ABOA

WNBA or bust: NCAA, CIS leagues may only be whistle stops for pioneering referee

EDMONTON - Karen Lasuik did not start out with a lofty have-whistle-will-travel-the-world athletic dream.
She had no idea her passion and talent for basketball, her thick skin and officiating skill set would one day see her jetting all over the Pacific Northwest each weekend, earning hefty paycheques calling Division 1 NCAA women's games in front of thousands of people at university arenas in the basketball-mad United States. That's not to mention international assignments in places like Tunisia, Mexico, Puerto Rico and, next July, the Pan-American Games in Rio de Janeiro. She hopes to be assigned to the Beijing Summer Olympics in 2008.
Lasuik is one of 16 Canadians -- four of them women -- who are certified by FIBA, the international basketball federation. She's in elite company, literally. But Lasuik didn't start out with any ambition to be a pro basketball referee in the WNBA, although that's certainly her goal now. She was just a full-time schoolteacher and a pretty darn good ex-Red Deer College varsity ballplayer who was frustrated UP TO HERE, with the quality of officiating in the adult rec basketball league she played in. "So, do something about it," a friend suggested. "You seem to know what you're talking about."
Which is how she came to join the Edmonton Basketball Referees Association back in 1993. The rest is not merely history, but geography, arithmetic and phys ed all rolled into an impressive officiating career. She started at the junior high school level and swiftly moved up the ranks to Alberta Colleges Athletic Association games in 1996, then CIS (Canadian Inter-university Sport) men's and women's games in '99. She was good, as was apparent to Dana Senders, a basketball officials supervisor with the the NCAA Division 1 West Coast Conference, who met Lasuik at an officials seminar in Edmonton in the late '90s. "It's too bad that you live in Canada because I could really use you," Lasuik remembers Senders telling her. "I didn't think too much of it at the time because I didn't think it was realistic."
Turns out the pathway to the U.S. big time was hard, but not impossible. Lasuik had become FIBA-certified in '99, a professional classification that enabled her to qualify for a U.S. work visa three years ago, with the crucial and expensive help of an L.A.-based immigration lawyer. Anyway, once Lasuik jumped through the immigration hoops, her cross-border hoops career could begin, Lasuik explained during a rare weekend more-or-less off in Edmonton.

DEMANDING TRAVEL SCHEDULE
"This is the first weekend that I chose to stay home," Lasuik explained. "I am just thrilled to be in my own bed for a weekend. "I don't know how people can be professional officials and travel and travel and be at their home twice a month."
A visitor suggests that Lasuik knows the drill all too well. On a typical week, she will fly to the West Coast on Thursday morning to call a game at, say Santa Clara College, Steve Nash's alma mater, that evening. On Friday, it's off to Spokane to work a Division 2 game. On Saturday, she'll call a Gonzaga women's game at The Kennel -- home of the Bulldogs. Sunday she flies home to Edmonton to get ready to teach grade 7 to 9 at Blueberry Community School in Stony Plain. She also coaches the boys' Grade 9 basketball team and is the head evaluator for the Edmonton Basketball Referees Association.
"This is the first (season) that I'm going full bore at this, and I did not anticipate how worn out I'd be," Lasuik said, who keeps herself fit by working out, playing fastball, hockey and basketball and running marathons. "I try to make sure that I eat well and get a lot of sleep. But your patterns are so messed up when you're travelling. It's crazy."
The money is one incentive. Lasuik will work about 45 games in total, divided among the Big Sky, the West Coast and the Pac-10 -- all Divison 1 NCAA conferences -- this season. She earns $625 in the Big Sky, $675 in the West Coast and $900 in the Pac-10, where she expects to do about 10 games as a provisional referee, or trainee. That's compared to the $90 Cdn she earns for Canada West conference games, or the $65 she would be paid to work an ACAC game. There's college ball ... and then there's big-time college ball.
"The first time I refereed a Division 1 game, I was like, 'Oh, my God, these women play like men,' " Lasuik remembers of a Gonzaga game in Spokane. "They played harder than I had ever seen women play. Every game I do in the States, they beat the living tar out of each other. They make you (referees) make decisions. They'll knock each other down on the floor, they don't care. They're trying to make the WNBA is what they're trying to do."
So is Lasuik, who plans to attend a WNBA open tryout camp in Dallas next summer. Which means she'll have to demonstrate she can make those snap decisions consistently, as well as withstand the catcalls of the fans and the baiting from ultra-competitive Division 1 coaches. Lasuik heard several earfuls from one coach that first game back in 2004, and she knew it was coming. "They work rookies like rented mules, man," Lasuik said. "They know you're babies and they go after you like you wouldn't believe, trying to get a call out of you."

THICK SKIN A MUST
An evaluator of officials herself, Lasuik knows her work is painstakingly scrutinized in the States. There is only a slender margin for human error in her weekend job. "The cliche is that it's easier to get to Division 1 than to stay there," said Lasuik, who, like all NCAA officials is on a yearly contract. "You're really scrutinized closely. If you don't improve year by year, you won't last."
Which is where having a thick skin becomes crucial, not merely to survival, but to success. Staying cool and in control, she says, is as important as making the right calls. "You've got to believe in yourself," Lasuik said. "That's one of the toughest things to do, after you've made the right call and you've got the fans all over you, you've got the coach ripping you, you've got to go, 'You know what? You may not like it, but I know I made the right call and I know the tape is going to show it.' "If they know you're scared, they'll just go after you. But if you're not, they'll back off. I've learned that the hard way."
The feedback -- constructive and not-so constructive -- has helped sharpen her skills, which she hopes will be good enough to work in the WNBA. If she could land a pro contract, she could probably make a full-time career as a ref, between the pro league and the NCAA work she does.
For now, though, she juggles refereeing in four conferences in two countries with teaching, evaluating and a brutal travel schedule. "Sometimes, I'll come home and I'll go, 'Man, do I need this stress?' " Lasuik said. "I'm a perfectionist and if I'm not performing as well as I should be, if I'm not on top of my game, which can happen, I beat myself up for days. Why do I do this to myself? Because I love it. And it's not the money that I love. It's because I love doing what I do. I am so fortunate to be able to say, 'I ref Division 1 basketball in the United States.' I'm living a dream that I never really thought would come true."
jmackinnon@thejournal.canwest.com
© The Edmonton Journal 2007

Edmonton NRG Blog
By Chris O'Leary

It’s tough to imagine what what it’d be like having someone taunting me while I wrote. I can’t tell you how I’d handle writing a story with some guy screaming over my shoulder, “Hey Paperboy, your medium is dying!” “Nice lede, schmuck. My six-year-old writes better!” “You’ve got your theres and theirs mixed up, genius!”
I know. I missed my calling as a heckler.
I might work in the middle of music blaring, through fans screaming or jeering and a million different things happening at once in the games I’m covering, but it’s always been a comfort to me that I do so in obscurity. Everyone’s watching the game, right? The focus is off of me.

The referees live life on the other side of that coin. Every call they make is judged. If the fans agree with the call, it might receive nothing more than a head nod in the midst of a conversation. If they disagree, look out.
“You get used to it,” Edmonton lead official Jake Steinbrenner told me during halftime of Sunday night’s Energy game.
"The tough, controversial, end of game calls, that’s when people pay attention, that’s what everyone remembers.
“It’s something that we obviously train for. But I don’t think it’s a good thing that we continually allow people to rant at the officials so they can embarrass or ridicule us, because then everything becomes like pro wrestling grandstanding, or UFC bloodlust. We don’t need that in any sport. Venting emotions and gamesmanship though are fine and can sometimes add to the excitement and fun."

If you watch basketball in Edmonton, you’ve seen Steinbrenner in action before. The referee assignor for Energy games, the Alberta Basketball Officials Association Evaluation Chair and an IBL, CIS and Edmonton official, he’s been around the local hoops scene at every competitive level of the game and a few not-so-competitive levels, too.
He emailed me last week, with some criticisms of a previous blog post that talked about the Edmonton IBL officials. In the email, he laid out the refs’ responsibilities on the court in these games.

“Our role is to apply the rules consistently in their spirit and intent so that the integrity of the game is upheld. This means ensuring it is fair and impartial for both teams without influence from criticism from coaches, players or fans. Also, to keep the game safe for the players and to maintain a "family friendly" atmosphere for the IBL product, as mandated by the IBL’s owner Mikal Duilio. We also try to maintain the excitement and entertainment inherent in the pro game, which calls for different rule applications than in amateur contests.”

Duilio, who was cc’d on the email, chimed in shortly after with what was some surprising info, to me at least.
“I have sent 4 to 6 memos over the last two seasons describing the Edmonton referees as the standard for the way they call the game; instead of ignoring sportsmanship problems, the Edmonton referees deal with sportsmanship issues with robotic, professional warnings and technical fouls- they way it should be done… I have sent at least 4 memos, at least… one went out about a week ago...”

And from that most recent memo:
“Edmonton is one of the few areas where they call the technical fouls correctly---robotically--- if a team does X, the referees penalize with Y (no emotion, no caring, just warnings and technicals)… Edmonton referees issue technicals when they are there, they do not ignore or ‘rise above’ because they care about keeping sportsmanship rules in place at all times and that is actually how it should be done everywhere… all of our referees are being asked to call the technical fouls as outlined in every rule book and in our rule book as well...”

Like I said in my previous post about the refs, I know that the Bellingham coaching staff was more than pleased with the jobs the refs did over their weekend in Edmonton at the beginning of May, and that Steinbrenner had good feedback from Tacoma coach Mark Lovelady prior to Sunday’s game. And while it’s true that I’ve heard harsh criticisms of the refs from both benches this season at MacEwan gym, those criticisms have come in the heat of the moment or immediately after a game. Duilio pointed this out to me in his email and even threw in a story of Edmonton refs T’ing him up when he was in town last year with his Oregon team:
“My team came up from Oregon last year and we got 3 technical fouls and all 3 were easily deserved… I wanted to win badly and not only did I agree with the 3 technical fouls but as a 15 year officiating veteran, I loved their calls as well, even though we did not win either game.”

Pre-game this past weekend, Paul Sir was appreciative for the most part of the work the Edmonton officials had done this year. It seems like whenever you talk with basketball folk before a game, you get a more neutral feeling on their impressions of the ref’s overall work.
From the time I started covering the Chill last year, I wondered if there were transitional issues for the refs going from calling CIS games to the IBL. Steinbrenner told me that’s not where the job gets hard.
“I don’t think it’s all that tough,” he said. “It might be tougher during the regular season. To do a CIS game, then Monday night a Division 6 men’s league game or a junior varsity high school game, that’s what’s tough.
“At least (from CIS to IBL) you’re comparing elite athletes. We let way more contact go here in the IBL because the key is to get to this (offensive) end of the court, where the fans want to see scoring. We don’t have to worry about calling fouls that we’d normally call at CIS. There and at developmental levels it’s about teaching fundamental skills and things like that. Here, we expect everyone to have those skills.”

Chris Oleary Blog June 23, 09

Referee still keeps up with the kids at age 75

Bob Sexsmith's love for basketball has had him running the court for more than half a century
Cam Tait, The Edmonton Journal
Tuesday, July 03, 2007

When you see Bob Sexsmith walk into a school gymnasium, you would assume he's a grandfather about to take in a basketball game.
And you'd be right. But there's more.
Sexsmith, at the young age of 75, heads to a change room and puts on his referee shirt and shorts -- something he's been doing since 1956.
"When I can't keep up with the kids anymore, then it's time to quit," Sexsmith says, sitting on an old wooden bench at Venron Barford School during the Great Canadian Shoot Out tournament. The 24-team event saw junior high and high school players compete.
"I have a responsibility to the teams on the floor. And if I can't do a good job, then it's time for me to go."
But there are no signs of him slowing down. It's the beginning of July, and since January, Sexsmith has called close to 80 games.
"It's funny because I've never kept track of how many games I've actually done," he says. "But I know I've never done more than 120 in a year."
Sexsmith, the father of Global television reporter and anchor John Sexsmith, said he's healthy -- physically and mentally.
He officiates mainly junior high games throughout the city.
"I'm retired, so I can get to a 4 p.m. game, and other people who are working have trouble getting to a game that early," he says. "And in junior high, I know I can keep up to the game."
He does have arthritis in his hands. "But that doesn't keep me off the floor," Sexsmith says.
There was a time last winter when his arthritis was so bad almost every joint in his body ached. But it has since cleared up and he's back on the courts.
Sexsmith's love for basketball began while growing up in Winnipeg. He didn't start playing until Grade 9, though, and didn't play for very long after.
"One of my teachers started a house league at the YMCA in Winnipeg and asked me if I would like to ref," he recalls.
Sexsmith answered the challenge. Shortly after, he was asked to help with another league, and his 50 years as a ref were well underway.

Sexsmith later joined the Manitoba Basketball Association, where he was assigned to high school senior men's games, as well as college and university games.
In 1970 Sexsmith moved west to Edmonton because of a transfer on his day job with CIL (now Celanese Canada).
In the move he also packed along his stripes and whistle and started reffing for the University of Alberta Golden Bears.
Calling games at the university level in Edmonton led Sexsmith to several larger tournaments, including the national junior men's championship in Edmonton.
He's not infallable, though. He's heard the insults from the crowd over the years. He's withstood many heated words from coaches caught up in the moment. But he sees it all in perspective.
"They may be abusing you as an official," he says. "But they're not abusing you as a person."
Sexsmith continued running up and down floors of gymnasiums until 1985.
"I had some trouble with my back so I had to quit," he says.
But he didn't quit the game. Sexsmith turned his focus to evaluating and supervising officials.
When April 1995 rolled around, Sexsmith retired from his job and allowed his back to heal. In a short time he was back on the court again.

Over the years he has received many awards for his contribution. He's most proud of the Wink Willox Award he got in 1994 in Calgary for outstanding contributions made to basketball officiating.
Sexsmith wouldn't have been able to continue for so long without support from loved ones, including his wife of 49 years, Vera.
"Spouses and significant others sacrifice a lot so people like me can officiate," he says. "They prepare meals outside of the supper hour because that's when the games are. And they often go to functions by themselves because you've made a commitment to call a game."
So how many more games are left in Sexsmith?
He isn't sure.
"I know there will be lots of people telling me when I shouldn't be doing games anymore," he says with a chuckle.
"I just hope I know to quit before that."
ctait@thejournal.canwest.com
© The Edmonton Journal 2007