Thursday, July 11, Hour 2

GUEST: Rick McGee & BJ Fogltance, High School Football Officials

Episode Transcript

(00:03):
Streaming live on the iHeart Radio app. This is I on the Ball with
Steve Rama and Jay Gonzalez on FoxSports fourteenth fifty. Hey, welcome back
to I on the Ball here Foxs wats fateen fifty. I'm Steve,
He'sjay. Now we have Ryan lebrickingy. This is I on the Ball
breaking news on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. Start a little a little bit of

(00:27):
you you let me try it again. Let's start with the University of Arizona
news with soccer women's soccer. Theyannounced their twenty twenty four non comfort schedule
today and I guess the conference schedulereleased were released back in April. But
they start their acthibition game August seventhagainst UNLV and then August fifteenth they'll take

(00:53):
on Grand Canyon for regular season andthen their home opener is on eighteenth versus
Pacific. That is so her thisearly. So so this is moros third
thirty year, third season, fourthseason, third season or fourth season.
I think it could be third.We've had around a couple of times,
so I thinking this would be athird. Very smart woman of the tough,
tough coach. We'll see how thisgoes. Year number three because they

(01:15):
were good. They were good whenthe former coach left right and they had
to change a new style, changeto her style. He was they were
good enough that he got a jobat Florida and then he got fired there.
Yeah. So twenty one, Ah, this is her fourth year,
fourth year, Well, okay,time flies, Yeah, it does,
it does. So it's it's beena little bit of a struggle for her.

(01:38):
So does have her schedule, haveher record? It doesn't, Okay,
because she's she's gotten better and they'vebeen more competitive, but they were.
They were very competitive before she gothere. Yeah, they were now.
Yeah, I don't know what totell you. They don't have her
record lest they're coming off the sixeight five season rush. Is that what

(02:00):
it was? Okay? And thenthey were eight seven and three the year
before that, and then the yearbefore that. I don't see it.
Sorry, Yeah, I think theconference will be better for them. Yeah,
yeah, you know, little facedown for a little conference, A
big twelve conference, all right.T mac wide receiver for University Arizona.

(02:27):
He's been named are they Walter CampPreseason All American. It's the first time
since twenty eighteen. Went running backJ. J. Taylor was named to
the thirteen that they've got a preseasonAll American Walter camp yep, so he's
named. He's named that a fewspots in the fact I are you know
in the press release they did includeone and it was Lindy's. So Anthony

(02:49):
and I posted it in Lindy andthen Anthony's says to me, don't forget
Lindy's a good, good call,Anthony, I wrote a little a little
betting column for Call Dig Lindy's justhow could that be? Five year trends
of on college football teams, youknow, five year trends of who covers
and who It's actually pretty interesting.Yeah. The teams that you think cover

(03:14):
don't Yeah. Sure. And theteams that are the best against the spread,
who never even think of it?Well, it's probably because the people
go with the with the teams theyknow which are the name teams, and
they're not good and they're not good. If I followed that thing a little
more, I do better. Yeah, you're gonna find out how to do
this thing, you know what?I you know what, I need to
call that up whenever when we startdoing our our contest again. I won't

(03:37):
tell you what to do, butI like it. You know. A
funny thing speaking of that, we'retalking you know, just guys, I'm
talking to this whole rating stuff thatthat E Sports put out. There's actually
people are going to use that twoyou know, make just to pick games

(04:00):
and stuff like that because of theseratings that they because the feeling is that
the sports came out with you dida lot of homework to to be able
to rate the teams and rate playersand yeah, yeah, yeah yeah,
and that that's actually could be atool to help you make bets, make
bets on games. So do youWe got a lot of time, right,
so do you? Well, Ikind of know how you make your

(04:21):
picks. But to me, thatwhat team has talent the other team doesn't,
and that's how many team That's nothow you picked these games. That's
that's kind of well, this teamif you did moneyline, yeah of course,
but this is not a money line. Yeah, it's a fifty to
fifty shot every game, right,right, because you're getting points, you're
giving points, right, And it'sit's about trends, and it's about how
they play and how they play thatday and whose girlfriend exactly screwed screwed up

(04:45):
on a guy or whatever. Right, No, no, exactly. People,
how how talented you are has nothingto do with any of that.
Yeah, yeah, I mean that'syou're betting money line? Sure, yeah,
but yeah, I mean because okay, you're sitting here and you're looking
at Arizona's first game. They're givingup thirty and a half to New Mexico.
Right, do you touch it oryou don't touch What do you do
with that? Right? You knowyou don't touch it? Yeah? Well
it's like today you and you madethis public. You bet the Dodgers,

(05:09):
right, uh, money line?Yeah, and what do you think?
Exactly so, and that's why youdon't do it. We can. That's
a time and that's it. Andthat's better than a fifty to fifty that's
mostly sixty too. Yeah, nomoney. They're underdogs, No, they
were, they were underdogs today.Yeah. Who the plus one thirty five

(05:29):
Phillies? Oh okay, so theywere there were forty plus one, there
were forty. But they're still theDodgers. But they're still the Dodgers.
But they're but the Dodgers with craphitching. Who who is a bullpenapa?
Wait? And then we had afactor in the Gonzales rule. He bet
the Dodgers. So you know whatyou do, You take a left the
Albuquerque and bet the Phillies. Jay, I need you to help me here

(05:49):
over the Phillies, Dodgers, Dodgers. The Dodgers lost tune a road to
them. I thought that, youknow, it looks it's early. It's
it's the bottom of the third.Yeah, you know, it's two nothing.
We're fine, you've already put onit. We're fine, Yeah,
we're fine, fine, all right, all right, two soun Roadrunners.

(06:10):
They released their schedule for the upcomingseason. There you go. It's sorry.
I wasn't voting. So their homeopener is going to be on October
nineteenth, where they will host theTexas Stars at the Tucson Arena. Twenty
six of the thirty six home gameswill take place on Friday, Saturday or
Sunday. Well, then they're allgoing to be here, right, they're

(06:31):
all gonna be here. They weretalking talking about having a schedule somewhere else
in Phoenix, and that's changed.That's changed. They're not playing any games
up in Phoenix. I don't knowif they couldn't come to an agreement.
Or they just decided they didn't wantto do it, but for whatever reason,
all all thirty six home games arehere. And I'm curious too if
they thought part of that was whatwould be the interest in Phoenix when you

(06:54):
don't already have soccer and it's TripleA. It's Triple A right right,
and you're an AHL team left rightright. So in Tucson, they know
they have an audience, they havea pretty good fan base, audience.
Why change it exactly? At somepoint eventually will but not now? Not
now? You know, and look, this is a big deal and by

(07:14):
that I mean it's a big dealfor for downtown Tucson. You know,
to have that's thirty six nights thatthere's gonna be four thousand people you know
going down going downtown, that's abig deal. It's a big deal to
all the businesses down there. Youknow, when you think about the if
that wasn't happening downtown, if theyif they had decided to go to Phoenix

(07:35):
and they had laughed, Yeah,that's a big hole, right, that's
a big hold. But you know, for thirty six nights now, over
over that uh uh what four orfive month period, that's that's you know,
thirty six nights that there's stuff goingon down there. So it's it's
I'm really glad when you really thinkabout it that way, you got to

(07:56):
be really happy that that's why,that's why they have to have success,
and that's why the Sugar Sculls haveto have success and some of the others
because it means a lot to thedowntown area and to do so. Yeah,
yeah, absolutely. How does theTucson soccer team? How are they
doing? Like? They are?They pretty good? They're they're doing fairly
well. Yeah, I think they'resecond in the league. It's they get
I think he said maybe twelve hundredbecause it's so damn hot out there.

(08:20):
Yeah, but it's a loyal twelvehundred. It could be more. I
think there have been Son well,they played that in Keno. It's it's
it's as popular as it can bein the summer. Yeah, Okay,
a little bit news out of theMLB trade deadlines approaching. One of the
names that was being thrown around wasMax Scherzer from the Texas Rangers. Again.
Yeah, so he did come outyesterday and say that he excuse me

(08:43):
that you won't waive his no tradeclause that he's he's just going to try
to stick with the Rangers, Okay, because I think since twenty twenty one
he's been on like four different teams. Yeah, he's guys on the road
all the time. And for somebodywho's that good, right, I mean
he might be a Hall of Famer, right, Yeah, I mean I
would think so. Yeah, Andyet, you know, one team to

(09:05):
another, to another to another.It's like, usually you know you're good,
and you're good for somebody for along period of time. Yeah,
maybe at the end of your careeryou go to you know, it's amazing
to me how many different teams guyslike Joe Morgan, Pete Rose, you
know, played for at the endof their careers. I had no idea.
Joe Morgan after the Giants, heplayed for the A's. He Rose
played for the Montreal Expo. Yeah, he played for Philly and the Expos.

(09:28):
And it's like, you had noidea that these guys who were you
know, big time well people Iwas in a Hall of Famer, Well
he is, he is, buthe's not. But anyways, you know,
the guys of that at that level, you know, in terms of
you know, how good they werethat they still wound up at the end
friend of violence, Swelo pitched forBaltimore. Really, I didn't remember that.

(09:50):
Yeah, what year was that,I don't know, nineteen eighty something,
eighty nineties, ninety probably in thenineties. Really, yeah, I
didn't know that. So you knowstuff like that where you think of what
do you think for none of violence? Well you think of the Dodgers,
right, and only the Dodgers,and then I mean he went and pitched
up a bunch of different places afteryou know, when when the Dodgers let
him go, it's crazy. Anyways, Sorry, he needs to stay with

(10:13):
them. I mean the Rangers,they're still in the they're still in the
hunt. They suck, They're notdoing very well. They're not They're not.
I don't think they're They're under fivehundred, aren't they forty forty four
and well this was yesterday forty fourand forty nine, but probably forty five.
Yeah, he just lost his lastout and I think I saw that
one. Yeah, he's yeah,he's coming off that injury as well.

(10:33):
He had some surgery last year.So anyway, sticking with MLB, Paul
Skeen is continuing to have a goodseason with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He had
seven no hit innings today and struckout eleven against the Milwaukee Brewers. Pirates
went on to win win nothing didhe they he didn't didn't finish the game.

(10:54):
He didn't finish the game. Yeah, no hitter and he didn't finish
the game. To help me,Steve, you see, you have no
hair it going and you don't finishthe game. So he got able to
sing one the in the eighth andthen they came, h, I hate

(11:16):
this. Well that's the way thepitch is going today. Yeah you know,
I yeah, you know. Itwas again another funny conversation. I
was listening. I was listening totalking about how you know some of these
old pictures, right, you know, Nolan Ryan had three hundred wins.
All these other guys had two hundredand some wins and like the leading active
picture or he's like one hundred andforty wins after shures are in those guys

(11:41):
who you know, who are onthe way out, Like nobody's gonna get
to two hundred wins right right withthis with this new uh sure, because
you pitch four innings and you can'tget a win because of that, you
know, the the specifications or whateverthe word you want to use is changed
because of the good old days whenthe for now know of the world went
eight to nine and yeah they plaidcomplete games. Yeah, uh give up

(12:03):
three four hits. Uh. Saveswere a minimum because you didn't need them,
yeah and not Yeah, there aren't. I mean, is there is
there a classic closer in you know, in Major League Baseball today? I
don't know that there is like aguy who's gonna get forty saves? Right,
I don't think there is a guylike that. I mean I can

(12:26):
go look it up, and Imean, you know what the Saves leader
has this year? I hate thatguy. Another thing about Jay, he
doesn't like anybody. You know thatMikey commercial. Are you too young to
know about the Mikey commercial? Iprobably heard about in the Cereal o Mike

(12:46):
he doesn't like anything, but heliked that cereal. That's Jane. Yeah,
Jane doesn't like anything. You didn'tneed the cereal. He likes it?
All right, let me see,I'm okay, keep going. I'm
looking this up because I went Iwant to know this, but the Saves
leader has I guess The last thingI have is just some news out of

(13:09):
the summer league about John Johnson.Yeah, and they could be a you
know, next diamond in the roughfor the heat. We can go two
ways. It could be it couldbe the next, you know, the
next guy for me, he hada heck of a game last night.
The problem with all that is youhave a great game. I remember that
Jared Baylis had a great game.No, it was somebody who, uh,

(13:31):
who was very good at Juve,had a good summer league, but
didn't find a space, didn't findspace on a team. And in the
NBA this is kind of a waterthe summer leaguesist. You kind of just
play and you become somebody, butyou still don't fit into the next thing.
It's not that can't. But he'shad a pretty guy, he's good,
and he's athletic. Who knows?Who knows? All I know is

(13:52):
I won the twenty bucks from Peterson. I don't care. But but uh,
is he capable? Maybe? Willit be tough? Maybe? Yeah,
So we'll see. Okay, Imisspoke. The Saves leader right now
is a guy named Ryan Helsley.He has thirty one for who this is
Saint Louis. Wow, they wonthirty one games, So who's thought that

(14:13):
because they're not good either. Yeah, you must have saved every game that
they want. Yeah, Craig Campbellhave a bunch. I still hate that
guy. He's got twenty three.All right, I think we killed it.
Let's go take it. Let's goand take our break. We're gonna
come back. We're gonna have RichardMcGee, he's a high school football referee.
Just talk about, you know,the need for referees, but just

(14:37):
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Today. This is I on theBall with Steve Rivera and Jay Gonzalez soun

(18:18):
Fox Sports fourteen fifty. Subscribe nowto the podcast on the iHeartRadio WAPP just
Surgery I on the Ball. Hey, welcome back to I on the Ball
here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty.I'm Steve Rivera, p's Jaginsaus. Now
on the phone. We have RickMcGee and bj Fogeltants High School of Football
referees. You guys, are youhave that on the resume? More power

(18:41):
to you because they're in a safedeal. You guys must get a lot
of criticism. But it's a toughjob, right guys. It's a little
hard at times. Yeah, butyou know we get through it. Were
this week. It's a very toughjob. My dad is Jim Fogeltants.
He was a packed and packed foalofficial forty three years and I never wanted
to be a fish. I don'twant to be boot out all the time,

(19:02):
you know. So what Okay,let's let's let me ask you this.
Why do you guys do this?And look, I'm I'm not saying
that you guys are nuts. I'mjust saying, what, why, what
makes you want to be a refereeand what what do you get out of
it? Uh? And why didyou choose to do this stuff? Okay,
this is b day. First ofall, I tell her to follow

(19:23):
my dad's footsteps. But I lovethe competition. I love being part of
the game. Friday night lights arevery very special. I love the fans,
I love the coaches, I lovethe pep bands. You know,
it's a great time, Rick,Rick, Yeah, yeah, I mean
I I got into it for loveof the game. I mean I I

(19:45):
love football sports in general. Youguys, you guys have been in it
for a long time. I thinkone of the reasons we have have you
on is that is there a shortageof this because because of all the craft
that goes on, there is abig shortage right now. But the cramp
is being cleaned up. Actually,I mean they've at the youth level,
they've imposed fines on coaches. Ohgood, and if they don't pay the

(20:10):
fine, they can't come back tothe coach. So wow, Okay,
simmering down quite a bit. It'sit's gotten a lot better since when I
started fourteen fifteen years ago, right, And I started twenty years ago,
and there was a time when Thursdaynights we had three guys instead of four
guys on the freshman DV games.And I mean that's not good for anybody.

(20:30):
Yeah, yeah, there is thereare there misconceptions. Do you think
a little bit about about all ofthat that you know, we see,
we see the videos on social mediaand that kind of stuff that guys,
it's not as bad as it asit looks, you know, come on
out and give us a hand.Oh god, it really isn't as bad
as it looks. Most of thetime, everything is nice and smooth.

(20:53):
You go out there, you havea great game, your crew is great,
everything goes well, and you gohome. And that's ninety percent of
the time. Ten percent of thetime you have something go a little hay
wired coaches, the control or whatever. That's the only stuff that makes on
the social media, right, theonly stuff that makes it on the sports
center, right, So that's allpeople see. They don't see, you

(21:17):
know, the great parts of thegame, or the great calls that one
of the referee makes, or youknow, something something special that happens between
maybe one of the referees and thecoach for the player. So that's stilln't
make it. It's all the bad, right right. I agree. You
know the stuff that you see onYouTube, are you know the media es
then that's very very rare, right, that's probably one percent of the time.

(21:41):
So you talk about the coaches beingfined. But I've said this often
enough that the worst thing about kidssports are the parents. Amen, That's
all I can say. That's thetoughest start for new officials is you know,
dealing with the anger and you know, it seems like the younger they
are the worst the parents of No. Yeah, is there anything being done

(22:06):
to curb that that issue. Idon't know. If you can't find and
can find parents or maybe get themout of the out of the stands.
Well, the coaches, the coachis told responsible for that, so you
go to game administration of them.And if the coach can't get his his
team's fans with the control, thenhe gets objective right right. Well,

(22:26):
and the veteran officials like me andRick, you know, we take care
of new guys. You know,we make sure that they're comfortable and that
they're having fun, and any issues, well we'll kind of take over and
teach them how to deal with isthat. So we make sure that they're
having fun and you know, we'llbe Your dad did this, so you
saw a lot of this. Rick, I don't know what your background is,

(22:48):
you know, before you started referee, but when you started refereeing,
what what you know? What whatwere some of your early takes on it
where you're nervous, you know,you think about your first game that and
I'm not talking about like a cityleague game or a slow pitch softball game.
Now you're out on the field ata high school football game or a
basketball game or whatever. What wasthat like for you guys? For me,

(23:11):
I had amazingly enough, the guythat was in charge of the crew
had actually officiated me in high schoolin California. So we were talking and
joking on the way and he reallyrelaxed me and made me feel much better.
But yeah, I can say aswe were on the ride towards the
game, yeah, I was twoin my nails a little bit. I
was a little bit nervous, youknow. And I can tell the story.

(23:33):
I brought my nephew in to refereeinglast year. It was his first
year, and he said his firstgame or two. He was really nervous,
but there were a lot of older, more experienced officials that really helped
him through. One of them wasa guy from here in Tucson that was
an NFL reference hall kind of away. So yeah, you know,

(23:53):
I was scared to death, absolutelyscared to death. My dad's head referee.
On my first game at the Phantom, well the JV game, I
had an inrovertent whistle in the firstman at the game on the goal line.
So that was my introduction to highschool. But you know, after
the game, uh, we hada good ride back had spun And then
my second second week, I wasat Sabino and that's when I fell in

(24:14):
love with it. My second week. Do you still do you guys still
get nervous before a really big game. Yeah, yeah, I mean if
you're doing like cdo Cell Point,which actually did like TJ and my soul
did CD Cell and it was itwas a big game, thousands of fans
there, and yeah, I meaneverybody was a little tiny, but you

(24:36):
loosen up after the first couple ofplays. So yeah, yeah, you
know, after the kickoffs, thebutterflies kind of leave and you just get
into the game and let's go.But before the game. I get nervous
before every single varsity game. Yeah, I'm mean to say, you sound
like guys coming out of the lockerroom, you know, with with shoulder
pads on and stuff. I mean, you have the same kind of nerves,
right because you're you're trying to doa good job. You're trying to
make sure that everything goes well andnot notice exactly and you exactly. You

(25:02):
know, you don't want you wantpeople to not know you're there. You
got to stretch, you got todo all the things. Uh, and
then you but you're wearing a youknow, a different uniform. Is it?
Is it something that what would letme ask you? Let me ask
you this way. If there's ayoung person that's listening to this and you
want to advise them, look,give it a try. What would you
say to them about why they shouldand what they can expect you know it.

(25:26):
Well, there's a lot of camaraderieamong the officials. So after our
varsity games on Friday night, we'llgo hang out and you know, watch
the watch the highlights or the lowlights whatever it's maybe that night. Things
like that, and there's the communityand besides, it pays pretty well,

(25:47):
you know, I mean if yougo on an Alperaly base, So this
is not that bad money when youdo a varsity game. So yeah,
I say for the for the guysin college, you know, let's put
it that way. When I wasin college, I was working as land
Escape are making six dollars an hour. Yeah, so you know, we
really tried to promote, Hey,you can come out here and you know,
make sixty bucks on Thursday night fortwo hours. Friday night you make

(26:07):
ninety bucks. Saturday, you canmake two hundred and forty bucks. So
yeah, we really talk about that, put an emphasis on that. We've
had some of the great guys,the arrest atlers, some of the other
guys was on recently and then thewomen's guy got I don't know why he's
about the Schofield scofield. Of coursewhen I asked him this, when you're
on the field and you're human,right, so you're here to do the

(26:30):
game, but you probably notice someof the players, right because you say,
God, that guy's good, oryou have to notice who's who you're
officiating for. Yeah, I meanyou'll notice who's good and who's better.
But you always want to officiate fromthe standpoint of you're you're officiating the game
based on its two teams and they'reboth the same, Like you don't I

(26:56):
really try to stay impartials all over. That means I'll tell you what when.
But John Robinson was that to point, Yes, that was one guy
when I just stopped officiating and watchedhim like a regular fan. I mean
he was phenomenal. You know,Jake Fisher at Ironwood rich he I mean
he was phenomenal to watch something.You know, the Division one athletes stand
out and yeah, yeah, youjust enjoy watching those guys work. Did

(27:18):
you ever get caught up watching thoseguys you know and watching the plays?
Or how hard is it to zeroin on what you're supposed to be looking
at right, because I'm guessing youguys all have something a little different you're
supposed to be looking at. Imean, I'm always in my zone.
I don't I don't try to lookat what players are doing anything like that.
I can tell you there was onegame where I watched Kadeem carry from

(27:40):
the back a few times because Iwas the back judge that game, and
he beat me to the end zone. Twice, which is not supposed to
happen. But it was just stillkeeping up with that kid. I think
he went for three hundred and soodd yards. So you're supposed to have
get ahead start on those guys,right, I did twenty years started well,
And I'm gonna admit that sometimes Itend to watch the ball, and
you know, I'm the head refereeand a long path play. When I'm

(28:02):
watching the ball and watching the defenderreceiver, I forget I've got my responsibility
to quarterback, right. You know. If I'm watching the ball and all
of a sudden, the quarterbacks onthe ground, I don't know how he
got there. That's a bad,bad feeling for me. Yeah, So
how often you guys kind of reviewthe tape? Is it right away?
Is that you know? Okay,I screwed that up? How does that
work? Sometimes? Yeah, there'sthere's a thing called huddle. So all

(28:26):
the schools have called huddle and itposts and usually by Sunday you can watch
your game film. Some schools area little slower. But me, as
the white hat for my crew,I go through and I try to keep
track of all the penalties. Wecalled everything right, what time and I
will go through and I'll review itand see, hey, we get that
right, did we get it wrong? Whatever. I'll make the list and

(28:48):
then i'll send that out to theguys so they don't have to watch the
whole thing like me. So yeah, and when we have a call in
the game that that's a controversy,will call. Trust me. I'm waiting
for that film to come out.I can't wait for it to come out.
And I watched that play right away. So not that you want to
admit this, but please do howmany how many plays in a game one

(29:08):
and and and two? How manybad calls are there in those nomber of
plays? Oh gosh, I don'tknow how. I mean, every game
is different with the number of plays, but I mean you have a clean
game and there are no bad calls. I mean, yeah, I don't
know what the high school averages thecollege. You know, it's usually about

(29:29):
one hundred and sixty plays, andwe might get one or two wrong and
one hundred and sixty plays that's prettygood. That's pretty good. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay, so you gotfootball season coming up. I'm presuming you're
you're looking for for refs too,because you got freshman JV varsity games,
all that kind of stuff. There'sa lot of need. First of all,
tell us about the need, youknow, I mean, how many

(29:52):
how many refs do you need inthis community to cover all this stuff?
And then what's the process. Let'ssay, you know, Joe Blow wants
to be a ref what does hedo? If someone wants to become a
referee, they just have to goto ai A online dot org and click
on officials and it'll bring it upand they'll tell them exactly how to register
everything. That's that's step one.And then Dave Wanton, who's our head

(30:18):
of officials here in Tucson, we'llreach out to them and tell them when
the trainings are where they are andexplain to them how to get into it.
Sign them a mentor. So Iwas my nephew's mentor, so I
actually tried to watch everything I couldthat he did. There is a film
on JB games, so I didmake it to one of those games and

(30:41):
he did a couple of varsities thatI watched the film on. But you
know, you'll get a mentor somebodywho will try to talk you through the
process and take it through it,and you know, At first, you'll
be doing youth football, JB freshmanand things like that, and once you
start getting acclimated, then you'll startmoving up to birsity and then and then

(31:02):
that for varsity. And you knowthere's guys that will come up to me
or other college guys and you knowthey want to get into junior college and
then that a whole nother process.So I mean there's you know, there's
guys that work their way up.So talking to Rick McGee and BJ focal
tents, fugal tents, longtime referees. So what's the pool like, is
there a number of you guys outthere? There are I don't know exactly

(31:26):
what that Last year we were wayshort and we usually go or we pre
COVID twenty nineteen we had one hundredand fifty hundred and sixty guys, and
I believe last year we came inmaybe one hundred and twenty. Wow.
Okay, how many did you needon a Friday night? Okay? So

(31:47):
so we have five guys on aFriday night. Some of the big games
will have seven. And that's whyanother reason why we need more officials because
some of the bigger games, youknow, we really need seven there.
Phoenix, they do seven man cruiseon Friday nights for a lot of their
games. That's another reason why weneed more guys. Okay, so how
many games in the night and Tucsonten? How many are there? Oh,

(32:10):
I've got a lot more of that. Yeah, there's a lot more
than that. There's probably twenty gamesgoing on on the round. So the
twenty times five, that's one hundredof the people. As you, guys
are saturated most Friday nights. Yeah, most Friday nights, we are down
to the last God interesting. Soso so you're not you're not going to
be waiting around to get games ifyou If you sign up to do this,
you've got work. So what's theprocess too? I mean, if

(32:34):
Jay wants to do it, couldhe be ready for the first game this
year? Oh? Absolutely? Yeah, yeah, if you signed up in
the next couple of weeks. Absolutely. You know. There's there's training sessions,
those scrimmages, so you know,we help the guys as much as
possible before their first game. Okay, how in shape do you have to
be to do a football game?I mean, if you got bad knees

(32:57):
or whatever, I mean, whatyou know, serious I mean, yeah,
how good a physical condition do youneed to be in? Well,
we have guys out there with badknees and whatnot. I myself, I
mean, I worked out every day. I try to stay in shape.
But that's that's me. But thereare guys they're not in super great shame,
but they still get up and downthe field. I mean, you
have to be able to move,get in the right positions and things.

(33:19):
And we don't want to discourage anybodyfrom signing up, right, you know,
I mean all everybody's welcome guys,girls, everybody, I say,
he said, he said, girlsare women. Tons of opportunities for women
and football. They're moving up intocollege in the past. I was.
I was just at a camp inan ol Paso for college football officials and

(33:44):
we had four women from the NFLthat are getting ready to be out there
practicing up. So and they movedup quick. They've been referring probably five
six years maybe so, you know. So let me ask you, well,
last forget about a minute left,how do how do how do we
get a hold of someone to joinif we want to join ai a online

(34:12):
dot org. Okay, and there'sa tab for you know, wanting to
be official. Oh yeah, absolutely, Yeah, they can go there,
like can sign up or I mean, if they want, they can call
me. I'm happy to have themcall me. I'm I'm I'm at five
two zero sixty three one eight sixeight zero. And if they want to
give me a call, I willtalk them through it. Yeah, and

(34:35):
I'll get my number two five twozero eight five zero five six four nine.
Okay, Can I ask how aboutyou guys get paid? Varsity is
ninety JB JB is sixty. Youthgames on Saturday's are sixty a game.
Okay, so for like two threehours that's pretty good. Ye. Well
yeah, I mean you can dofive youth games on a Saturday. That's
the youth games are usually about anhour and a half. Yeah, I've

(34:59):
done six games on a chatterday.Okay. This is a nice side gig.
Yeah. It all goes into accountfor my wife and I to go
on. That's where you should havestarted the whole conversation. Come on a
cruise with us, become a roughThanks guys, Hey, guys, I
appreciate it. Thanks for the NFLbe well thinks I'm going on. You

(35:23):
know, I did think about doingthat a long time ago, but I
chose to coach instead. But youknow, look, and I've had my
things with you know, umps andreferees stuff, but you know, you
know, always a respect for themthough, because that's a hard job.
Uh you know. I did someLittle league umpiring all stars that kind of
stuff. And man again the stuffyou the stuff you see, the stuff

(35:50):
you hear man you know? Uhwell I told you the story. Right.
So, so my son's played soccerfor all their lives and it's he
Cameron paid with a pretty good group. A few of them were Hispanic,
very good players. And the parents, would you know, the dads would
yell and Spanish and YadA, YadA, and I'd say, come on,
guys, stand off of this crap. You know, don't oh you understand

(36:10):
Spanish? Yes, yeah, prettymuch, come on, comb they come
down, ye know, this isjust a game. They didn't calm down.
They still would down. Yeah,of course. All right, all
right, let's take our last break. We're to come back. We'd love
to take your calls. Five twozero four one six four forty. Maybe
we can recruit a couple of refshere, all right, come back,
stick stick around if you're an Arizonamen's basketball fan. You know it's been

(36:34):
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(36:55):
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A Team apply online today at ateamsecurity dot net. Steve Rivera and Jacin

(39:36):
Salles they have their eye on theball on Tucson sports station het Fox Sports
fourteen fifteen. Hey, welcome backto my LaVall here at Fox Sports fourteen
fifty. I'm Steve, You're Jay. We got ride with us, right,
you got a side gig now it'sbeing a referee, Yeah right,
go do it man, Sure godo it. Throw a flag. You
look like you're in better shape thanus. Yeah, you know, on

(39:59):
our play, all I would haveto do is run one time, like
forty yards, and that would beit didn't come out. You have to
actually have the extra ref exactly exactly. Dodgers made it two to one.
Steve, I'm still in this.There's still hope. Top of the six
two to one, you can neverhope. Yeah, you know, these
games go by so fast, sofast. So when you're down, like

(40:22):
in the eighth and you're down toyou sing, oh god, sober so
I mean I saw, I thinknow because the game is gon fly so
bad? Yeah. Yeah, nottop of the six. So here we
go. We're still in it.I got shot at this, I got
shot. Okay, well we havetwelve minutes for us. Anybody want to
call, please do any but youhave an experience with some refs goood or
bad, give us a call that'dbe fun. Or you know, are

(40:44):
you the victors. I'm sure Victorshasn't yelled that a ref should. I
admit that during my kids high schooldays, I got thrown out of a
game in three different sports. Whatare you doing? I was I was
the official scorer at a volleyball match. I got tossed out of that.

(41:04):
I got tossed out as a asa out of a baseball game, uh,
you know, for coach, asa coach, and I got tossed
out of a softball game as acoach. So yeah, so there you
go. It's a it's a it'sa it's a badge of honor that I
wear. But you know, whatare you gonna do? You know,
sometimes, you know, sometimes youjust do what you do, right,

(41:28):
I guess, uh, did younot let this man into the building?
Kind of looks like Fernando Vealezuela,George Lopez. Yeah, so anyway,
it happens. It happens. Butyou know, but again I've always in
the end, I've just you know, you know that especially at the youth

(41:51):
level, that these these refs they'reout there because not because they're trying to
make money. I mean, Iget it, you know, you know.
Rick McGee said, yeah, well, you know, I get I
make all this money and we dothis stuff with it. But for the
most part, they're not. That'swhy they're not breaking the bank with it.
There's nobody doing that for that no, but it sounds like a lot
of fun because I asked you.You know this, I always ask this

(42:12):
question of people who who who playedsports or whatever, and and you you
call it juice with your with yourgambling thing. But people need juice because
they used to be former players.They need they need to stay competitive,
right somehow. That's how I playedplay poker. I love to be competitive
with it and I don't want torun any of the do I let's take
this call. I are on theair and I on the ball. Hey,

(42:34):
how's the going? My name?I was wondering if I can hop
on real quick and talk about thereferee short? Absolutely, go ahead?
What do you? What do yougot? Oh? Hey, thanks?
No. The reason why I calledit is, wow, what a big
topic that we really don't talk toomuch about soccer, coach. And what
I can tell you is that ifyou go out there and this is for

(42:55):
boys and girls and all they justthe referees are about and they're early teams
maybe thirteen to seventeen ish to theirlate fifties, right because everybody in between
they don't want to do it.And the things you see out there,
the abuse, the yelly and Davidneed to do it for the money,

(43:16):
and then what happens? The kidssuffer? No, Yeah, without question,
at the very end, that's thethat's the friendly fire, it's touch,
that's who affected the monk, rightright, you're absolutely correct on that.
What Look, this is a it'san issue, it's a problem.
But what do we do right?How do we how do we get past

(43:37):
all that? How do we getparents to act better in those kinds of
things? What can you possibly do? You know? Sadly, the solution
is simple because a lot of gamesthey're being canceled forfeit or rearranged. So
what do we do about black parents? You get three strikes and you're out.
I mean one year I had toact as a safety manument manager for

(43:58):
one league and I almost had onepunch an other parents holding a kid.
What is this about? Yeah?Tell me that, and that the girls
on the field playing soccers, thatare about No. But it just give
me allowed that to have? Canyou shit the example? You allowed everybody
else to curse and salve and soforth. And again I know I'm a
broken record here, but wow,it's really hurting the kids. And nowadays

(44:22):
social media, you gotta have somekind of outload for them. So let
me ask you real quick, giveme an example of a strike and then
you go the three of them.Yes, uh oh, it does have
to be three strikes. You giveyourself to be the referee. The referee
will go over to the coach andsay, hey, calm down your parents.
If they don't, you get ayellow card, and then that that's

(44:45):
something in place to some organizations.But but if it's something like, hey,
you're yelling at a kid calling outtheir race, there's something about damn,
then the game will be stopped.Get that parent out of there and
their kids. Yeah, and itseems extreme, but you know what's even
more extreme. Pictures only teenagers andfifty sixty year olds as referees, and

(45:09):
so many games are canceled rearranged becausewe don't have enough referee right right,
I hear right, I hear you. Yeah, all right enough, I'm
sorry. No, we appreciate,we appreciate the call. Thank you so
much. That's why we had thetopic. Thank you, That's why we
have the topic. It's it's ait's a we can talk about this for

(45:30):
a long time. Yeah, No, it's affected. And he brought up
he brought up a thing. SoI'm coaching middle school softball, okay,
middle school softball, and all ofa sudden I look out on the I
look out on the on the andour pictures crying, and I call time
on. I go, why areyou crying? She goes that man back
there yelling at Really, who's thatbetter? My dad? No? I

(45:51):
said, what is he saying?He's just saying things. He's saying,
I'm a terrible picture. But Ididn't hear him because there was a dug
out of that sure, so Icouldn't hear it, and I'm like,
what, So what happened? Well? I brought her and I went to
the umpire said that guy over thereis yelling at her. I said,
one, why haven't you already donesomething about it? Because why is she

(46:13):
crying? Why did it take herto she's what twelve thirteen? Yeah,
yeah, she was in eighth grade, twelve thirteen. Why why did it
take for her to be crying forsomebody to go say something to this guy?
I said, I want you tosay something to him and either make
him shut up or make him leave. And so he did. He went
and said something to him and itended there. But why why is the

(46:34):
Why is the parent yelling at theother team's kid. Oh, it was
another team's kid. Okay, itwasn't one of our parents. It was
a parent of somebody on the otherteam. And he's taunting our picture.
What do we doing? People aresays, that's unbelievable. We've had this
when the kids played soccer, andwe used to have the coach. I
won't say who is because he's onthe show every now and again. Uh,

(46:58):
come on and gather the group ofparents, and it was only like
two parents, but we all haveto suffer the same face. And I
always said, just tell the guysdirectly that they're the problem and they need
to stop because you're wasting my time. I had to yell at my dad
at one of my son's little leaguegames on time, that's it that you
can't say those things. The umpireis like fifteen. I said, stop,

(47:22):
you can't I say that, coach, you can't, coach, Come
on, coach. I had totell my dad to quit yelling at the
fifteen year old umpire. He wasyelling about balls and strikes, so he
wasn't like, he wasn't like,yeah, you know, be rating the
yump He was just yelling about,Oh, come on, that's a strike.

(47:42):
I'm like that stop. Just yousuck up. And so of the
coach. My son, the coach, he sucks too. How come the
coaches crying because yelling at me?The time I got the time I got
tossed from a baseball game. Okay, it was that we were playing at
Keno. Okay, we ran tothe field and we're playing in Keno and
I got taught. It was Imean, I won't even go into why,

(48:07):
but my wife was just chatting tosomething with somebody, you know,
at the game. They're just sittingthere there talking to She's talking to another
another mom, and then the momsays, I think your husband just got
thrown out of the game. Shegoes, no, he did it.
Well, he's going up the stairsover there talk to you. I was
walking up the stairs because I wastold to leave the stadium, and it

(48:30):
was like, what the hell happened? Well, it was a It was
a bad thing. Actually was thething that I complained to to the to
the A I a about because Ithought that reff was a way out of
or that umpire was way out ofline. You know, I was I
was standing up for my guys.I was standing up for my guys,
and you got tossed and I gottossed throwing the home plate, no home
place. Here's the here's the badpart about it. And maybe he entered

(48:52):
into it a little bit because Ihad seen the umpire before. Well he
he had played baseball for a sso I knew he was a sundown.
I'm sure they're playing a lot ofI'm gonna say that had a little bit
to do with this. Well sure, anyway, Okay, anybody want to
call. We have a time formaybe a little time for maybe one more
call five zero four one, sixseventy four forty. Good topic. It's

(49:15):
a great topic because Steve, itall starts here, right, It all
starts with these kids, right right. But you know, you're what I'm
seeing. I've got the I've gotthe Phillies, uh Dodger game on,
and you know this kid, theywere they were playing youth, all yeah,
right, and they needed these refsand they needed these umpires to be
there so that they could do this. So so here's the here's the problem.

(49:37):
There's no solution because it's a humanhuman element into it. Humans are
paying in the asses, and everyone'sright. Everyone thinks they're right right for
yelling or saying stupid things or whatever, and you're not going to change your
mind because that's who they are.And then you get that parent to the
extreme that's yelling at the umpire becausehe thinks the umpire is impeding his kids

(50:00):
to the major league. Something passto the major league, right, you
know those kinds of if not thecoach, somebody else right, right,
Maybe he doesn't realize the kids notany good. Honestly, there's well there's
you talked about the ladies behind youtalking about volleyball and my girls going going
they issue the player and they weren'tany good. Yeah, it's like yeah,

(50:22):
I mean, you know you havethese you have these unreal expectations and
then when they feel like somebody,like a ref you know, is kind
of getting in the way of that, it can create some some nasty situations
over there. And it does,it really does. I mean, you
know you talk about these you know, figure skating moms and dance moms and

(50:45):
yeah like that. You wait aminute, you know, baseball dad and
basketball dad is pretty bad. Imean all of it. Look, Steve,
I don't think this ever got out. But there was a there was
a basketball tournament, one of thoseyou know high school Yeah, week long
basketball tournaments. Uh, that endedat michale I know what you're going to

(51:07):
say. That ended with the ladypulling the gun. I'm aware you remember
that. I'm aware of that.Let me say I'm aware of that.
I'm surprised you even said it becauseyou're the second person to ever know this,
the third person will to make itpublic because I went to the I
went to the police blogs. Itwas not in there. It was not.
It never got reported because because Iknew, but I went to check

(51:29):
it out and do the story.It was not in the We never got
it, never got there. No, But that's funny you say that because
you're the first person publicly whoever saidthis to me or to anybody else.
Because I knew about it. Weall know what happened. Yeah, it
was the summer that Yeah, summerleague many years ago. Yeah it happened.
I know it did because they toldme. But I had to get
proof of it, and then youcouldn't find it and it was not in

(51:50):
the log. Yeah, either purposelyor otherwise purposely. I'm sure, Yeah,
because of course they didn't want anybodyknow that that happened to How funny
you say that. I'm honestly,I'm a little because you're the first person
that this happened so long ago wecan talk about it's more than twenty years.
Yeah, but it happened. Iknow it is. It was a
little shocked that you said this becauseit's true, not that it's true.

(52:13):
You're the first person to actually sayit publicly. Yeah. Well no,
I'm aware, I'm aware, butthere was no and that's the extreme right,
that's the extreme. But that's whatrefs. Who are they're not NFL
right? You know this? Huh? How did you? I heard about
it right after it happened. Oh, okay, because you were you were.
I wasn't there, Okay, Iheard about it right after it happened

(52:35):
stuff, you know. Yeah,yeah, I heard about it right after
it happened, and I and Iwas bagged not to say a lot of
people were. I got the Igot the source told me and I went
to the police, to the Uand it wasn't in the paper. It
wasn't. No. I was beggednot to time, But like I said,
I can't hold a secret for mytwenty years. Apparently that that was
long enough. Man, Yeah,you know, twenty years again. And

(52:59):
but that's that's not the only placethat's ever happened. No right, no,
I well I told you well,we got to get out of here.
All right. That's a good showtoday, interesting stuff. I surprise.
We surprise ourselves, we do sometimes. All right, we'll be back
tomorrow. The ASU Athletic director willbe on. Grand Rosini will join us,
So be sure to come back.