This weekend my Dad, Sister and I are officiating a Girls Varisty game together. My Dad has a friend that is a reporter that is going to do a story about it after the game. He has done some research and can't seem to find another instance where 3 family members have officiated the same game.

Just wondering if anyone else has had experiences with family members and officiating together.

PS. I don't particularly like the fact that we are having a story done about us but the fact that they haven't been able to find another instance of this, at least in Illinois, makes it sort of cool.

I know of a father-son combo who used to work lost of games here in VA, but never heard of a 3 man crew all being of the same family.

Father/Son is common, nothing special there. Now a 3-man crew of the same family is new to me. Sounds cool. Good luck.

There are a couple of father-son combos in our association, but no father-daughter that I know of, or three officials in one family.

Sounds like fun. Who's buyin' after the game?

We had a father and 2 sons combo in our association up until 2 years ago. There were also a brother/uncle and 1st/2nd cousin from the same family. There were many instances when a combination of the 3 of them worked games together.

In our association this year we have two brothers, and the older man's two daughters. The older man also has a son who has reffed in our association, but he's moved away recently. I don't know if they've ever worked a 3-whistle game together, but I'm sure there have been a number of games worked by them in various 2-whistle combinations.

That's great, Jerry. Enjoy the hell outa that game. Gonna make your Dad the R? It'll probably be the first time that he's been in charge of anything since you and your sister were born. :)

In my area, we had three brothers that were all very good officials. I think the oldest brother has retired now from officiating. I can't say for sure, but I would be willing to bet that the three of them have worked a lower level college game together.

My Dad's buying of course. I always take the free meals when I head home.:p

And there's probably a couple of bags of laundry, too?!

Nope. No Laundry, wife and I have to take care of that now.

We have a father and 2 sons on the same FB crew here.

Mom will be calling the shots from the stands.

What's this 'we' stuff? You take it out of the duffel and she washes it? :D

Congratulations. That is a great Post. The three of you should be very proud of each other! Rules Talk around the Thanksgving Table might get kind of boring for the civilians but who cares.

Thats a first for me. Congrats to you guys and have fun. But me and my brother do work togeather everynow and than. and again congrats.

Huh????

Don't worry; I heard Mr. Grammar Guy's head exploded, but I think he got a replacement. Head, that is. So he'll be fine after he gets out of recovery.

There is a family in GA that has 3 sisters & 1 brother officiating. We were just recently talking about how it was probably pretty rare.

Speaking of laundry, I think one of their biggest problems is trying to sort out whose stripes belong to whom. :p

Post the link to the article when it comes out (if it's online) we would love to see it.

At the D1 level, Tom O'Neill worked a Marquette Univ. game with his two sons - Tom, Jr. and Rick several years ago (probably 4-5 years). There was a small story/picture about this in the NCAA News - but I was not able to find the link/info. on the web.

Tom is one of the big-time D1 guys who works 100+ games per year. His sons both work several D1 leagues (as well as lower levels of college ball).

I hope you enjoy the game - I'm sure it will be a great experience!

Hey guys, someone requested the story that was written about us. I am going to paste it in below. Sorry about the length of it.

The game ended up being a great game, one team with 1 loss for the season vs. another decent team. 1 loss team ended up winning by about 10.

Ended up be a very fun game to officiate and we had a really good game together. Got a compliment from the winning teams head coach saying we were the best crew he had all year. So it's a great compliment but definetely taken with a small grain of salt being that it was the winning coach.

Here is the story:

Blum family has date with officiating history
By Howard Schlossberg
Daily Herald Correspondent

Jerry Blum has been a basketball official for 17 years, but he’s been
waiting for this game all his life.

Saturday night, Blum, son Jerry and daughter Heather will officiate
the Fox Valley Conference’s Grayslake-Crystal Lake South varsity girls
game at South.

To the best of anyone’s knowledge, it’s the first time three people
from the same immediate family have officiated a varsity game together.

While they’re all excited about it, and a little nervous, they realize
the game’s the important thing.

“I’d just prefer it be another game, but it’s pretty cool do this
with my family,” said the younger Jerry, an Indianapolis resident
who’s working under the states’ reciprocal agreement.

“I think I’ll be a little nervous,” said Heather, a recent Western
Michigan University grad in criminal justice and far Northwest suburban
resident who just had her first baby in December, the Blum’s fourth
grandchild. “It’s my first game of the season. It’s my first game
with my brother. It’s kind of intimidating.”

“I think I’ll be excited about it, upon taking the court,” said
the elder Blum, a retired Buffalo Grove teacher and coach, whose
children
both were varsity athletes at Lake Zurich in the last 10 years.

But nervous?

“I don’t know,” he said. “As of now, I don’t think so.”

All three acknowledged, though, that five minutes, or less, into
the game, the dazzle of refereeing with the family will likely have
faded.

In part, that will be because of pre-game prep. In fact, dad and
daughter will have attended a few games together this week just to
sit, observe and discuss situations, hypothetical or not.

They’ll do that at the game, too, as a trio in a referees’ traditional
pregame.

What’s a pregame? As dad describes it, it’s simply discussing
situations
that could arise and knowing who’s where and when during any and all
of that, let alone going over the basics and remembering to communicate
out on the court.

Besides, son and daughter are confident they had a good teacher.

During her first year officiating, Heather said she would do underclass
games for which her dad did the varsity. She’d stick around and watch
him and he’d come early and watch her and offer advice.

“My dad’s very strict on doing games the right way,” she recalled.

“I got into officiating because of my dad. I was always into sports,”
said the younger Jerry. “Funny thing is, my wife used to officiate
as well. The four of us have gone to Special Olympics together,” and
officiated there, on a volunteer basis, to help a good cause and to
keep their officiating skills sharp.

“The biggest thing I learned from him was concentrating on mechanics
and looking like I know what I’m doing,” which means being
authoritative,
said the younger Jerry.

The younger Jerry said he knows he gets coaches’ respect when they
see he knows what he’s doing.

For his part, the elder Jerry just wanted to make sure his kids
were objective and had integrity.

“The thing I’ve tried to get them to be is professional and fair,
to go out there looking professional,” the elder Blum said.

And while all three are concentrating on making the game and not
themselves the centerpiece, there’s no escaping the novelty of the
situation and the chance at a family reunion.

“If it isn’t unique, it certainly is very unusual,” IHSA assistant
executive director Scott Johnson said of having three members of the
same immediate family officiate a game.

With the younger Jerry and his wife in town from Indianapolis for
the occasion, the family scheduled Heather’s daughter’s christening
for Sunday. It won’t be the last this year for the family. Two more
grandchildren will be on board by June, including the younger Jerry
and his wife’s first child.

“Angie (younger Jerry’s wife) is just excited about being around
Abigail,” said “grandpa” Jerry of his second-year medical resident
daughter-in-law.

Still, all told, the family has come a long way considering the
kids got involved in officiating to stay busy and make some extra
money in college and high school, which was when Heather started
umpiring
Little League baseball.

“She does a good job of handling herself on the court, so does Jerry,”
their dad said. “He takes his game seriously. If he does the prelim
(sophomore) game, he’ll stick around and watch the varsity,” and
network
with coaches and athletic directors to generate more work

The postgame will be taken seriously too, when, over pizza, they’ll
likely rehash situations and calls and have a few laughs about who
was out of position and who wasn’t.

“That’ll probably be discussed at dinner,” said Heather, a stay-at-home
mom who’s enjoying her time with daughter Abigail.

“We’ll go out and do our best,” their dad said.

“I’m always looking for ways to improve,” said the younger Jerry,
who plans on having a copy of the game for posterity. “I know I plan
on getting a videotape.”



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Jerry - sounded like a good time.

Any stories, or interesting comments made at the game itself?

Who was out of position the most? :D

Other than the fact that they announced what was going on as far as the officials before the game there really wasn't anything out of the ordinary. It was actually a very uneventful game, everything went smooth and the coaches coached and really didn't say anything.

Only comments that we heard other than the coaches was by some friends and family that had come to watch.

My sister was the only one that had any problems with positioning and it was because it was her first game of the year after having a baby 6 weeks ago and she was a little nervous. Everyone was very impressed that she was able to be out there so quickly.