Streaming live on the iHeart Radio app. This is I on the Ball with
Steve Rama and Jay Gonzalez on Fox Sports fourteenth fifty. Hey, welcome back
to I on the Ball here Fox s wats fateen fifty. I'm Steve,
He'sjay. Now we have Ryan le brickingy. This is I on the Ball
breaking news on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. Start a little a little bit of
you you let me try it again. Let's start with the University of Arizona
news with soccer women's soccer. They announced their twenty twenty four non comfort schedule
today and I guess the conference schedule released were released back in April. But
they start their acthibition game August seventh against UNLV and then August fifteenth they'll take
on Grand Canyon for regular season and then their home opener is on eighteenth versus
Pacific. That is so her this early. So so this is moros third
thirty year, third season, fourth season, 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 a third. Very smart woman of the tough,
tough coach. We'll see how this goes. Year number three because they
were good. They were good when the former coach left right and they had
to change a new style, change to her style. He was they were
good enough that he got a job at 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 been a little bit of a struggle for her.
So does have her schedule, have her record? It doesn't, Okay,
because she's she's gotten better and they've been more competitive, but they were.
They were very competitive before she got here. Yeah, they were now.
Yeah, I don't know what to tell you. They don't have her
record lest they're coming off the six eight five season rush. Is that what
it was? Okay? And then they were eight seven and three the year
before that, and then the year before that. I don't see it.
Sorry, Yeah, I think the conference will be better for them. Yeah,
yeah, you know, little face down for a little conference, A
big twelve conference, all right. T mac wide receiver for University Arizona.
He's been named are they Walter Camp Preseason All American. It's the first time
since twenty eighteen. Went running back J. J. Taylor was named to
the thirteen that they've got a preseason All American Walter camp yep, so he's
named. He's named that a few spots in the fact I are you know
in the press release they did include one and it was Lindy's. So Anthony
and I posted it in Lindy and then 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 just how could that be? Five year trends
of on college football teams, you know, five year trends of who covers
and who It's actually pretty interesting. Yeah. The teams that you think cover
don't Yeah. Sure. And the teams 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 they know 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 start doing our our contest again. I won't
tell you what to do, but I like it. You know. A
funny thing speaking of that, we're talking you know, just guys, I'm
talking to this whole rating stuff that that E Sports put out. There's actually
people are going to use that two you know, make just to pick games
and stuff like that because of these ratings that they because the feeling is that
the sports came out with you did a lot of homework to to be able
to rate the teams and rate players and yeah, yeah, yeah yeah,
and that that's actually could be a tool to help you make bets, make
bets on games. So do you We got a lot of time, right,
so do you? Well, I kind of know how you make your
picks. But to me, that what team has talent the other team doesn't,
and that's how many team That's not how you picked these games. That's
that's kind of well, this team if 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's it's about trends, and it's about how
they play and how they play that day and whose girlfriend exactly screwed screwed up
on a guy or whatever. Right, No, no, exactly. People,
how how talented you are has nothing to do with any of that.
Yeah, yeah, I mean that's you'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 giving up thirty and a half to New Mexico.
Right, do you touch it or you don't touch What do you do
with that? Right? You know you don't touch it? Yeah? Well
it's like today you and you made this public. You bet the Dodgers,
right, uh, money line? Yeah, and what do you think?
Exactly so, and that's why you don't do it. We can. That's
a time and that's it. And that's better than a fifty to fifty that's
mostly sixty too. Yeah, no money. They're underdogs, No, they
were, they were underdogs today. Yeah. Who the plus one thirty five
Phillies? Oh okay, so they were there were forty plus one, there
were forty. But they're still the Dodgers. But they're still the Dodgers.
But they're but the Dodgers with crap hitching. Who who is a bullpenapa?
Wait? And then we had a factor in the Gonzales rule. He bet
the Dodgers. So you know what you do, You take a left the
Albuquerque and bet the Phillies. Jay, I need you to help me here
over the Phillies, Dodgers, Dodgers. The Dodgers lost tune a road to
them. I thought that, you know, 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 on it. We're fine, Yeah,
we're fine, fine, all right, all right, two soun Roadrunners.
They released their schedule for the upcoming season. There you go. It's sorry.
I wasn't voting. So their home opener is going to be on October
nineteenth, where they will host the Texas Stars at the Tucson Arena. Twenty
six of the thirty six home games will take place on Friday, Saturday or
Sunday. Well, then they're all going to be here, right, they're
all gonna be here. They were talking 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 know if they couldn't come to an agreement.
Or they just decided they didn't want to do it, but for whatever reason,
all all thirty six home games are here. And I'm curious too if
they thought part of that was what would be the interest in Phoenix when you
don't already have soccer and it's Triple A. It's Triple A right right,
and you're an AHL team left right right. So in Tucson, they know
they have an audience, they have a pretty good fan base, audience.
Why change it exactly? At some point eventually will but not now? Not
now? You know, and look, this is a big deal and by
that I mean it's a big deal for for downtown Tucson. You know,
to have that's thirty six nights that there's gonna be four thousand people you know
going down going downtown, that's a big deal. It's a big deal to
all the businesses down there. You know, when you think about the if
that wasn't happening downtown, if they if they had decided to go to Phoenix
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 or five month period, that's that's you know,
thirty six nights that there's stuff going on down there. So it's it's
I'm really glad when you really think about it that way, you got to
be really happy that that's why, that's why they have to have success,
and that's why the Sugar Sculls have to have success and some of the others
because it means a lot to the downtown area and to do so. Yeah,
yeah, absolutely. How does the Tucson soccer team? How are they
doing? Like? They are? They pretty good? They're they're doing fairly
well. Yeah, I think they're second in the league. It's they get
I think he said maybe twelve hundred because it's so damn hot out there.
Yeah, but it's a loyal twelve hundred. 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 be in the summer. Yeah, Okay,
a little bit news out of the MLB trade deadlines approaching. One of the
names that was being thrown around was Max Scherzer from the Texas Rangers. Again.
Yeah, so he did come out yesterday and say that he excuse me
that you won't waive his no trade clause 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 somebody who's that good, right, I mean
he might be a Hall of Famer, right, Yeah, I mean I
would think so. Yeah, And yet, you know, one team to
another, to another to another. It's like, usually you know you're good,
and you're good for somebody for a long period of time. Yeah,
maybe at the end of your career you go to you know, it's amazing
to me how many different teams guys like Joe Morgan, Pete Rose, you
know, played for at the end of their careers. I had no idea.
Joe Morgan after the Giants, he played for the A's. He Rose
played for the Montreal Expo. Yeah, he played for Philly and the Expos.
And it's like, you had no idea that these guys who were you
know, big time well people I was in a Hall of Famer, Well
he is, he is, but he's not. But anyways, you know,
the guys of that at that level, you know, in terms of
you know, how good they were that they still wound up at the end
friend of violence, Swelo pitched for Baltimore. Really, I didn't remember that.
Yeah, what year was that, I don't know, nineteen eighty something,
eighty nineties, ninety probably in the nineties. Really, yeah, I
didn't know that. So you know stuff 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 after you know, when when the Dodgers let
him go, it's crazy. Anyways, Sorry, he needs to stay with
them. I mean the Rangers, they're still in the they're still in the
hunt. They suck, They're not doing very well. They're not They're not.
I don't think they're They're under five hundred, aren't they forty forty four
and well this was yesterday forty four and forty nine, but probably forty five.
Yeah, he just lost his last out and I think I saw that
one. Yeah, he's yeah, he's coming off that injury as well.
He had some surgery last year. So anyway, sticking with MLB, Paul
Skeen is continuing to have a good season with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He had
seven no hit innings today and struck out eleven against the Milwaukee Brewers. Pirates
went on to win win nothing did he they he didn't didn't finish the game.
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 finish the game. So he got able to
sing one the in the eighth and then they came, h, I hate
this. Well that's the way the pitch is going today. Yeah you know,
I yeah, you know. It was again another funny conversation. I
was listening. I was listening to talking about how you know some of these
old pictures, right, you know, Nolan Ryan had three hundred wins.
All these other guys had two hundred and some wins and like the leading active
picture or he's like one hundred and forty wins after shures are in those guys
who you know, who are on the way out, Like nobody's gonna get
to two hundred wins right right with this with this new uh sure, because
you pitch four innings and you can't get a win because of that, you
know, the the specifications or whatever the word you want to use is changed
because of the good old days when the for now know of the world went
eight to nine and yeah they plaid complete games. Yeah, uh give up
three four hits. Uh. Saves were 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 a guy who's gonna get forty saves? Right,
I don't think there is a guy like that. I mean I can
go look it up, and I mean, you know what the Saves leader
has this year? I hate that guy. Another thing about Jay, he
doesn't like anybody. You know that Mikey commercial. Are you too young to
know about the Mikey commercial? I probably heard about in the Cereal o Mike
he doesn't like anything, but he liked that cereal. That's Jane. Yeah,
Jane doesn't like anything. You didn't need the cereal. He likes it?
All right, let me see, I'm okay, keep going. I'm
looking this up because I went I want to know this, but the Saves
leader has I guess The last thing I have is just some news out of
the summer league about John Johnson. Yeah, and they could be a you
know, next diamond in the rough for the heat. We can go two
ways. It could be it could be the next, you know, the
next guy for me, he had a heck of a game last night.
The problem with all that is you have a great game. I remember that
Jared Baylis had a great game. No, it was somebody who, uh,
who was very good at Juve, had a good summer league, but
didn't find a space, didn't find space on a team. And in the
NBA this is kind of a water the summer leaguesist. You kind of just
play and you become somebody, but you still don't fit into the next thing.
It's not that can't. But he's had a pretty guy, he's good,
and he's athletic. Who knows? Who knows? All I know is
I won the twenty bucks from Peterson. I don't care. But but uh,
is he capable? Maybe? Will it be tough? Maybe? Yeah,
So we'll see. Okay, I misspoke. The Saves leader right now
is a guy named Ryan Helsley. He has thirty one for who this is
Saint Louis. Wow, they won thirty one games, So who's thought that
because they're not good either. Yeah, you must have saved every game that
they want. Yeah, Craig Campbell have 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 go and take our break. We're gonna
come back. We're gonna have Richard McGee, he's a high school football referee.
Just talk about, you know, the need for referees, but just
some of the other stuff of trends and things that they're going through. So
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Today. This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera and Jay Gonzalez soun
Fox Sports fourteen fifty. Subscribe now to 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 Rick McGee and bj Fogeltants High School of Football
referees. You guys, are you have that on the resume? More power
to you because they're in a safe deal. You guys must get a lot
of criticism. But it's a tough job, right guys. It's a little
hard at times. Yeah, but you know we get through it. Were
this week. It's a very tough job. My dad is Jim Fogeltants.
He was a packed and packed foal official forty three years and I never wanted
to be a fish. I don't want to be boot out all the time,
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'm just saying, what, why, what
makes you want to be a referee and what what do you get out of
it? Uh? And why did you choose to do this stuff? Okay,
this is b day. First of all, I tell her to follow
my dad's footsteps. But I love the competition. I love being part of
the game. Friday night lights are very very special. I love the fans,
I love the coaches, I love the pep bands. You know,
it's a great time, Rick, Rick, Yeah, yeah, I mean
I I got into it for love of the game. I mean I I
love football sports in general. You guys, you guys have been in it
for a long time. I think one of the reasons we have have you
on is that is there a shortage of this because because of all the craft
that goes on, there is a big 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. Oh good, and if they don't pay the
fine, they can't come back to the coach. So wow, Okay,
simmering down quite a bit. It's it'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 Thursday nights we had three guys instead of four
guys on the freshman DV games. And I mean that's not good for anybody.
Yeah, yeah, there is there are there misconceptions. Do you think
a little bit about about all of that that you know, we see,
we see the videos on social media and that kind of stuff that guys,
it's not as bad as it as it looks, you know, come on
out and give us a hand. Oh god, it really isn't as bad
as it looks. Most of the time, everything is nice and smooth.
You go out there, you have a great game, your crew is great,
everything goes well, and you go home. And that's ninety percent of
the time. Ten percent of the time 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, the only stuff that makes it on the sports
center, right, So that's all people see. They don't see, you
know, the great parts of the game, or the great calls that one
of the referee makes, or you know, something something special that happens between
maybe one of the referees and the coach 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 on YouTube, are you know the media es
then that's very very rare, right, that's probably one percent of the time.
So you talk about the coaches being fined. But I've said this often
enough that the worst thing about kids sports are the parents. Amen, That's
all I can say. That's the toughest 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
to curb that that issue. I don't know. If you can't find and
can find parents or maybe get them out of the out of the stands.
Well, the coaches, the coach is 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, then he gets objective right right. Well,
and the veteran officials like me and Rick, 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 is that. So we make sure that they're
having fun and you know, we'll be Your dad did this, so you
saw a lot of this. Rick, I don't know what your background is,
you know, before you started referee, but when you started refereeing,
what what you know? What what were 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 city league game or a slow pitch softball game.
Now you're out on the field at a high school football game or a
basketball game or whatever. What was that like for you guys? For me,
I had amazingly enough, the guy that was in charge of the crew
had actually officiated me in high school in California. So we were talking and
joking on the way and he really relaxed me and made me feel much better.
But yeah, I can say as we were on the ride towards the
game, yeah, I was two in my nails a little bit. I
was a little bit nervous, you know. And I can tell the story.
I brought my nephew in to refereeing last year. It was his first
year, and he said his first game or two. He was really nervous,
but there were a lot of older, more experienced officials that really helped
him through. One of them was a guy from here in Tucson that was
an NFL reference hall kind of a way. So yeah, you know,
I was scared to death, absolutely scared 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 first man at the game on the goal line.
So that was my introduction to high school. But you know, after
the game, uh, we had a good ride back had spun And then
my second second week, I was at Sabino and that's when I fell in
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 it was a big game, thousands of fans
there, and yeah, I mean everybody was a little tiny, but you
loosen up after the first couple of plays. So yeah, yeah, you
know, after the kickoffs, the butterflies 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 locker room, 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 do a good job. You're trying to
make sure that everything goes well and not notice exactly and you exactly. You
know, you don't want you want people to not know you're there. You
got to stretch, you got to do all the things. Uh, and
then you but you're wearing a you know, a different uniform. Is it?
Is it something that what would let me ask you? Let me ask
you this way. If there's a young 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 should and what they can expect you know it.
Well, there's a lot of camaraderie among the officials. So after our
varsity games on Friday night, we'll go hang out and you know, watch
the watch the highlights or the low lights whatever it's maybe that night. Things
like that, and there's the community and besides, it pays pretty well,
you know, I mean if you go on an Alperaly base, So this
is not that bad money when you do a varsity game. So yeah,
I say for the for the guys in college, you know, let's put
it that way. When I was in 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 for two hours. Friday night you make
ninety bucks. Saturday, you can make 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 the women's guy got I don't know why he's
about the Schofield scofield. Of course when I asked him this, when you're
on the field and you're human, right, so you're here to do the
game, but you probably notice some of the players, right because you say,
God, that guy's good, or you have to notice who's who you're
officiating for. Yeah, I mean you'll notice who's good and who's better.
But you always want to officiate from the standpoint of you're you're officiating the game
based on its two teams and they're both the same, Like you don't I
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 watched him 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, you just enjoy watching those guys work. Did
you ever get caught up watching those guys you know and watching the plays?
Or how hard is it to zero in on what you're supposed to be looking
at right, because I'm guessing you guys all have something a little different you're
supposed to be looking at. I mean, I'm always in my zone.
I don't I don't try to look at what players are doing anything like that.
I can tell you there was one game where I watched Kadeem carry from
the back a few times because I was the back judge that game, and
he beat me to the end zone. Twice, which is not supposed to
happen. But it was just still keeping up with that kid. I think
he went for three hundred and so odd 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 I tend to watch the ball, and
you know, I'm the head referee and a long path play. When I'm
watching the ball and watching the defender receiver, 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 on the 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 review the tape? Is it right away?
Is that you know? Okay, I screwed that up? How does that
work? Sometimes? Yeah, there's there's a thing called huddle. So all
the schools have called huddle and it posts and usually by Sunday you can watch
your game film. Some schools are a little slower. But me, as
the white hat for my crew, I go through and I try to keep
track of all the penalties. We called everything right, what time and I
will go through and I'll review it and see, hey, we get that
right, did we get it wrong? Whatever. I'll make the list and
then i'll send that out to the guys 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 how many how many plays in a game one
and and and two? How many bad calls are there in those nomber of
plays? Oh gosh, I don't know 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 the college. You know, it's usually about
one hundred and sixty plays, and we might get one or two wrong and
one hundred and sixty plays that's pretty good. That's pretty good. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay, so you got football 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's a lot of need. First of all,
tell us about the need, you know, I mean, how many
how many refs do you need in this community to cover all this stuff?
And then what's the process. Let's say, you know, Joe Blow wants
to be a ref what does he do? If someone wants to become a
referee, they just have to go to ai A online dot org and click
on officials and it'll bring it up and they'll tell them exactly how to register
everything. That's that's step one. And then Dave Wanton, who's our head
of officials here in Tucson, we'll reach out to them and tell them when
the trainings are where they are and explain to them how to get into it.
Sign them a mentor. So I was my nephew's mentor, so I
actually tried to watch everything I could that he did. There is a film
on JB games, so I did make it to one of those games and
he did a couple of varsities that I watched the film on. But you
know, you'll get a mentor somebody who 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 freshman and things like that, and once you
start getting acclimated, then you'll start moving up to birsity and then and then
that for varsity. And you know there's guys that will come up to me
or other college guys and you know they 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 out there? There are I don't know exactly
what that Last year we were way short and we usually go or we pre
COVID twenty nineteen we had one hundred and fifty hundred and sixty guys, and
I believe last year we came in maybe one hundred and twenty. Wow.
Okay, how many did you need on a Friday night? Okay? So
so we have five guys on a Friday night. Some of the big games
will have seven. And that's why another reason why we need more officials because
some of the bigger games, you know, we really need seven there.
Phoenix, they do seven man cruise on Friday nights for a lot of their
games. That's another reason why we need more guys. Okay, so how
many games in the night and Tucson ten? How many are there? Oh,
I've got a lot more of that. Yeah, there's a lot more
than that. There's probably twenty games going on on the round. So the
twenty times five, that's one hundred of the people. As you, guys
are saturated most Friday nights. Yeah, most Friday nights, we are down
to the last God interesting. So so so you're not you're not going to
be waiting around to get games if you If you sign up to do this,
you've got work. So what's the process too? I mean, if
Jay wants to do it, could he 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
or whatever, I mean, what you know, serious I mean, yeah,
how good a physical condition do you need to be in? Well,
we have guys out there with bad knees and whatnot. I myself, I
mean, I worked out every day. I try to stay in shape.
But that's that's me. But there are guys they're not in super great shame,
but they still get up and down the field. I mean, you
have to be able to move, get in the right positions and things.
And we don't want to discourage anybody from signing up, right, you know,
I mean all everybody's welcome guys, girls, everybody, I say,
he said, he said, girls are women. Tons of opportunities for women
and football. They're moving up into college in the past. I was.
I was just at a camp in an ol Paso for college football officials and
we had four women from the NFL that are getting ready to be out there
practicing up. So and they moved up 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 join if we want to join ai a online
dot org. Okay, and there's a 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 them call me. I'm I'm I'm at five
two zero sixty three one eight six eight zero. And if they want to
give me a call, I will talk them through it. Yeah, and
I'll get my number two five two zero eight five zero five six four nine.
Okay, Can I ask how about you guys get paid? Varsity is
ninety JB JB is sixty. Youth games on Saturday's are sixty a game.
Okay, so for like two three hours that's pretty good. Ye. Well
yeah, I mean you can do five youth games on a Saturday. That's
the youth games are usually about an hour and a half. Yeah, I've
done six games on a chatterday. Okay. This is a nice side gig.
Yeah. It all goes into account for my wife and I to go
on. That's where you should have started the whole conversation. Come on a
cruise with us, become a rough Thanks guys, Hey, guys, I
appreciate it. Thanks for the NFL be well thinks I'm going on. You
know, I did think about doing that a long time ago, but I
chose to coach instead. But you know, look, and I've had my
things with you know, umps and referees stuff, but you know, you
know, always a respect for them though, because that's a hard job.
Uh you know. I did some Little league umpiring all stars that kind of
stuff. And man again the stuff you the stuff you see, the stuff
you hear man you know? Uh well I told you the story. Right.
So, so my son's played soccer for 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
Spanish? Yes, yeah, pretty much, come on, comb they come
down, ye know, this is just 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 two zero four one six four forty. Maybe
we can recruit a couple of refs here, all right, come back,
stick stick around if you're an Arizona men's basketball fan. You know it's been
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A Team apply online today at a teamsecurity dot net. Steve Rivera and Jacin
Salles they have their eye on the ball on Tucson sports station het Fox Sports
fourteen fifteen. Hey, welcome back to 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's being a referee, Yeah right,
go do it man, Sure go do it. Throw a flag. You
look like you're in better shape than us. Yeah, you know, on
our play, all I would have to do is run one time, like
forty yards, and that would be it 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 never hope. Yeah, you know, these
games go by so fast, so fast. So when you're down, like
in the eighth and you're down to you sing, oh god, sober so
I mean I saw, I think now because the game is gon fly so
bad? Yeah. Yeah, not top of the six. So here we
go. We're still in it. I got shot at this, I got
shot. Okay, well we have twelve minutes for us. Anybody want to
call, please do any but you have an experience with some refs goood or
bad, give us a call that'd be fun. Or you know, are
you the victors. I'm sure Victors hasn't yelled that a ref should. I
admit that during my kids high school days, I got thrown out of a
game in three different sports. What are you doing? I was I was
the official scorer at a volleyball match. I got tossed out of that.
I got tossed out as a as a out of a baseball game, uh,
you know, for coach, as a coach, and I got tossed
out of a softball game as a coach. So yeah, so there you
go. It's a it's a it's a it's a badge of honor that I
wear. But you know, what are you gonna do? You know,
sometimes, you know, sometimes you just do what you do, right,
I guess, uh, did you not let this man into the building?
Kind of looks like Fernando Vealezuela, George Lopez. Yeah, so anyway,
it happens. It happens. But you know, but again I've always in
the end, I've just you know, you know that especially at the youth
level, that these these refs they're out there because not because they're trying to
make money. I mean, I get it, you know, you know.
Rick McGee said, yeah, well, you know, I get I
make all this money and we do this stuff with it. But for the
most part, they're not. That's why 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
question of people who who who played sports or whatever, and and you you
call it juice with your with your gambling 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 played play poker. I love to be competitive
with it and I don't want to run any of the do I let's take
this call. I are on the air and I on the ball. Hey,
how's the going? My name? I was wondering if I can hop
on real quick and talk about the referee short? Absolutely, go ahead?
What do you? What do you got? Oh? Hey, thanks?
No. The reason why I called it is, wow, what a big
topic that we really don't talk too much about soccer, coach. And what
I can tell you is that if you go out there and this is for
boys and girls and all they just the referees are about and they're early teams
maybe thirteen to seventeen ish to their late 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 David need to do it for the money,
and then what happens? The kids suffer? No, Yeah, without question,
at the very end, that's the that's the friendly fire, it's touch,
that's who affected the monk, right right, you're absolutely correct on that.
What Look, this is a it's an issue, it's a problem.
But what do we do right? How do we how do we get past
all that? How do we get parents to act better in those kinds of
things? What can you possibly do? You know? Sadly, the solution
is simple because a lot of games they'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 to act as a safety manument manager for
one league and I almost had one punch an other parents holding a kid.
What is this about? Yeah? Tell me that, and that the girls
on the field playing soccers, that are about No. But it just give
me allowed that to have? Can you shit the example? You allowed everybody
else to curse and salve and so forth. And again I know I'm a
broken record here, but wow, it's really hurting the kids. And nowadays
social media, you gotta have some kind of outload for them. So let
me ask you real quick, give me an example of a strike and then
you go the three of them. Yes, uh oh, it does have
to be three strikes. You give yourself to be the referee. The referee
will go over to the coach and say, hey, calm down your parents.
If they don't, you get a yellow card, and then that that's
something in place to some organizations. But but if it's something like, hey,
you're yelling at a kid calling out their race, there's something about damn,
then the game will be stopped. Get that parent out of there and
their kids. Yeah, and it seems extreme, but you know what's even
more extreme. Pictures only teenagers and fifty sixty year olds as referees, and
so many games are canceled rearranged because we 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 the topic. Thank you, That's why we
have the topic. It's it's a it's a we can talk about this for
a long time. Yeah, No, it's affected. And he brought up
he brought up a thing. So I'm coaching middle school softball, okay,
middle school softball, and all of a sudden I look out on the I
look out on the on the and our pictures crying, and I call time
on. I go, why are you crying? She goes that man back
there yelling at Really, who's that better? My dad? No? I
said, what is he saying? He's just saying things. He's saying,
I'm a terrible picture. But I didn't hear him because there was a dug
out of that sure, so I couldn'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 there is yelling at her. I said,
one, why haven't you already done something about it? Because why is she
crying? Why did it take her to she's what twelve thirteen? Yeah,
yeah, she was in eighth grade, twelve thirteen. Why why did it
take for her to be crying for somebody to go say something to this guy?
I said, I want you to say 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 it ended there. But why why is the
Why is the parent yelling at the other team's kid. Oh, it was
another team's kid. Okay, it wasn't one of our parents. It was
a parent of somebody on the other team. And he's taunting our picture.
What do we doing? People are says, that's unbelievable. We've had this
when the kids played soccer, and we used to have the coach. I
won't say who is because he's on the show every now and again. Uh,
come on and gather the group of parents, and it was only like
two parents, but we all have to suffer the same face. And I
always said, just tell the guys directly 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 league games on time, that's it that you
can't say those things. The umpire is like fifteen. I said, stop,
you can't I say that, coach, you can't, coach, Come
on, coach. I had to tell my dad to quit yelling at the
fifteen year old umpire. He was yelling 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.
I'm like that stop. Just you suck 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 to the field and we're playing in Keno and
I got taught. It was I mean, I won't even go into why,
but my wife was just chatting to something with somebody, you know,
at the game. They're just sitting there there talking to She's talking to another
another mom, and then the mom says, I think your husband just got
thrown out of the game. She goes, no, he did it.
Well, he's going up the stairs over there talk to you. I was
walking up the stairs because I was told to leave the stadium, and it
was like, what the hell happened? Well, it was a It was
a bad thing. Actually was the thing that I complained to to the to
the A I a about because I thought that reff was a way out of
or that umpire was way out of line. You know, I was I
was standing up for my guys. I was standing up for my guys,
and you got tossed and I got tossed throwing the home plate, no home
place. Here's the here's the bad part about it. And maybe he entered
into it a little bit because I had seen the umpire before. Well he
he had played baseball for a s so I knew he was a sundown.
I'm sure they're playing a lot of I'm gonna say that had a little bit
to do with this. Well sure, anyway, Okay, anybody want to
call. We have a time for maybe a little time for maybe one more
call five zero four one, six seventy four forty. Good topic. It's
a great topic because Steve, it all 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 got the Phillies, uh Dodger game on,
and you know this kid, they were they were playing youth, all yeah,
right, and they needed these refs and they needed these umpires to be
there so that they could do this. So so here's the here's the problem.
There's no solution because it's a human human element into it. Humans are
paying in the asses, and everyone's right. 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 because he thinks the umpire is impeding his kids
to the major league. Something pass to the major league, right, you
know those kinds of if not the coach, somebody else right, right,
Maybe he doesn't realize the kids not any good. Honestly, there's well there's
you talked about the ladies behind you talking about volleyball and my girls going going
they issue the player and they weren't any good. Yeah, it's like yeah,
I mean, you know you have these 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
yeah like that. You wait a minute, you know, baseball dad and
basketball dad is pretty bad. I mean all of it. Look, Steve,
I don't think this ever got out. But there was a there was
a basketball tournament, one of those you know high school Yeah, week long
basketball tournaments. Uh, that ended at michale I know what you're going to
say. That ended with the lady pulling 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 because you're the second person to ever know this,
the third person will to make it public because I went to the I
went to the police blogs. It was not in there. It was not.
It never got reported because because I knew, but I went to check
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 said this to me or to anybody else.
Because I knew about it. We all know what happened. Yeah, it
was the summer that Yeah, summer league many years ago. Yeah it happened.
I know it did because they told me. But I had to get
proof of it, and then you couldn't find it and it was not in
the log. Yeah, either purposely or otherwise purposely. I'm sure, Yeah,
because of course they didn't want anybody know 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 we can talk about it's more than twenty years.
Yeah, but it happened. I know it is. It was a
little shocked that you said this because it's true, not that it's true.
You're the first person to actually say it publicly. Yeah. Well no,
I'm aware, I'm aware, but there was no and that's the extreme right,
that's the extreme. But that's what refs. 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, I heard about it right after it happened
stuff, you know. Yeah, yeah, I heard about it right after
it happened, and I and I was bagged not to say a lot of
people were. I got the I got the source told me and I went
to the police, to the U and it wasn't in the paper. It
wasn't. No. I was begged not to time, But like I said,
I can't hold a secret for my twenty years. Apparently that that was
long enough. Man, Yeah, you know, twenty years again. And
but that's that's not the only place that'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 show today, interesting stuff. I surprise.
We surprise ourselves, we do sometimes. All right, we'll be back
tomorrow. The ASU Athletic director will be on. Grand Rosini will join us,
So be sure to come back.