Hey Howdy Hey: Refs

With high school basketball season coming to a close, I just wanted to send out a big Hey Howdy Hey of thanks to all the men and women officials who travel many miles every day, not just to Lincoln but all over the state of Montana to referee games. Football, basketball, volleyball and so on.

I believe their main goal is to keep the games fair and keep the kids safe. Often times, they have to put up with much verbal abuse from parents and fans, and there is no excuse for that. I talked with one of the ref's from Helena who told me he had been a baseball official for 15 years and three years now he has done basketball, which is a lot harder when it comes to verbal threats, etc. But he does it for the love of the game and the kids. There is another ref I know, and I am not really at liberty to say his name either, but I guess I will say that most especially in the boxing field, people know him as "Big Dad". I would guess he has been an official for close to 40 years and is still going strong. I got to see him at a couple of games up here. He is surely one of the best.

So when you go to your next sporting event, be it football, basketball, baseball, volleyball, soccer or whatever it might be, please, if you have the chance, give a sincere Thank You to the officials for all they do.

These men and women travel many miles each day, through all kinds of weather good and bad to officiate these games. They all deserve a big Hey Howdy Hey of thanks. Because without them, there would be no games.