one of the parks there over by Habit Town and helped, you know, and Mark, like you, with the knee injury, had to eventually get out. And these now with the referee program, sure we work together out how you know you helped be like a shepherd, if you will, a champion, a mentor for these young referees that have gone on

to be tremendous NBA officials. You know, as thank you, Tom as a hell of a compliment. You know, I was a nineteen year old kid and I was working cyo basketball around the Philly area. I had a metal whistle. And who shows up at my game? Jacob'donald at our mother a good counsel out on Anchorster Avenue. I'm refereeing

by myself. There's three people in the gym, and who walks into the gym but Jake O'Donnell, And he sat there for an hour and a half and watched me ref and that during timeouts talk to me about referee. And then at the end he gave me a whistle, a regular plastic whistle and you know, I get queasy about that just thinking about it. But that's what happens in Philly because somebody did it from me, somebody calls me up. I go watch them ref. I watched them ref and I know it's part of my job and

I do it. But I watch refs. I don't know anything else. Tom, I don't know coach, and I don't know broadcasting. I don't know. I'm a ref. That's what I have and I love it and I want people to get better. Now where it gets a little crazy is is that people always want to know if my an NBA ref and I flat out tell them no. Now, some people will say, well, Joe Crawford, it's political, he got this. I am not. I have told her hundreds of people, you are not an NBA ref. Duke Callahan

isn't It was an NBA ref. Mark Wonderlick was an NBA ref. Eddie mulloy is an NBA ref. That's what I am. It's been my life. But I'm consumed with referee. I'm consumed with it. I can't get it. I remember Doug Collins making this statement and I sent, wow, he doesn't understand how similar we are when he was coaching.

I don't know what team. He said. When he goes out to dinner, he's sitting there with his wife, he's thinking about please and my wife always says to me, she said, we're going to talk about referee and again, and I always go, yes, yes, we are. I don't know anything else, but you know, you got me time you got It's it's a it's a curse, but it's it's a it's been so good to me that I can't get it out of my system. Well, you're more than just the referee. You're a father and a grandfather.

Your daughters, Amy, Meghan and Aaron. I'm gonna as soon played basketball because and again we know a lot of the same people in Delaware County. And you've done so much for girls basketball, women's basketball, and for those that don't know, the Philadelphia area in the history of women's basketball is just second to none in the entire country. Incredible. You've got a lot for girls basketball. Talk about that, your involvement helping you advance the sport and help young

women in our sport of basketball. You know, I had I was just like all the other males back in the Day about, you know, men's basketball, and I can't watch women's basketball. But then my kids started playing third and fourth, fifth and sixth grand so I got involved and I just started going to the games obviously and asking players and coaches what about this drill? That drill. So there's a woman's aau organization called the Comments and it's and it's really evolved into a big deal, and

I got involved. My one daughter played, who's married. My one son in law is the assistant woman's coach at LaSalle and that's my one daughter, Meghan is married to Chris Day. They have five children, and Megan was the first one that got involved and they played, and then they went to Ohio, which was a hotbed. I mean, what was better than Cardinal Ohio women's basketball? You gotta be kidding me? And I just liked it. So he started a league where we lived in Havertown and the

kids all played. And there was another leg that our good friend Terry McNichol and his great wife Mary Beth had the Billy Lake Als Lake and got involved, and that's what it was. It was just getting involved and I found out basketball's basketball, it really is. It's awesome and all the people that I've gotten to get, you know, I've gotten to know one of my best friends in the world, Harry Peretta, the women's coach at Villanova, and it's just been, uh, it's just I just love it.

To be real honest with you, I love it. I haven't been able to get in the last few summers as involved as I wanted to because the job, the job that I have now for the NBA there is you know, you go to Vegas, you're in youth over the summer lakes, so that's when the AAU stuff is really hot and heavy, and I haven't been able to do in the last three or four summers. But I love that game. I love the women's game. I really do. I really do. It's basketball. It's awesome. It's basketball, right

to come a long way. I remember that from my time in the CBA. My first stint was in Iowa and they had that deal where they had six players and three run offense and three run defense and they would only be able to go to the mid court stripe and then they have to wait for the ball change tense and I want to say they were in skirts. I could be wrong about I did my wife played. My wife played for Cardinal Ire and she was like one of the last teams. When I said, I said, Mary,

you have that skirt. Still you might look good in that skirt. And then the other thing was when I was in college and I played at what's now Bendington University in suburb in Chicago, just for two years, not much made of art and not talking about it. Yeah. Yeah, so but then this is kind of how I got into the media, if you well. I wrote for the student paper and ended of transferring to Northern Illinois a broadcaster. But for the student paper, I swear I think I

got paid to three dollars and twenty five cents. And one of my jobs for the public relations department, which was then in the student paper, was to cover the women's game. And so I'd be, you know, take a shower from our practice and they'd have a game or whatever, and I watch it and no kidding, like all ten girls would be in the lane. We had one really good player, nobody was beyond their tippy toes, and I was like, oh man, but clearly the game has really

advance and the WS unbelievable. Like you, I love it large basketball and you know, I remember going back to nineteen ninety six with the women's team in Atlanta and getting to know Dawn and all those women as they played the USA Basketball. So it's incredible. I mean, it's a great game. I really really love it, really love. Yeah. Well let's get into just a little bit about your NBA referee, and you still, I think hold the record for the most playoff games ever a shaded almost four

hundred and fifty finals games thirty nine years. That's incredible. But so there's so many ways to go here. But I remember, you know, a lot, and one thing was we were in the medal lands and it was the New Jersey Nets and the Sixers, and so it brings up the larger issue of like when a coach wants to get thrown out, and you know, the average fan would be like what But in this case people don't remember. But John Caliperry was actually a Sixers assistant for a

little while or getting back into college. And this would have been right after the Nets. Let Cal go and Larry and John went back all the way I believe the Kansas, so Cal takes a job on the Sixers bench, and the Sixers are pretty good and so this would have been in the nineties, I suppose, and Coach Brown. You actually worked the game, and you gave Coach Brown a technical early like it takes two to get tossed most of the time, so you got to get that

out away. And I don't know if I'm spilling the beans talking out of school, but and I used to sit right there, and it was a younger official that you were working with at the time, and Coach Brown said, he sent, well, I tell you a strong official wouldn't make that call, and boop, you just insulted me. You're going. So I think it was what Coach Brown maybe wanted that night, whereas cal was coaching the Philadelphia sevent six years against the team down there or the nets that

had just let them go. So you must know. I'm not saying you knew all about that, but you can tell. It's like in baseball when the manager wants to get run. How do you see that when you see this guy and you're like, well, what's going on here? And you end up having to whack them and get him out of there. But when you see that coming down the pipe, yeah, it's again you know what time I've done a lot of that's a tremendous question. It's never been asked to me.

I think the coaches, especially guys like Larry, they know when they they go, they know, they know when they want to go, and a lot of times people get not angry. But people in our league sometimes don't think that referees should talk about pregame because they meet at eleven in the morning and then they in their locker room and they talk basketball. That's their job. They talk basketball, and you can tell them when that coach is angry

coming off a losing streak. Guys aren't playing, they're tired, they're on a long road road trip, and you know, you know, all of us sudden it's like, where did that come from? Now? Why did that happen? And then you then it hits you, Oh my god. They're on a five they're on a five game trip. They lost four out of the five. There's where it came, you know, and you're thrown because that The coaches now think that way, but they want to get thrown. I tell this story

all the time. Johnny Back God bless his soul, the old assistant coach in our league and Penn State head coach for him, wonderful, wonderful guy we have as him with referee we have we have an axiom that referees have about guys like Johnny Back who don't get tease jokers shoes the one that started and he says, you never make a good guy a bad guy. So as soon as you hit somebody that never gets teas, they

usually get bad. You know. So Johnny bach Is I think he's coach in Chicago or Golden State at the time. He saunders on up to me in it during a time out and he says, Joe, throw me. I want to bring the ball back in. I said, you want to go, Johnny, you sure, and he goes, I want to go. I said, but I just can't make it up. John you gotta call me something. He says, I'll forgive you. He says, just like you know the Catholic Church. I'll give you an absolution. He says, no problem. So he starts,

he calls me what he calls me. I whack him and I throw him. And there was he just was angry at his team, I guess, or maybe somebody told him that. He know he didn't get ejected that year. But there are so many different things that you know, we're going on in teams, but something will happen Tom and you'll look at that coach or that player and

you go, that's coming from outer space. This player coach doesn't have that type of personality, you know, and you just do your job and you throw them out, you know. But sometimes coaches and players want to go, now, we're not going to the press. We're not going to the press. Nobody's gonna I'm never gonna tell anybody Johnny Back wanted to get thrown. I'm not gonna do that. You know, it's gonna come out a couple of years later. Or John May even say, John May say, yeah, I told

Joe to throw me in. Johnny was a renaissance man, a painter. It wasn't quality people the NBA. How about him. I was a war hero. I mean yeah, I mean he was just an awesome dude, awesome guy. And this is kind of jumping around and now getting back into

your current role a little bit. And so many of you guys that have come off the floor are now in the shall we say, hierarchy of the NBA referee, like Minnie McCutcheon, like Jason Phillips, like Joe Borgia and Mark we mentioned earlier, Mark Wonderlick, and the focus and attention has never been more on the referees, the education and you guys have always had a camp, but these

guys are so borough. You know, you'll see him with a notepad at center court and a player will come over and say, I don't know, you might have missed that. Take a look. And they'll look at video at halftime, and I know you guys go into the locker room, their referee lock room after the game. Sure, and you've broken the court down in quadrants and sections and there's acronyms, and sometimes I think that gets and I suppose with

experience at eases a bit. But like I can remember in year's past and there's just so much you can almost see where a referee got brainlock because there was so many things to consider. But that's an aside in general. I mean, there's just so much information and you know, like I said, available especially with video now and how easy it is, but speak to that and like should it's come to in the NBA with the officiator. Yeah, it's when I first came into the lake. You referee

the way that the lead referee was. Back then it was a two man system. So if I didn't referee the way Daryl Garrettson wanted me to referee, he'd go off on me. If I didn't referee the next night with Richie Powers the way he refereed, he'd go off on me. I mean, go off and Earl Strong the same thing. They dy'd hollered you. They scream it was awful. So the system evolved, evolved. Excuse me, the system evolved.

So now there's a system, and the wonderful thing about it is is that everybody is in We're all together now. It's we're all teaching the same thing from the w NBA to the g to the NBA, so everything is in concert. So by the time that referee gets to that NBA level, those mechanics and those things he's supposed to do are like second nature. Now, what's what changes that is in those five years of that younger referee is pressure and duress. You're not getting that same pressure

and duress in the g You're not getting it. You're not getting it in Las Vegas, you're not getting it in Utah, you're not getting it. In the summer league. So in the NBA, we have to be able to hire that person. We believe has that that ten years you can look and go, you know what, five years from now, that kid is going to be awesome. Just the same thing they do with players. It's the same exact thing. And most of our referees are so good by the time they get here with mechanics and and

things like that. It's no problem at all. It's just you know, getting comfortable, getting to be able to the crowds, the people that are players. You're dealing with grown men here. Now, you're dealing with grown men who are not going to just go. I couldn't believe it my first couple of years in the leaguetop. When I put my hand up for them to stop talking, they didn't stop talking. They kept coming, you know, and they didn't. They just kept coming.

They weren't. That didn't stop anybody. So what you have to do is that experience level is huge for our younger people and and they're they're really good. Like I said, our younger people, I don't even know. Monty mc cutcheon is is a teacher. He's a teacher, and we are his assistant coach that's that's how it works. So we are all he's he's not a dictator, so we all get an opinion, but we're all teaching the same stuff night in and night out. That's where I was before

I got on this call. It was a training session on our new system for our phone. Where if I'm watching a game on October eighth, and Zach Zarbi is worth watching that, refing that game, the game that he worked on October sixth, I can go into this phone, pull up the game, pull up the plays that that DA or that that's what I'm called a developmental advisor and has in there that Zach did real well or maybe Zach needs some help on now I look for that. Now,

it's looking for all the patterns. It's it's absolutely awesome where it's come. I mean, it's absolutely awesome. And the NBA they want their referees, they're looking for perfection, but they're gonna wind up with excellence is what they're gonna get. You never get perfection. But we're getting there. We are getting there, and it's not gonna it's not gonna stop. It's just gonna keep getting better and better. Don't answer

your question. I know it's a long winded answer, but didn't answer it to it, did well, I might add, and I won't keep you. You've been great and gracious and really good conversation. A couple more things, and I'm gonna have to ask you to indulge me a little bit later because I have a long history with referees. But doesn't make you a bad guy as a high schooler. Maybe a little bit flippant, yes, but in a moment,

so just real quickly. We talked about the road with your dad and with yourself, like you know, you guys reffed almost an entire eighty two game season, but you're not on a charge yet. You know, you're not at the top hotel. You try to stay away from where the teams are in terms of congregating and whatnot. You wear the black hat a little bit in the perception of the fans, and it had to be lonely a little bit, I would think, and to be you know,

out there solo. Uh speak to that a little bit because you know, forty years on the road and I know, but you know we're part of a group. What was it like for you flowing a flying solo like that? You know, you're you just get used to it. It's twenty twenty five days a month. And then when you're living in Philly obviously where I do. You have Philly, Washington, New Jersey, New York, so you can get to your

bed that night. Okay, Um, it is, but you get used to it and then um sometimes you're with referees on consecutive games. But it's like a job, Tom, you well know, it's like any kind of job. Some people you really get along with well, and some people you just okay, see see you to morrow, see at the airport, you know, and there's nothing personal. It's just your job. It's it's it's you know, it's just what you do. But it's it does get I Later in my life, I became a movie guy, you know, and I would

go to the movies or things like that. So I tried. Then the computer came into vogue, which was bad for me because then then I could Then I was getting the games on the team. You know. Now I'm sitting in the hotel room watching a basketball game, you know, an NBA game, because I very rarely I don't watch much college basketball because I'm an NBA guy. I'm watching NBA refs. That's what I watched, you know, even when I was reffing, that's what I did. I just watched.

I watched games. But the computer, the computer did a lot for guys like us, as you well know, time you can sit in that room, do movies, you know, watch games and things that that passes the time. The time was is the killer, as you will know you and you're you know, I used to tell people all the time, they say, how long you're on the road. I said, I said, you know, I checked my schedule and I packed. If it's eight days, I packed eight pair underwear. And when then the underwear runs out, I

know I'm supposed to go home. So I hope they don't call and give me an extra game. I might have been a little tm I, but no, no, for me, I gotta get outside of those those walls. You gotta get out. You're one of them. Yeah, I mean I gotta go to a movie, I gotta go to the theater and whatnot. But so yeah, a lot of that I suppose is in fact the same. So I was

kind of joking about the refereeen. But as a high school player, I went to a high school run by benedictin monks like priests and brothers, and they would shuffle over in their cassocks and their sandals from the monastery and they had this little liver of bleachers that they sat in. Well, number thirty four was swearing out there like oh my God, in front of my dad too. But yeah, in the captain's huddle if I wasn't in there, they were like, you tell them against the shut ups,

and I just, I just I couldn't continue myself. I got a host of teas throughout my three year varsity back Tom. That's they're funny stories, though, because no matter where I go, it's funny. It s You could be sitting in the airport, you could be in a restaurant, you could be deadywhere, and all of a sudden, this guy I'll come walking up Tony as I said, remember when you used to work Saint Dorothy's games, And I go like this, yeah, I remember, I did a lot

of them. I remember at the time you threw that guy. And I'm looking at the guy I don't remember, and I'll go I was the guy, and I I always gotta say, I always say the same thing, did you deserve it? Yeah, I deserve. And then one time in

the CBA, it was much smaller. There were ten players and the coach and in my case and this three year hitching lacrosse Wisconsin, it was the kap Birds and Flip Saunders was a coach and as a sister and coach was Don ze Arden and we've had another guy, and of course Flip has passed, but Trey Schwap and he passed away too, But there was basically like maybe fourteen and I was the radio guy, so it was

a lot cloe. We all piled into the same vand and so after the game, I would go and sit with Flip and talk about the game, and then I'd have to go to his hotel room and he would go on and I think he would be on the phone with Jim Tooley, I mean Joe till like one am, and you know, Jim would have to take another call for Americ Muscleman. But one time we were in Ohio, and the venue is always changed, but oftentimes it was like the Exposition Center on the Ferret Grounds or whatever,

and that was the case in Columbus, Ohio. So it was a circular building. We lose. They had like Kelvin Ramsay or something we use. I'm going back to see flip and here comes Woody Mayfield and whoever else he's working with. I totally knew I shouldn't say anything, but I'm like, oh boy, that was a rough one to night. And he does a for verset pivot one eighty white

Mike Grill, what's your name? And I wish I would have had the savvy to say, well, my name efficiently Chris had told and I come into the room and flips like, what's wrong? You look a little terse. It's a little incident with what you Makefield in the whole. I guess you're supposed to just be the radio. That's a great story tone. That's awesome. I love that stuff. I love that stuff with people come after you. They you know there's nothing you can do, you know, they

just come after you. They had cost you. They feel good, they feel themselves. They say it's funny as hell. Well one time, and this goes back to another league there was obviously clearly now defunct, but it was called the World Basketball League. Yeah sure, it was for six five and under players and young stound hat had all the good players. Shocking development the guy who in the league was down there, Mickey Motus. Anyway, so we played, you know, not we did play some teams from Germany, Ely and

Spain came to the state. But we traveled to Candidate and one of our games you went to Saskatchewan in Calgary and Halifax, and one of our games was in Victoria, British Columbia, and we played it was an ex in the Canadian Olympic team with Eli Pisqually and probably Greg Wilcher and some of those names, and they were I

believe high school referees. In the game was in a high school gym, and in a shocking twist, they got most of the calls and the game went to overtime and there was this controversial technical or whatever, and I'm on the radio back to Erie, Pennsylvania, probably like twelve thirty eastern, and you know, there was like this. It took a long time. There was no video replay or

anything like that. So the guy and I had just some folding table was my broadcast position on the court, and the referee was right there and I had another headset for the postgame interview and looking for a little clarification, I like you know, offered the guy, would you want to don the headset? And he does it, gets on the headset and I'm like, so, what exactly is going

on with these tech? So the Dave Gavitt of Canadian basketball, remember the head of Canadian Olympic Basketball, comes down, and he slams the cable and I'm thinking, boy, I had been some hot water now. But to your point, he was like, he couldn't believe the officials did that on the broadcast. Your kind of got robbed. We lose the game, and now we're in the air to tell him, what did you tell him on air? You got we got robbed.

I was too busy running back to the pay phone to make sure we were still on the air bag in here, Pa. Anyway, So the next morning, we're sitting at the air the whole the whole basketball team to coach myself, and we're reading the local paper and this was just prior to the Olympics. So it said something along the lines of not even American broadcasting giant NBC would have the audacity they interview an official during the game.

But it says my name and everything, and I'm like, guys, I made the local paper it's amazing when you those first number of years. I don't know remember when it was, but we used to go teach, you know, Canadian referees and they'd come to camp in the summertime, back in the day when they had the summer leagues and Loyola Marymountain, all those people would come in and Daryl would teach him and we would teach them referee and you were amazed how little they knew. And everybody thought we were bad,

you know, but they didn't know anything. Now they are really good, phoebe and those referees have really gotten a lot better now. The NBA has given them a lot of that tutelage. But but it's it's um, they're good. They got some good referees. Well, Joel, let you go.

I do want this though, if you could do me the favor of telling Bo Howard, I said, hi, because when my first year, as you know, John Lucas was our coach and Luke Nico played for the terms at Maryland, and oh man, we used to he was at a lot of our practices and were Saint Joe's and I whether it was at the Spectrum later, but I laughed and we had such a great time. And I haven't seen him for years. And that's one of those basketball guys in our neck of the woods. If you would that,

I would love to reach out to. He's he's the best. We're good friends, and he's just an awesome, awesome guy. He really, he really is. He cursed me at one night down to Baker League. He talked. We'd laugh about it. It was I didn't know him. I'm a kid. I'm only like I'm down there refing when I'm twenty two, twenty three, you know, and he cursed me. I cursed him back. We're going back. No, now we're talking about we're in our sixties and we love one another. It's awesome,

aweso great. Well, I think we said a new record on Tom's talk about for longevity. So Joe, I can't thank you enough anytime. Stay well, take care and hopefully we'll see you in an NBA arena soon down the road. Tom, thanks for having me. I really enjoyed it. Thank you. Thanks for listening to this edition of Tom Talks. Look

for new episodes throughout the offseason. If you like what you're hearing, consider subscribing to the seventy six ers podcast, network Feed, or giving us a follow wherever you get your pods and if that happens to be on Apple Podcasts, we'd love for you to give us a rating. I'm Tom McGinnis. Talk to you down the road.