I mentioned in a previous column that I did not wish, if possible, to know the identities of the players.

I didn’t want to be biased knowing that number 45 was the son of a friend or that number 22 was the star.

Of course, that was often not possible. And, once it worked to the disadvantage of the player.

It was a junior varsity basketball game at Bridgeport. The opponent was Saginaw Eisenhower (now part of Saginaw Heritage). The football field lights of Eisenhower would light up my front yard. One of my neighbors was Andy. I was much younger then and there were some spirited driveway basketball games in the neighborhood, and I often joined in as did Andy.

Andy played on the Eisenhower JV team. I was the lead official under the basket and the player Andy was guarding drove to the basket. Something clicked in my mind that, in our driveway games, if you drove on Andy, he often had one hand raised to distract the shot, but the other hand was on your hip pushing you away from your shot. So, I looked. Sure enough, Andy was shoving the player just like he did in the driveway.

I was prepared, with whistle blown, fist raised, and pointing at Andy and calling the foul. If it weren’t for the driveway games, I might have missed the foul. Sorry, Andy.

Another interesting and fun part of officiating high school sports was seeing the reactions and reading the faces of the players.

One game that I particularly remember was a JV game at Clare. The game was a close one and Clare was behind by one point with just two seconds left on the game clock. There was a held ball at the end of the floor where Clare was shooting.

Now, this was before the possession arrow, so it resulted in a jump ball. I was sure the game was over. No way could the jump ball be tapped, procured by a Clare player AND get any kind of a decent shot off in the two seconds remaining.

Well, the ball got tipped back away from the Clare basket. It was grabbed by a Clare player who attempted to heave a long, off-balance wild shot. An opposing player made a big mistake and fouled the Clare player on the shot. The shot had no chance of going in the basket but now the buzzer has ended the game but the Clare player, because he was fouled in the act of shooting, no matter how wild a shot it was, got free throws.

I was just shaking my head. I was two seconds away from having the game over, getting a shower, and heading home, about 45 minutes away. I just knew the Clare kid was going to make one of the two allotted free throws and we were going to have to play overtime. With the game over except for the free throws, the court is empty except for me and the shooter. The other players were all at their benches.

As I stepped up to hand the Clare player the ball, he looked at me and asked, “Two shots?” I nodded and said, “Yes.” I’ll never forget the confident grin the kid had when I answered him. I said to myself, “This kid is going to make both free throws.” He did, his team won by one point, and my partner and I did not have to work the overtime period.

A game I’ll never forget was a varsity basketball game between Saginaw St. Stephen and Saginaw St. Mary. It was the final game of the regular season. For some reason, it was played at the Buena Vista High School gym. Perhaps it was because that gym had a larger seating capacity. It was going to be the last game, ever, between these two schools as they were closing at the end of the school year. St. Stephen was a big favorite, but St. Mary played hard and the game was close.

As the game got to the fourth quarter, the intensity picked up and the players got a bit chippy, and the trash talk amped up. I was concerned that I might lose a bit of control, so I made, what turned out to be, a wise decision. There was a foul committed. If I remember correctly, a hard foul with some words exchanged.

As the players lined up for the free throw, I stepped into the free throw lane and calmly said, “Gentlemen, this is the last basketball game that will ever be played between your two fine schools. You do not want the memory of this last game to be something you regret because of what you said or did. Now, let’s stop the trash talk and play basketball.”

My little speech worked, and we finished the game without further incident.

Les Miller, of Hubbard Lake, has retired after 53 years officiating multiple sports around Michigan. He can be reached at theoldref@yahoo.com.