Personal Foul. Tim Donaghy
on the other hand, acted like he didn’t hear a player who called him a “no-good motherfucker” right to his face. We often joked about how Crawford would let a guy get killed driving to the basket, while Bavetta would blow the whistle if a defender breathed on someone too hard.
Their reasoning behind how they called a game was different, too. Crawford wanted the game over quickly so he could kick back, relax, and have a beer; Bavetta wanted it to keep going so he could hear his name on TV. He actually paid an American Airlines employee to watch all the games he worked and write down everything the TV commentators said about him. No matter how late the game was over, he’d wake her up for a full report. He loved the attention.
Many of my fellow referees would do anything to get “face time” on the networks, and they worked hard to cultivate novel tricks to attract the camera’s eye during a game. It could be as simple as spinning the ball on one finger, calling fouls in an over-the-top and highly animated way, “checking on something” at the scorer’s table to get the attention of the game announcers, being overly aggressive in calling technical fouls, hamming it up with the cheerleaders or team mascots, or even having the floor wiped with a towel so that the camera would zoom in for a close-up. The glitz and glamour of an NBA contest is addicting, and referees are certainly not immune from being caught up in the bright lights. At times, I had the impression that some referees thought the fans showed up to see them and not the game.
Veteran referee Jess Kersey was one of those guys who clearly loved the attention that went with a career as an NBA ref. Kersey managed to get knocked down by players so frequently—consequently getting himself some TV time—that it became an inside joke among the other referees. A real character on and off the court, Kersey was the kind of likeable guy who would show up on an airplane with a pizza for the flight attendants. Unfortunately, he was also known for consuming large quantities of Gatorade and vodka immediately after a game. A few years back, I worked a game with him and Dee Kantner in Milwaukee. After the game, Kersey partook of his favorite elixir and proceeded to drive us to Chicago in a rental car for a game the following evening. During the drive, he slammed the car into a toll booth, causing considerable damage. The accident landed him in rehab, where he began a long journey to recovery. To his credit, he faced his demons and conquered them.
When the NBA hired referees, talent and ability were well down on the list of job requirements. Nepotism ran rampant, and sometimes getting a job often had little to do with how good an official you were; it was all about who you knew, or better yet, who you were related to.
Darell Garretson was the first to hire his son, Ron, back in the 1980s. Ron was able to move up the ladder fast since his dad was the boss, but most of the staff thought his skills were only on par with a second-round official.
People naively thought this display of nepotism wouldn’t happen again, but then Joe Borgia was hired. Joe was the son of Sid Borgia, a former referee who himself became a supervisor. The NBA also hired James Capers Sr.’s son, James Capers Jr. Fortunately for James Jr., James Sr. was a group supervisor and had input on which referees advanced in the playoffs. Scott Wall’s father Bill was in charge of USA Basketball and a friend of David Stern’s. Matt Winick, who assigned referees to games, thought Wall never should have been hired, and he made derogatory comments to staff members about Wall’s ability. I can’t claim immunity from favoritism, either—when I was hired, Billy Oakes was a top official on the staff. Billy also happened to be my uncle. So I benefited from my connections, too.
Ronnie Nunn took the league’s nepotism to a whole new level when he became the boss. He hired Tommy Nunez Sr.’s son, Tommy Jr., as well as old friends from years past. Robbie Robinson wasn’t even refereeing basketball when Nunn called and told him to start working again. He was fired two years after he was hired. But Nunn still didn’t learn his lesson. He hired David Guthrie, the son of John Guthrie (John had been Nunn’s college basketball coach at George Washington University) and an average referee at best. Zach Zarba was a local guy Nunn had known for years, and Nunn tried to push him up the ladder until Stu Jackson stepped in and put a stop to it. Many officials were linked to someone, and no one cared enough to question it much less stop it.
There were certain refs I never wanted to work with, and if I got partnered with them for a crew, I knew I was in for a trip from hell. I remember one nightmarish game I worked with Joe Crawford and Phil Robinson. Minnesota and New Orleans were in a tight game going into the last minute, and Crawford told us to make sure that we were 100 percent sure of the call every time we blew the whistle. When play resumed, Minnesota coach Flip Saunders started yelling at us to make a call. Robinson got intimidated and blew the whistle on New Orleans. The only problem was it wasn’t the right call. Tim Floyd, the Hornets’ coach, went nuts. He stormed the court and kicked the ball into the top row of the stadium. Robinson had to throw him out, and Minnesota won the game.
When our crew went into the locker room to review the play, Crawford let Robinson have it. He started screaming, “Didn’t I tell you not to blow your whistle unless you knew what the hell you were calling? You screwed up this whole game!”
Robinson started screaming back, “I’m a grown man! Do not talk to me like that!”
They just wouldn’t let up. To make matters worse, when we called the office they wanted a full breakdown of the game by the next morning. That meant we got to stay up all night and bang out stats from the tape. Lucky us.
I’m not a drinker, but that night I thought about becoming one. Just when I thought my referee duties were done for the night, I had to go back to the hotel and referee the two guys from my crew while they got loaded and tried to break down the tape. After a bottle of Jack Daniels and two six-packs of beer, Crawford and Robinson were so hammered they were screaming and laughing the entire time we were filling out the reports. As it turned out, we had a blast.
Later that week, Ronnie Nunn told me that we could have made something up at the other end against Minnesota to even things out. He even got specific—maybe we should have considered calling a traveling violation on Kevin Garnett. Talk about the politics of the game! Of course the official statement from the league office will always read, “There is no such thing as a makeup call.”
The NBA has been dominated by men for a long time. After all, the players are male, so it seems to make sense that the refs are, too. But about 12 years ago, two women were suddenly hired: Violet Palmer and Dee Kantner. How did that happen? A woman named Sandy Ortiz successfully sued the NBA on grounds of gender discrimination seeking a referee’s position. The NBA had to pay her a large amount of money, and they must have wanted to forestall any other legal action by female referees. So they went into the college game and chose Kantner and Palmer, one white and one black. We all liked Palmer, who had a terrific way with people. Kantner was a little more abrasive, and her strong and cocky personality probably had something to do with the reason she was fired after five seasons. Well, that and her performance.
Quite frankly, I thought they were both terrible referees, and many others agreed. Joe Crawford used to say he wouldn’t use either of them to referee a high school JV game. Because most of their experience was at the collegiate level, both Kantner and Palmer had trouble with the pace of the NBA game. But that didn’t really matter—the fact that they were women was the only thing the league seemed to care about. Occasionally, the NBA would pluck a top referee from the college ranks, but those guys can make more money than a first-year NBA ref so it was hard to convince them to leave their jobs. Kantner and Palmer appeared pretty much out of nowhere. It was obvious to me they were brought in to quell an unpleasant public relations and legal situation.
I remember calling a Utah Jazz game one night with Dee Kantner. Jazz coach Jerry Sloan had one of the foulest mouths in the NBA, and he was on Kantner throughout the game like white on rice. He would be yelling things like, “What the fuck are you fucking doing out there? You don’t know what the fuck you’re doing! That’s a