Espenlaub honored for excellence in basketball officiating

Re-printed with the permission of the Indianapolis Business Journal: Mark Montieth

Dennis Espenlaub was admittedly not much of a factor for North Posey High School’s basketball team, a player who usually could be found at the end of the bench sitting next to his twin brother.

“I was a practice dummy,” he says.

But he loved the game and found a way to stay in it. A way to excel, too. In officiating.

Espenlaub was working varsity games by the age of 20, and now at 68 he’s still going strong - strong enough that the National Federation High School Officials Association has selected him as the Active Official of the Year for Section 4, which covers Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Espenlaub since the 1987-88 season has worked 39 boys basketball sectionals, 22 regionals, seven semistates and one state final as well as 24 sectionals, 16 regionals, eight semistates and one state finals for girls. He expects to officiate another boys sectional this season.

The job has never been easy, but it did become less of a grind after he retired from his fulltime job as a shift worker at a plastics plant in Mount Vernon in 2021. He alternately worked day, evening and midnight shifts, which might mean driving two hours to a game after catching four or five hours of sleep. He often took half-day vacations to allow himself more sleep. All for $90-100 a game on average, without mileage reimbursement, during the regular season.

He’s also overcome injury. He tore both quadricep tendons in 2012 while working at game at Evansville Mater Dei, which required a layoff and several months of therapy.

You would have to love something to keep doing it amid such obstacles, especially given the abuse referees often take from fans and coaches. Espenlaub says he’ll keep going as long as he’s physically able to perform at a high level.

What sparked your interest in officiating?

My dad officiated basketball and baseball for years around this area and he coached 13-15- year-olds in baseball. I grew up watching him. When I graduated from high school, Richie Moore was the secretary of the Southern Association (of the IHSAA) and I went and talked to him about refereeing and he got me started. I also talked to my basketball coach, Bob Gentil, and my baseball coach, Bud Schnaar, and they recommended that I do it.

I graduated from high school in 1975 and by November of ’77 I was refereeing basketball games. Me and a friend of mine did Little League baseball here. I was doing junior high (basketball) and helped with some fifth and sixth grade games. I jumped into JV games a year later. After three years I was doing some varsity.

I was 23 when I started doing varsity. I was getting seven, eight, 10 games a season and it started building after that. I did that for six more years and decided to apply for the (state) tournament in 1987 and got lucky and got in on the boys and the girls side.

Were you comfortable doing games at first?

It’s a little scary at the beginning, but I felt pretty comfortable going out and blowing the whistle. It was more learning the mechanics - closing your fist for the foul, things like. I always had an open hand. The other officials noticed that.

How long does it take to become a good official?

Probably about nine, 10 years. Once I got into the tournament, I started feeling a lot more confident and comfortable with the coaches and other officials.

How has fan behavior toward officials changed over the years?

It’s a little more stressful nowadays. They’ve gotten a little more intense over the years. The IHSAA puts out a lot about sportsmanship, but I don’t think a lot of fans get those messages. I just try to stay focused and try to stay cool under pressure. And you have to prepare yourself for those things that are going to happen. You gain confidence in yourself by knowing the rules.

When the game starts, it’s just kind of a natural environment for me. You blow the whistle and let the game come to you.

Have you had many bad experiences related to fans?

Oh, yeah. We’ve been confronted before. My dad was with me up at White Valley one year and they were planning on winning the sectional. A fan came up after the game and said he was going to kick our butts. My dad started to say something and I said, “Come on, keep walking.” We’ve been escorted out of games. Things like that happen.

They (fans) all need to put on a shirt and try it sometime. I think you should give them seven and eighth grade girls’ games to referee so they can find out what it’s like.

Have coaches changed over the years in their attitude toward referees?

I’ve met a lot of good coaches. They want to get to know you a little bit. They want to get to know your personality and take time to talk to you. They see you out and about. Gene Miller (of Washington High School) was one you could talk to. I’d see him at a restaurant in Evansville and he’d come up and talk to you and appreciate what you do. But some you never really get to know. I don’t think they want you to know them. Sometimes they have attitudes. One of my observers called them “official observers.”

What are the qualities of a good high school referee?

You need good judgement. You need to kind of watch the whole play and let it finish. It’s the same whether it’s fifth grade or college, but the skills and ability of the players is different. At the younger levels, the kids that are older can take the contact. I had an observer tell me once, it’s 90 percent reaction and 10 precent rules. Your ability to react to a call and get it right.

And you have to take the game as being as important to you as it is to the kids. You have to respect the kids and coaches the best you can. Rules study is important, too. You have to know the rules.

How much influence does homecourt advantage have on officials?

You have to try to block that out. The more noise the better, it helps block everything out. It’s the smaller crowds where you get a handful of people on both sides, then you can hear the hecklers. We’ve had to get the athletic director to go calm some of them down sometimes.

You can have fun and make jokes about the game but leave the officials alone; that would help a lot. Fans don’t realize that. They see that striped shirt instead of the person you really are. That’s what makes good coaches, the ones who can see things both ways. They can tell your kids, ‘No, you did do that. You did foul,’ or ‘you did travel.’ That makes for better players.

Are the girls games easier to officiate since they aren’t as athletic as the boys?

No. It’s harder for girls to take the contact. Some of their skills are good, but some are not as far as the dribbling and the passing. The boys are a little sharper because they’re stronger. You try to let (the girls) play as much as possible, but then you get fans yelling at you to call the foul. They fall down and nothing happened to make them fall down. It’s a little more difficult of a game to call.

The boys are much easier to call, but sometimes their games are harder to control. You always tell them pregame, “If you have a question, just ask. Do it in a gentleman-like manner. We’re here to help you. We’re always open for questions.” I always tell them we’re approachable. You can’t have that big an ego; and most of the time they’re agreeable.

Has the quality of officiating generally become better or worse since you started?

There were a lot of great officials back when I got started. You had some older guys who were retiring who were really good.

There are a lot of officials out there who could work a little harder than they do. Some like to work the lower levels and don’t like to work their way up. And some of them think they’re ready for (a higher) level and they’re not.

Some come out of college and think they’re ready for the varsity level already, but it takes years of experience. A lot of them don’t want to pay their dues like we did when we came up through the ranks. But when we went to three-man (crews, in the 2004-05 season) you had a lot more officials and that’s what makes them think they’re ready for the varsity level sooner.

When I broke into varsity, I wasn’t really prepared for all that. But time goes on and it helps a lot. Experience helps a lot, as does working with good officials.

Is officiating easier now that you have three-man crews?

I worked 27 years of two-man and then 21 years of three-man. I was ready for it. We worked our butts off in two-man in these tournaments. The game had gotten so quick that a lot of us were ready for the three-person crew. You have to work just as hard; you still have certain positions to be in, certain areas to watch, but (three-man crews) made it easier getting up and down the floor. I still get tired once in a while, but it made it a lot simpler.

I look back and think, how did we do two-man? You had to be all over the floor. You didn’t have areas the way they want you to do now. Two-man, you were pretty well all over the floor. Especially when the three-point line came in. You had to watch a lot of things you weren’t used to watching.

Are today’s players better than when you started?

The quality of play is down somewhat, I think. There are some players who are as good as ever. Back in the eighties and nineties there were a lot of good basketball players, a lot of good shooters. You don’t see that as much now as you used to. I think the players have gotten quicker, faster, but as far as talent, I’m not sure they’re any better.

They have a lot more distractions, a lot of things going on. Look at girls basketball now. There are hardly any JV teams. Some of them might play just a half. Girls softball is so popular, especially down in this area, with the travel teams. You have it in volleyball, too. A lot of the girls are playing two sports, softball and volleyball. And even soccer. Girls basketball is getting left behind.

Do you complain about the officiating when you watch games on television?

Sometimes. They have certain areas they’re supposed to be watching and yet they go out of their areas a lot. Even though there’s three of them out there, the coaches will say, “Surely one of you can see that.” I see a lot of officials who are out of position. There are a lot of different angles, and you have to move to see the play. I watch things like that.

You work baseball games, too (high school and junior college). Do you like that as well as working basketball games?

I’ve always favored baseball a little bit. You get outdoors. I like both sports but baseball’s more relaxing. It’s fun as long as the coaches are behaved. It’s gotten better over the years. They’ve cracked down on the sportsmanship in baseball. They tell them to talk to your own players but don’t say anything negative about the other teams. That’s happened the last two years.

What do you get out of doing it after all these years?

I guess it’s the satisfaction of helping the kids. I think I do things the right way and I hope they appreciate that. The coaches, too. You’re always out there trying to do your best. I enjoy it still. I’m getting up there in years and I’m still working tournaments so I must be doing something right.