Of course the discipline. Darell Garretson insisted on it. He lived it.
No one could miss that level of structure. Not after six years in the Navy, 1954 to 1960, and not as he spent 31 years as an NBA referee and 17 as chief of officials for the league, jobs that often ran concurrent.
Searing attention.
Exacting precision.
The guy was not known for his smile. Garretson is being inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on Sept. 9 in Springfield, Mass., because he influenced the NBA like few, if any, referees, and that influence was driven by demanding expectations.
Garretson, who died in 2008, was a proponent of increasing the number of referees at each game from two to three, a change instituted in 1988, during the last of his four years strictly as chief of officials. He pushed the concept of refereeing the defense, with a focus on the defenders instead of watching the ball, an approach still in use. He started summer training programs where officials, especially young officials, were drilled on game procedures (where to stand on the court, angles of sight, working as a unit with other refs) to personality (avoiding interaction with players and coaches).
“Every little thing, he’d think it through,” said Bob Delaney, a long-time friend and colleague who is now the NBA vice president of referee operations. “Things didn’t happen by happenstance when it came to Darell Garretson. He was a disciplined guy. At times maybe would think he was standoffish or had a level of arrogance, and it could be understood. But I will tell you that as a referee there was no better guy to have in your corner. If you were going well as a referee and you weren’t having any problems in games, he was all over you. He’d stay on you and nit-pick you. But if you were having a problem, he’d call you 10 times that day to make sure you were OK and get you back on the horse and get going again. He was extremely supportive in many ways.”
Garretson’s detailed procedures led to the image of robotic, uncommunicative referees, created a distance between refs and the players and coaches that later needed to be corrected, and caused discord within the ranks. But his voice on game tactics especially lives on, some through the officials who logged lengthy careers into the new century and some through the technical side of how a game should be worked. The statement from Lamell McMorris, the head of the referee’s union at the time of Garretson’s passing at age 76, remain true: “His exhaustive, devoted work has greatly influenced the craft to this day ? and it will for a very long time.”
That includes one of the ultimate legacies, that son Ron Garretson finished his 28th season as an NBA ref months before his father’s induction via the same North American committee that elected Shaquille O’Neal, Allen Iverson, Michigan State coach Tom Izzo and former college and pro coach John McLendon. Jerry Reinsdorf (Contributor), Cumberland Posey (Early African-American Pioneers), Yao Ming (International), Zelmo Beatty (Veteran’s) and Sheryl Swoopes (Women’s) will also be enshrined, with Darell Garretson entering the Hall a year after former colleague Dick Bavetta and following a group effort from several officials to get Garretson to Springfield.
In all, he worked 1,798 regular-season games starting in 1967 and 269 playoff contests, including 41 in the Finals, plus five All-Star games and headed the first union for the group, the National Assn. of Basketball Referees.
“I think that Darell would have been buttoned up and given a crisp speech and got off the stage,” Delaney said. “But inside he would be beaming with pride because of the accomplishment that he knows that it takes to get to that level. I also think, and know, that his family, his two sons and their wives and his grandchildren, are extremely proud. I’ve had the opportunity to talk to them about it.”
Scott Howard-Cooper has covered the NBA since 1988. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter.
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