Tuesday, October 7th, 2008

College basketball referee at the top of his game

Steve Welmer has officiated 27 season at the Division I level

Welmer’s lenient refereeing style has some players and coaches thankful, and others turning the other way.

By B.J. Rains (Contact)

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008

It is barely five o’ clock on a cold January morning and Steve Welmer is already in his rental car in the small college town of Bloomington, Ind. Welmer is on his way to the airport, needing to catch the first flight so he can arrive in Lawrence by late-morning.

Welmer is refereeing ESPN’s Big Monday game between the Kansas Jayhawks and Oklahoma Sooners that night.

While most men his age are watching the game from their easy chair, the 57-year-old Welmer stands at center court, his outstretched arm holding the ball nine feet in the air as he prepares to throw the jump. As one of his trademarks, he holds the ball high with his right hand before pushing it up another four feet into the air to start the game. Sophomore forward Darrell Arthur wins the tip for Kansas and another night of basketball is underway.

While surveying the action in the paint, Welmer reaches down and tugs his pants, first pulling them up in the back before giving them a pull in the front. It’s something that he does almost every time down the floor, a habit that along with his balding head and 6-foot-10-inch, 240-pound frame, makes him one of the most recognizable referees in college basketball.

After running up and down the court for two hours with players less than half his age and hearing few complaints from players, coaches and fans, Welmer grabs some chicken strips from a drive-thru, heads back to his hotel and goes to bed. He must wake up in five hours to head back to the airport, this time heading to Denver to referee the Colorado-Nebraska game the next night.

From November through March, it’s a nomadic life with a rigorous daily routine for one of the most respected officials in the business. Though he works more games each season than any other referee, Welmer’s seasons have all ended short of the goal that everyone in college basketball shares. While he looks forward to relaxing and playing golf near his Florida home, he would rather work at least one more week and get to call a game at his first Final Four.

Setting the schedule

After completing his 27th season of officiating at the Division I level, Welmer is a popular choice of conference coordinators, who battle to have him officiate as many of their games as possible. The result for Welmer was a schedule that featured 124 games this past season—more than any referee in the United States. It was the 14th consecutive year that Welmer led all division one referees in games officiated, something he said he took great pride in.

Coordinators for 10 conferences, including the Big 10, Big 12, Conference USA, Mountain West, Western Athletic Conference, Sun Belt, Horizon and Missouri Valley Conference, send Welmer a tentative schedule of games every August for the upcoming season. Welmer then arranges the schedules on a master calendar with a U.S. map to plan his season.

Welmer looks for locations that let him ref a cluster of games in the same area. Once he decides which games he can work, he sends the list back to the conference coordinators so they can offer the other games to other officials.

Welmer employs his wife Linda, a retired Northwest Airlines ticket agent, to make all of his hotel, airfare and rental car reservations.

“He never has a round trip,” Linda said. “He’s always going from one game site to another. It’s difficult. I get on three or four or five sites to get the best fares for him.”

Welmer is paid $1,000 per game plus $200 for expenses and is compensated for the cost of round-trip coach airfare. Because Welmer goes straight from one city to the next, he can collect extra money from the airfare and ends up making more than the $1,000 per game fee.

Because referees are independent contractors, they receive no benefits such as health insurance, social security or a retirement fund and must pay for those expenses out of their own pocket.

“All of us have pretty good accountants,” Welmer said. “Our tax return last year was 52 pages long. It’s something that I would no more attempt to do than try to fly a jet airplane.”

Where it all began

Welmer’s interest in officiating began in the late 1960s while playing high school basketball for the Bulldogs at Columbus North High School, formerly known as Columbus Senior High, in Columbus, Ind. During Welmer’s senior season, the Bulldogs went 23-3 thanks in large part to his team-high 18 points and 14 rebounds a game. When Welmer and his teammates weren’t practicing or playing, they were refereeing junior high games on Saturday mornings.

Columbus High coach Bill Stearman had them referee to get some exercise and sharpen their knowledge of the rules. Welmer liked officiating so much that when he went to the University of Evansville in Evansville, Ind., to play basketball, he refereed intramural games two nights a week for $5 a game.

During his freshman year at Evansville, Welmer finished fifth in the country with a 29.7 points per game average. In his junior year, he led Evansville to the 1971 NCAA Division II National Championship with 19.7 points and 12.6 rebounds per game.

“It wasn’t quite like playing at UCLA, but when you played at the University of Evansville in division two back then, everywhere we went people hated us,” Welmer said. “If a Division II school beat Evansville, their season had been successful.”

Welmer, who shares being a member of the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame with Larry Bird and Oscar Robertson, among others, scored more than 1,000 points in his college career and ranks eighth in Evansville’s history with 8.2 rebounds per game. He was inducted into the Evansville Hall of Fame in 1986 and held the school’s single game and career field goal record for 19 years.

After graduation, Welmer played two years in the International Basketball League before working with his father at a beer distributing company. During his spare time, he made extra money by refereeing high school games, including three state finals by age 34.

“It was a way to stay around the game and make a few extra bucks,” Welmer said. “Low and behold, it just grew to what it is now.”

Welmer worked his first Division I game in 1981 at the University of Dayton and began what would become a life-long career as one of the top officials in the business.

The daily grind

Welmer’s schedule is arguably as busy as any referee in the history of officiating, working 124 games in 145 days during this past season. Welmer called games 16 days in a row early in the season, took two days off, then worked another 16 days in a row. Welmer officiated 32 games in 34 days leading up to Christmas break.

After three days to spend the holidays with his family, Welmer then began another string of 15 consecutive games.

“They call me kind of a freak,” Welmer said, referring to his frantic schedule.

Welmer has a daily routine he must follow to arrive at the next game on time and be rested enough to run up and down the court with well-conditioned college athletes.

He wakes up each morning at 4:30 or 5 to catch the first flight out of town to get to his next city.

“I’ve found out in all of my travels that if you run into bad weather, usually the planes that go out first thing in the morning are always there from the night before,” Welmer said. “That flight’s going to go.”

When Welmer arrives in the city of his next game by late morning, he grabs a bowl of soup for lunch at the airport, checks into his hotel, turns off his cell phone and climbs into bed for an afternoon nap. Welmer said he took a two to three hour nap every day.

After awakening from his siesta, Welmer showers, shaves and meets fellow officials for the drive to the arena. After the game, Welmer returns to the hotel and munches on a light meal.

“I’m not a real big eater,” Welmer said. “I can’t eat right before a game or right after a game.”

Welmer climbs into bed between 11 and 12 and the process begins again the next morning when he hears the alarm clock a mere five hours later.

Despite being away from home for long periods at a time, Welmer never goes more than two weeks without seeing his wife. If he can’t make it home, Linda travels to see her husband so that she can ease his muscles with a massage orto do his laundry.

At home she watches every game that her husband referees on TV.

“I’m very independent,” Linda said. “I have to be.”

When is enough enough?

Though Welmer has his daily schedule down to a science, some coaches express concern that as more referees such as Welmer make officiating their full-time job, the referees may be officiating too many games.

Some coaches worry referees are too fatigued to work games on consecutive days or don’t have enough time to study game film of themselves to improve their performance.

“All coaches will say that officials work too much,” Kansas coach Bill Self said.

Referees have no limit to the number of games they may work each week. Because referees are paid by the game, those who consider it their career cram as many games into their schedule as possible to make more money.

“We have no control over the number of games in they referee,” said Dale Kelly, coordinator of officials for the Big 12, Conference USA, Southland, Sunbelt and Ohio Valley conferences. “I’m going to take the most experienced guys who are available.”

ESPN analyst and former Notre Dame basketball coach Digger Phelps said, “I don’t think they should work five games a week. I know I’m tired traveling three days a week, I don’t know how these guys can work five games in a week. I think it really wears them down.”

Former Indiana and Texas Tech coach Bobby Knight, known for his clashes with referees, said in his recent book, “Knight: My Story,” that referees were becoming overworked.

“There’s no way a guy over 30 can just physically work six games a week well, and here we’re talking about guys who are over forty and fifty,” Knight wrote. “It’s ridiculous that the NCAA doesn’t step in and say the maximum number of games anybody can work in a week is three, and even that’s one too many. Except for conference tournaments, teams play only two games a week, and that’s kids 20 years old in excellent condition with substitutes available.”

While conferences said that they didn’t have enough money to pay officials as full-time employees, critics argued that the NCAA—with its $6 billion contract over 11 years with CBS for the NCAA Tournament every March—has plenty of money to bring officials under one roof and limit the number of games they can work.

“The money is there, the NCAA has the money,” Phelps said. “I mean $6 billion over 11 years and you can’t pay your officials? It has to come down to where these guys should not work more than three games a week.”

Legendary referee Ed Hightower, who has worked 12 Final Four tournaments and officiated the championship game between Kansas and Memphis a couple of weeks ago, has a full-time job as superintendent of the Edwardsville, Ill., school district. He works three to four games each week as a part-time official for the Big 10, Big 12 and Big East conferences and said a referee should not be judged only by the number of games he worked.

“You have to look at each person’s performance and if that person’s performance is lacking, then you have a reason to criticize him,” Hightower said. “Certainly if he’s working too much, coaches will have a lot to say about it at the end of the season.”

Full-time referees such as Welmer argue that their schedules allow plenty of time to rest between games. “I don’t think I ever go onto the court with anything less than a full tank,” Welmer said.

“Players practice every day for two to three hours and they have to go to class and watch film and so forth. I get a two or three or four hour nap every day. I can sleep on airplanes,” he said. “I feel as good right now as I did in the first of November.”

Everybody loves Steve

Welmer is popular in the college basketball world, both as a referee and a person.

“Everybody loves Steve Welmer,” Hightower said.

Asked to name his favorite ref, Kansas senior Jeremy Case knew his answer without hesitation.

“Big Steve, for sure,” Case said. “He’s cool and funny, and for some reason, I always feel like he makes the right call, whether it is for us or against us.”

Welmer has a reputation for not calling many fouls, perhaps because he is one of the few refs who played college basketball. Instead of calling an illegal screen or a touch foul, Welmer may tell players what they are doing wrong and help them learn what is and isn’t allowed.

Coaches rarely confront Welmer about questionable calls, but Hightower said he remembered one instance when the two worked together during a preseason game.

A Division II team was playing at a Division I opponent when Welmer made a highly questionable call that Hightower and the third referee didn’t agree with. The Division II coach was livid.

“Steve made the call and the other referee and I just looked at each other and go, ‘Holy cow, how is he going to get himself out of this one?’” Hightower said.

When the Division II coach began to argue, a full time-out was called that allowed the coach even more time to let Welmer know his frustration for the call. By the end of the time-out, Welmer somehow had the coach laughing, Hightower said.

“Had it been one of us, we would have had to give this guy a technical foul and throw him out,” Hightower said. “But nobody gets mad at Steve Welmer. This is one of the worst calls in America and we said, ‘Let’s just see how he gets out if it.’ By the end of the time-out, the coach is laughing and everything is great.”

While other referees refrain from initiating conversations with players or coaches during games, Welmer often chats with players from both teams during a break in the action.

“When the kids come out on the floor and they see that I’ve got the game, they will come up and shake my hand and put their arm around me,” Welmer said. “They know that when they see Steve Welmer, for the most part they are going to get to play basketball that day and not have to worry about little touch fouls and so forth.”

Hightower has also developed a relationship with Welmer beyond the court. “Steve Welmer and I are absolute best of friends; we have been friends for years. My youngest daughter Jennifer calls him Uncle Steve,” he said.

Even coaches known for their tempers are fond of him. Welmer recalled a golf outing years ago when he was paired in a foursome with Bobby Knight. The two were teeing off and Knight hit a shot headed straight for the bunker. As Knight turned away in disgust, Welmer watched as the ball bounced out of the bunker and back onto the fairway. Welmer never forgot Knight’s response when he told him that his shot had in fact bounced back into play.

“Welmer,” Knight said, “it just amazes me that you can see a golf ball trickle out of a sand trap at 250 yards, and you can’t see one damn travel call right in front of you.”

The elusive goal

Despite being popular with players and coaches, Welmer has never received the phone call that all referees wait to get.

The 34-year officiating veteran has never been chosen by the NCAA to work the sport’s biggest spectacle, the Final Four.

“It’s just never happened,” Welmer said. “I’ve had numerous regional championships where the winner went to the Final Four, but never a Final Four. Would I like for it to happen? Obviously, I’d like for that to be a part of my career.”

Welmer knows his style of officiating, which players like, doesn’t sit well with everyone.

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” Welmer said. “I am kind of known for letting them play a little bit. I try to work with the kids a little bit and try to referee where we don’t call as many things. I’m not sure how well suited that is for the NCAA.”

Kelly, the Big 12 coordinator, said “I think there’s probably been some comments along those lines from people who observe NCAA tournament games, that maybe he didn’t call as many fouls or violations as some other officials, but during the games that he referees for me, Steve does a good job.”

Kelly also assigns more games to officials than any other coordinator. “Steve is certainly capable of working the Final Four. He is one of several who I hope would get that opportunity. It’s a real plum for officials, just like players, to get to the Final Four,” he said.

Bill Self, who, until winning the championship with Kansas had never reached the Final Four, called it “a shame” that the lovable referee had never worked the sport’s greatest weekend.

Hightower also hopes Welmer can accomplish his goal. “I’m hoping that someday he gets his Final Four. We’ll all be happy for him when it happens,” he said.

Time is running out for Welmer, who plans to referee three or four more years before hanging up his stripes and whistle. Though he may go down as one of the most well-liked officials ever, Welmer hopes the final chapter in his storybook career has yet to be written.

— Edited by Matt Hirschfeld

Discussion

All comments are moderated by Kansan.com staff. For our full user policy, click here.

111 Stauffer-Flint Hall • 1435 Jayhawk Blvd. • Lawrence, Kansas 66045 • (785) 864-4810