Advantage Disadvantage Read online

  Several seasons followed. By then, IIAA required attendance at a camp at least one out of every three years for all officials. An assignment chairperson, who had worked Big Ten and other D1 college games, observed Billy at a certain camp. At halftime of one of the games, Billy listened to some very confusing advice:

  “Billy, everything you called was correct by the rule book. As far as I know, you did not miss a call.”

  Rechter felt great hearing this compliment. He prided himself on knowing the rulebook cover to cover.

  “But”, continued the observer, “you ruined the first half.”

  He went on to explain this philosophy of officiating. First, any time the referee blows the whistle he is interrupting the game. If a referee was going to stop the play and spoil the game’s flow, it was insufficient to do so unless the offender was gaining an undeserved advantage or was forcing his opponent into an unfair disadvantage. Experienced officials, he explained, often developed the judgment to exercise advantage/disadvantage logic on the fly during the game. In other words, often the spirit of rulebook should trump the letter of the law. Parents generally did not understand this principal, particularly when their son’s opponent avoided penalty for a touch foul. As an example, many varsity officials would not call three-second violations in the lane unless the ball moved to that player. Some camp observers called this a “perfect late call”.

  Not subscribing to this understanding, many parents screamed at the top of their lungs, “One, Two, Three, Four, Five. What are you guys are looking at? Three-second violation! Can’t you count?”

  Experienced officials believed that freshman games were often tougher to call because the lower skill level meant more advantage/disadvantage decisions. Too many of these games turned into free throw shootouts, doubling the clock time to complete the game. The learning curve of good basketball officiating was long and those lucky enough to be mentored at a good camp or by their association elders often advanced past others.

  ***

  Over the years, William “Billy” Rechter became more and more committed to the avocation of basketball refereeing. He had demonstrated great judgment and was progressing toward an all-varsity schedule and state playoff assignments. During this period, the real estate market collapsed because of the sub-prime mortgage problems. Housing was overpriced and the bubble burst. Billy’s business contracted significantly. Against his elite attitude about officiating as a challenging avocation (not for income), he began working summer ball for pay, along with men’s leagues and park district boy’s games. Coming full circle, he was an “officiating whore”.

  Detective T.J. Battle, the NAU coach, called Rechter one summer day, “Billy, I’ve got a game that’s tailored to you. It’s in Garfield Park tomorrow in the city.”

  “T.J., you know I go anywhere. However, why would you send a white boy like me to Garfield Park? Are you trying to get me killed?”

  “Look Billy, they want you assigned to this game because you are white. We started the Chicago Neighborhood Police summer basketball league this year to foster a dialogue between gang members and the police. Each participant has signed a pledge for no “crippin’” in the park. Yes, these young men are gang bangers, but this is a sanctioned wholesome activity. The game tomorrow will have a couple hundred spectators and we want to go out of our way to have the game called in a fair, unbiased manner. I thought of you right away, you are an honest, excellent official and impartial – you do not know these guys in the city. These young men deserve you for this game. The league provides a way for the police to start a dialogue with them. Whadda ya think?”

  “I don’t think so. Battle, you are trying to have me hurt.”

  “Billy, the game pays $100 for a one hour contest. How much do you make for a suburban varsity game?”

  “You know we get paid $54 bucks per game, varsity pay. Are you going to be there, T.J.?”

  “No I can’t. Another guy from the Garfield Park precinct will be there. We have been assured by high level veteranos that there will be no crippin’. When you pull up in the parking lot 2 guys will meet you and escort you to the courts. I will not be there, but we also have undercover cops to look after you. You must owe me a favor from somewhere. C’mon?”

  Billy never wanted to back down from a challenge and he needed all the money he could get. He pulled up to the park dressed in workout shorts and his striped shirt. Two huge, heavily tattooed guys walked up to the car. They greeted him and reaffirmed that no matter how the game went, or however his calls were perceived, there would be no crippin’ against him. After the game, they would pay him and escort him to his car. Each guy represented a different city gang. Billy was scared to death. Pre-game jitters, perhaps. Garfield Park was the near west center of serious summer basketball in Chicago. The cement main court held up well without cracks. Backboards were free from graffiti. A ten-foot tall chain fence enclosed the court. The park had a terrific blend of odors from the spectators’ barbeques. Outside the fence were several bleachers, all full.

  Billy looked around the park. He heard music blaring from the nearby pavilion. He wished he could detour over to the smoke-belching Weber grills to grab a hot link, or maybe quench his thirst by securing a beer out of the thirty three-gallon barrel filled with ice and aluminum cans. Putting his primal needs aside, he had work to do. Rechter decided to talk to the team managers at half court (as a high school captains’ meeting) before the game started. These were older guys, maybe team sponsors, but not players. Would they be receptive to any pre-game admonitions?

  Billy started to set down his expectations as he had done in so many high school games, “Gentleman, I am a high school basketball official. I am most familiar with National Federation Rules compared to the NCAA or NBA. If you want any exceptions to the rules, now is the time to bring those up. I am looking for things that matter in this game, not incidental stuff that has no…”

  One of the manager’s phones started to ring. He dug it out of his pocket and answered, “Bobby G. here. ‘Sup?... ok, ok … 10 dimes this game? Tell him it’s a wager.”

  He smiled and put the phone back in his pocket.

  Billy said, “Did you just bet a hundred dollars on this game?”

  “No hommie”, he laughed, “Ten thousand, my man.”

  Without another word, Billy took-off running through the opening in the court’s fence toward his car. The two gangbanger “escorts” tried to catch him. As he started his car engine, the gangbangers yelled,

  “C’mon you sissy mother fucker. You’ve got work to do!”

  “I’m not working a game where players are betting thousands of dollars. Not for a hundred bucks, not for a thousand bucks. Screw you.”

  Billy drove-off as they banged on the side of his car.

  Chapter Ten. St. Marlin’s High School

  The end of the school year brought only temporary relief to most high school athletes. After a short hiatus between the end of May and the first week in June, players participated in camps as summer temperatures heated up. These gyms, especially the ancient buildings, felt like adobe ovens in the Arizona wasteland. St. Marlin’s Church construction completed in 1865 on Chicago’s near south side and its parishioners rarely ever remodeled the facilities.

  The church supported a first grade through high school curriculum. The gym, like other facilities built back long ago, was on the second floor above the classrooms. This church’s structure was a beautiful facility with a modest gym. The neighborhood began as a German-Irish settlement, adding a post-WWII Polish wave, followed by Hispanic (mostly Mexican), and finally populated by predominantly black families. Despite the neighborhood demographics, the school was predominately white. Its credentials for college preparation were outstanding and most students hailed from outside a one-mile radius were legacies who could afford parochial tuition.

  The coach at St. Marlin High School was well known around Chicago for developing basketball players. He had been a teacher and coach for over twe
nty years and he earned a great amount of respect for his early successes. Pressure to win came from parents and alumni alike. The advantage of coaching in a Catholic school was the so-called “boundary-less” territory of potential students.

  Chicago public schools also had open enrollments. Those who lived in Chicago could attend any of the public high schools with the exception of the Magnet Campuses. A student must have passed stringent tests to attend the academically oriented magnet schools. This open enrollment policy in the regular schools had fostered dynasties of dominant high school teams. Westinghouse, King, and Farragut were examples where top players migrated to winning programs and better coaching. Commuting was no problem; they took the Chicago Transit Authority buses and trains.

  Catholic schools also had admissions exams, but often waived requirements for athletes, legacies, and special parishioners. The range of students at St. Marlin was limited only by practical commuting times to and from the school. Many parochial schools, like St. Marlin, had bus service from the suburban commuter rail lines making it safer to attend the school.

  The St. Marlin basketball coach craved a return to his earlier successes. Recruiting middle school players was both subtle and overt by the St. Marlin staff. Well-attended summer camps, with liberal fee waivers for talented inner city players, provided the venue to encourage enrollment. The St. Marlin high school players were camp counselors and the youngsters looked up to them. Counselors gave the middle school players T-shirts with the school’s colors and logo. All campers participated as special guests of St. Marlin during the regular season at a non-conference game, normally a game against a patsy team to make the best impression.

  Desperate and aggressive coaches went further. They disparaged the Chicago and suburban schools as inadequate college preparation. They emphasized the dangers and crime statistics of public schools. Some, like the St. Marlin coach, went even further. They would engage in activity clearly illegal in IIAA’s bylaws. The St. Marlin coach decided to use the services of a street agent to encourage some of these urban kids to play for him. Bobby G. promised that he could influence the single mom parents of two talented players to attend St. Marlin. This would cost the coach $1,000 for each player to ensure that these boys would attend his summer camp. This was a good investment – these kids could really make a difference to St. Marlin’s program. Bobby G. paid the moms $300 each to enroll their boys in this program. He kept $1,400 – the rest of the coach’s bribe money. Raising the money was no object for the coach because he used the St Marlin’s Athletic Booster Fund, which was abundant and available to the coach.

  The coach arranged with Bobby G. to pay him in the parking lot before one of the summer league games at St. Marlin. He approached Bobby G.’s BMW as he rolled into the school’s lot.

  Chapter Eleven. The Windy City Daily

  Ronnie Edelman grew up as a “nice Jewish boy” in the southeast side Pill Hill neighborhood before his parents moved to the northern suburbs. As a high school freshman, his mother forbade him from trying out for the no-cut football team. Her approved list of acceptable sports included the country club offerings of swimming, tennis, golf, chess, speech team and cross-country. Because he was beaned on the helmet in little league, Ronnie was not even allowed to play on the baseball team for the high school. He was over-protected, but not neglected – a mama’s boy.

  He developed a knack for poetry and writing, and ultimately became the editor-in-chief of his high school’s newspaper. He was the ghostwriter for a campy column that tackled edgy issues. Only the sponsoring teacher knew that he was the author. He wrote feature articles that discussed sensitive issues such as attitudes about sex or drug usage in the school. He minimized the paper’s coverage of the school’s competitive sports teams, forcing the rest of the staff to cover topics that were more serious.

  His credentials were just enough to compensate for low SAT scores. He applied to the best universities in the country and was summarily rejected one-by-one. His father, Dr. Aaron Edelman, pushed and cajoled the admission officers at nearby, Northwestern University. They had a top-notch journalism curriculum and it was job number one to get Ronnie accepted. His dad was a legacy and a major contributor. What a collective sigh of relief when his acceptance and enrollment package arrived.

  Ronnie found that he was in a different league at Northwestern. Every student seemed to be brighter than he was. He struggled through required statistics and math classes, while excelling at rhetoric and literature assignments. Every year he tried to join the school newspaper’s staff. The closest he got to working for the esteemed “Wildcat Gazette” was laboring on the production crew. At first, he enjoyed designing newspaper layouts and putting together the look of each daily run, but he yearned to write. He took non-major classes to try to increase his skill level and bolster his resume: economics, business law, criminal forensics, psychology and film review. When Ronnie graduated, he found the job market for an average journalism student, albeit from Northwestern, a tough nut to crack. He sent out untold letters, resumes, and attention getting boxes and tubes, which he mailed out without the courtesy of return rejection letters. Once again, Dr. Edelman swung into action. He had been on the Board of Directors at a prominent Chicago charity.

  Editor Nancy Kapist had participated on this board since she moved to the city. Her husband had a high-powered executive job, which entailed a globetrotting schedule. The Kapists were not interested in starting a family. She joined the charity because she had so much free time while he was gone and she wanted to meet the “right crowd” in Chicago.

  Nancy worked her way from the ground up in the publishing business starting as a copy checker at a New York-based magazine. She crossed over into the newspaper racquet when she began writing a very successful countrywide syndicated advice column. She also demonstrated her business aptitude and began a rotation of jobs through each department in the Big Apple. Despite her contributions, the good old boy’s network in New York cast a glass ceiling on top of her advancement.

  The Windy City Daily hired Nancy as the general manager and chief editor to revitalize the once-dominant paper. Her husband supported her desire to excel in her career – he was gone most of the time and he could travel out of any major city. She had the unbridled support of the publisher and the other board of directors’ support to make any changes necessary to increase circulation. Besides being a talented newswoman, she was shrewd and physically, attractive. Nancy was slender and had a medium length well-coifed hairstyle that befitted her pretty face.

  Dr. Edelman called in his markers with Nancy after one of the charity meetings.

  “Nancy, can you help me with something?”

  “What can I do for you, Dr. Edelman?”

  “I think my son needs help in landing a newspaper job. As you know, it is a tough market with shrinking publications because of the internet. Everyone asks him for experience, but no one will give him his first opportunity.”

  “Where did he go to school?”

  “He just graduated from Northwestern, but he’s not even getting an interview.”

  “Well, Doc. He certainly has great credentials but I do not know what openings we have. Have him fill out an online application and I will look at it. Without talking to the department heads, I can’t promise anything.”

  “It means a lot to me for you to even consider him. If you interview him, please don’t tell him we talked about this.”

  Nancy was an astute politician. Dr. Edelman was an influential socialite in Chicago’s elite crowd. People liked him because he travelled in the right circles and was helpful to know for career, charity and social purposes. She wanted to please the doctor by helping Ronnie. After polling all of the departments, she found a place for Ronnie and brought him in for an interview.

  “Your course work is very impressive,” she said to the young man. “We have many successful writers who began this craft at Northwestern. Here at the Windy City Daily, they all started at the bottom. What kin
d of reporting are you interested in?”

  First on his list was crime desk reporting, followed by business, and then politics. After attracting no job prospects since graduating, he avoided disclosing his preferences, and simply said, “I just want to learn the newspaper business and begin authoring columns”.

  “As the general manager, I try to match people’s goals and newspaper needs. We have one spot for you. Let me warn you – despite your Blue Chip education - you start like everyone else, near the bottom. We look for immediate contribution and constant improvement. If you accept this assignment, plan to work long hours, unglamorous locations, and little recognition. You are not going to make much money in this business – at least not right away. You need to let me know by tomorrow.”

  Ronnie hid his disappointment from Nancy and took the commuter train home to his parents’ house. When they came home, he told them he had news.

  “I was offered a reporter’s job today with the Windy City Daily.”

  “That’s a dream come true, Ronnie. I am so proud of you. Tell us about it,” said his mother.

  “The paper is prestigious. It is a great place to develop skills and credentials. I need to accept the job tomorrow or the offer is rescinded, but I’m not sure I will.”

  Dr. Edelman was puzzled. “You dreamed of working for a major publication. They offered a job to you better than the college newspaper assignments that you tried to obtain. You do not have any other jobs. What are you thinking?”

  “The pay is low. I’m starting out at the bottom, and she made it clear that it would take some time before I made decent money.”

  “Isn’t that true of nearly all entry-level newspaper jobs?” asked Dr. Edelman.

  “Yeah, but it’s in the sports department. That is the negative. I never played any sports, and I’m not very interested in athletics.”

  Dr. Edelman was becoming agitated. “It seems like it’s so hard to get in at these big papers, why aren’t you viewing this job as a potential stepping stone?”