Rich Stehlik lending an ear to NBL coach Bill Jones.                                                  (photo credit: Kevin Jarrold Photography)

 

There isn't a lot that Rich Stehlik hasn't seen in his 29 years with the Kitchener-Waterloo Basketball Officials' Association.

 

He's refereed everything from high school, young kids' OBA and men's/women's leagues to university level and FIBA International events.

 

Although he travels to all league destinations, you might recognize him from officiating OUA games at Wilfrid Laurier or University of Waterloo for the past 25 years or NBL games involving the K-W Titans et al, for the past eight.

 

Stehlik also serves on the executive of the KWBOA as Rules Interpreter, a position that involves leading the educational component at that association's biweekly meetings.

 

I sat down recently with Stehlik to talk about his officiating career and all things basketball.

 

This is Part One of that interview.

 

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How did you first get into refereeing basketball and what made you want to pursue it to the level that you have?

 

It's funny how it did start because I wasn't planning on officiating basketball at all. It wasn't even one of my top two sports even though I did play the game.

 

I was asked to ref a kid's tournament when I was 15 and I quite enjoyed it. A year later they asked me to referee the entire season. It was the YBC here in Kitchener so I ended up refereeing the 16 year-olds on Friday nights and the younger kids on Mondays.

 

After doing about two years of that, someone asked me if I had thought about doing more so they connected me with Ian Dewar* from our K-W association.

 

So I joined the KWBOA at age 18 and started doing men's league. That led to doing high school games and other things and I just continued from there.

(* - Ian Dewar is no longer refereeing but is considered one of K-W's most highly regarded basketball officials)

 

 

So how did that progress to the higher level of officiating that you do today?

 

 

Well, even then I wasn't thinking of progressing to any particular level but Ian and the late John Kaufman were running a camp in conjunction with the Naismith basketball camp up in the Muskokas and they asked if I would like to go. So I did.

 

I met some other influential people there and that was when I first thought I might be interested in doing something beyond the high school level.

 

From there, the competitive juices kicked in and I started going to camps all over North America and even in England. I didn't know where it would lead but I was willing to invest some of the money I was making into attending these camps and things just sort of took off from there.

 

 

But somewhere along the line someone - or more than one person - must have said "Hey, Rich, you have a real knack for this…?"

 

Ya, funny enough, it was Brigg Harvey - who I later refereed with at the university level and now works with the Raptors on the table and stuff - who saw me referee when he was an OBA coach with Barrie. He thought I had some potential so he introduced me to Ron Foxcroft.**

 

Together they kept a closer eye on me and things went forward from there.

 

(** - Hamilton's Ron Foxcroft is generally regarded as one of the best basketball officials Canada has ever produced. He is also the CEO and founder of Fox 40 International which produces basketball whistles used the world over including in the NBA. Foxcroft received the Order of Canada just last month.)

 

 

So what was it like doing that first OUA game? Did you feel like you were capable of doing that level or did it cast some doubts?

 

 

My first game was during the preseason Naismith tournament at the University of Waterloo and Ron was at the game.

 

I had a three-seconds-in-the-key call with a couple of minutes left and after the game he gave me lots of positive feedback.

 

"Great job" he said, "but that three-seconds call…there's no way you need to call that…"

 

Overall, I was pretty excited and thought that being young with a lot of years ahead of me, maybe this was something I could do and it would be fun.

 

Again, I wasn't thinking about refereeing anything beyond university basketball at the time - I was only in university myself - but I thought maybe I could make a good career out of this.

 

 

We could probably identify many more but if I asked you to select just two or three qualities that are essential to being a good basketball official, which would you choose?

 

 

Some of them come after officiating for awhile - like confidence, for example.

 

I think that's a huge one but it's hard to gain confidence in your first few games. It takes a few years to build that up.

 

For me personally, the one I swear by is a really good feel and sense of fairness. I think it's the one that helped me the most.

 

No matter who was home or away; no matter what the situation was, I always banked on what was fair and what was right.

 

I wasn't an expert in rules early on - that was something I had to learn and get much better at - but I was very good at feeling a game through fairness.

 

 

Beyond confidence, and especially at the higher levels, you also have to have the courage to make some tough calls.

 

It's knowing that you're not going to be popular; knowing that you're going to get rained down on with boos, etc.; but knowing that at that moment, it was the right and fair call.

 

Because in the end, you're not going to be judged on just one call or just one game.

 

If you're lucky enough to have a longer career, you're going to be judged on your entire repertoire. And if you can bank on that fairness quality, I think you're going to eventually be well-respected.

 

And in the long haul, that's what you're shooting for - that respect.

 

 

Along a similar line, what's one quality you would want your partner or partners to absolutely have?

(Note: basketball officiating may involve two-person or three-person teams)

 

 

If I have to choose just one thing - but it's definitely something that's multi-faceted - I would say professionalism.

 

With professionalism comes a lot of other traits but just to be able to be counted on. I think if someone's professional, that brings in a lot of other things - such as wanting to do a solid job.

 

 

Not just for your partner but also for the players - who are what it's all about - as well as the coaches and the fans.

 

You're there for a purpose. You're not just there to make money. You're not there just to appease one coach. You're not just there for your own sake - whatever that may be.

 

You're there to serve those players the best that you possibly can by giving everything that you got. And if you can do that as a partner or as a teammate on a crew, then we're more than halfway there.

 

 

You've officiated a lot of high level basketball including at the international level. Is there one quality you think is a common denominator in the best of the best? The Ron Foxcrofts of the world, for example?

 

 

Yes - I think there is one.

 

I think the top, top officials have a way of making everybody believe that they saw it correctly.

 

And that may be through salesmanship every once in awhile; that may be through a comment afterwards; that may be through body language; that may be through all sorts of other things. But when the game is on the line, you want that official to make that decision because you trust them.

 

It's not just the confidence that that official exudes, it's the confidence that everyone else has in that official.

 

But it takes time to build that credibility.

 

It's salesmanship but it's more than that. It's this ability to convince people that you are correct in those situations and the best of the best have that ability.

 

 

Here's a philosophical question for you…

 

 

I love those!

 

 Is officiating basketball more of an art or a science?

 

 

It's absolutely both.

 

But I think it's morphing into, especially at the highest levels, more of a science. However, there's still a need for the "art" piece of it.

 

Basketball is a contact sport so if you followed everything to the letter of the law, we'd be playing very little basketball and be standing around watching nothing but free throws.

 

Many sports are trying to take the human aspect out of it. Video replay is a good example of that. Baseball could eventually have a mechanical strike zone, etc.

 

They're trying to take the bias out of it and make things as impartial as possible - which everybody understands.

 

In our area, they're evaluating us a lot more on video these days. We get analyzed a lot more on the technical pieces: where were we standing? where were we looking? Those type of things.

 

So the art form is disappearing a little bit but I'd say that as long as a human being is on the court or on the field officiating, the "art" piece is really what separates the mediocre from the top.

 

Everyone at the higher levels is going to be good technically. But the best still have that certain something that can't be put onto a piece of paper and say "this is what it is."

 

So right now I'd say it's definitely more science than art whereas 40 years ago, it would have been the other way around.

 

 

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In Part II of my interview with Rich Stehlik (October 30), we'll talk about how the game of basketball has changed during his years as an official, what he feels fans and parents need to understand better when they're watching a game, and what similarities exist between his day job as a high school VP and his role as an official on the court.