Tag Archives: Inland Empire Football Officials Association

Scraggly Thursday Rundown

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Good evening to all my loyal readers and those lucky internet surfers who might be finding this blog for the first time. I am ready for my latest Thursday Rundown so let’s get after it. Five topics are coming your way right now…

Pride – My dad is a retired high school football referee and former Inland Empire Football Officials Association Official of the Year. But his greatest accomplishment isn’t the outstanding ratings he garnered during his career nor the state championship game he was the white hat for in 2014. Rather, it was the sportsmanship award he spearheaded and implemented for the association. My dad had a vision to institute a traveling trophy that would be awarded to a single high school football program that exhibited superior sportsmanship throughout the season. He was successful in making his idea a reality and for years he would travel to deliver the award to the deserving school at their end of the year banquet. At the time, and even after my dad stepped away from officiating, it was just called the Sportsmanship Award. Today he opened up the newspaper and saw that it no longer carries such a generic name. The Tom Reser Sportsmanship Award will be presented to the Ridgeline High School football program on March 31.

The sportsmanship award that my dad established for Inland Empire Officials Association has since been re-named the Tom Reser Sportsmanship Award.

Scraggly Beard – We read a lot of silly books to Sloan but we also like to incorporate some more socially conscious reading as well. Spokane has a large homeless population and Sloan has had some encounters with people on the street. On Tuesday night I read her “The One With the Scraggly Beard,” a story that addresses homelessness in an honest and compassionate way. The book chronicles the questions and concerns of a boy who observes daily a man who sleeps under a bridge and exhibits strange behavior. The boy’s mother is able to help him understand that the guy under the bridge used to be a boy just like him with similar dreams and goals. After reading the book, Sloan and I were able to discuss our own experiences with the homeless and the dignity that they still retain as human beings.

“The One With the Straggly Beard” is a children’s book that addresses homelessness.

Pi Day Creativity – Last week we debuted one of my favorite things that I have helped with while at WSU. On Pi Day we released a video of our math department chair providing an explanation of pi. On March 14, many higher ed institutions and other organizations will try to get cute and incorporate an actual pie into their social posts. It is now cliché. My thought was to take advantage of the world class faculty at WSU and perhaps teach our audience something. Dr. Charles Moore was fabulous to work with as he provided both a one-minute lecture that got right to the essence of pi and a mic drop pun at the end. Our videographers, Jace and Josue, did an exceptional job incorporating the lightboard and perfecting the lighting. Watch the video here.

Charles Moore, the math department chair at Washington State University, was the star of our Pi Day video.

Sloan’s 5th Birthday Cake – Some birthday cakes have received entire blog posts in the past but Sloan’s 5th birthday cake will be given the Thursday Rundown treatment. We bought this unicorn cake at Walmart and had it made with a vanilla bottom layer and a chocolate top layer. All the kids at the party and many of the parents ate a slice and we still nearly half the cake left when we packed up at Chuck E. Cheese.

This was Sloan’s 5th birthday cake prior to its cutting. We ordered it from Walmart.

Shot of the Kids – On Saturday, March 13, we headed to downtown Spokane for the St. Patrick’s Day parade. What a joy it was to attend a parade again! We met my dad, sister, and her two kids for an early afternoon of celebration and fun. While watching the parade, Spokesman-Review photographer Jesse Tinsley spotted our group and asked to take a photo of the kids. Although they didn’t make the front page of the paper, they did make the online gallery that accompanied the story. What a great looking group!

Jesse Tinsley of the Spokesman-Review snapped this photo of Sloan, Mikayla, Johnny, and Beau.

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Thank you for your time this evening. Let us continue to pray for peace around the world. Remember to be positive and lift others up. Don’t Blink.

Congrats, Mr. Official of the Year!

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Late last week the Inland Empire Football Officials Association held its end of the year banquet. This event served as a time for the association’s 100 football officials in the city of Spokane to get together as a group, enjoy some good food, listen to a guest speaker, and hand out a few awards. At the very end of the night they presented the biggest and most important honor, the coveted Official of the Year award. With his wife seated right next to him, Tom Reser heard his name called.

My dad with his very well deserved Official of the Year award.

My dad with his very well deserved Official of the Year award.

Last Thursday night my mom sent out a joyful text message to the three of us kids declaring the good news that our dad had won Official of the Year. All by myself in my apartment I immediately got a beaming smile across my face and my eyes watered up. I took a couple minutes to let the pride and emotion that I felt settle in my body before I composed a congratulations text to my dad. Later that night when my dad and mom returned home from his well-deserved moment in the spotlight I got to call him and tell him how I proud I was. He had done it.

My dad flipping the coin to start one of the 600 games he has officiated.

My dad flipping the coin to start one of the 600 games he has officiated.

After twenty-nine years as a football official, twenty-seven of those coming in the IEFOA, my dad had achieved the highest honor that he possibly could at the high school (and everything underneath) football level. You might say I am a bit biased being his son and all, but let me tell you, no one could have been more deserving than my dad.

It is proven: You do something better when you are passionate about it. My dad is, and always has been, passionate about officiating football. I grew up with my dad coming and going in his stripes. By the age of six I knew every single football hand signal because he took the time and displayed the amazing patience to teach me. My dad would slip me into one of his referee outfits and with me drowning inside of it I would perform the hand signals exactly as my dad called them out. Probably all the way up until I was twelve years old when someone asked me what my dad did for a living I told them that he was a football official as opposed to mentioning that he worked in administration at the Spokane Veterans’ Affairs Hospital.

From the time I was very little I admired my dad and wanted to be a referee like him.

From the time I was very little I admired my dad and wanted to be a referee like him.

When I did start to get older I took more of a notice on how dedicated and involved he was with officiating. A couple months before the season started I would see him studying up on his officials’ manuals. I would see him polishing his officiating shoes rigorously. I would observe him calling other officials to let them know when meetings were. I would go to trade shows with him where he would set up a booth and try to recruit new referees to the association. I would watch him spend his own money on sandwiches and Gatorades for his crew. After working a hotly contested varsity high school game on Friday night I would say goodbye to him on Saturday morning as I went to my own football practice and my dad went out to a dingy complex where he would officiate three straight YMCA fifth grade games.

By the time I was playing high school football my dad had rose to a permanent white hat. He had become well known in the association as a well-respected referee. Because of this I would sometimes vent my frustrations to him when I felt (as most high school football players do) that our team got screwed by the zebras. Even with me taking shots at his fellow officials who he defended to no end, my dad would always take the time to listen to my concerns and then address them. Although my dad couldn’t officiate games that I participated in, he would always do our Mead High School Blue-Gold scrimmage. I always felt honored to share the field with my dad and have my teammates tell me what a cool old man I had.

My dad starting a game between Lewis & Clark and Central Valley.

My dad starting a game between Lewis & Clark and Central Valley.

As I moved away, went to college, and started my career in Missoula, my dad continued to prosper as an official. He received more big time assignments, he was awarded several state playoff games, and he served on the officiating board. In a true show of leadership, my dad took it upon himself to create a sportsmanship traveling trophy. Each year now, the officials get together and vote on a team to win the sportsmanship award. It can be a varsity, JV, or freshmen team. My dad then travels to that squad’s end of the year banquet and surprises the players with the trophy.

I truly believe the pinnacle of my dad’s career came this season though. You see, at the start of this year my dad started a mission to lose weight. With 4:30 a.m. workouts and a strict diet that he followed religiously my dad was successful in his mission and lost 40 pounds. I think it was this final outstanding, selfless, and disciplined effort to improve his officiating and overall life in general that pushed him over the edge and made him the obvious choice for Official of the Year.

My dad has always told my brother and I that his dream is to one day officiate a game with both of us on his crew. Although at this point in my life that is not possible maybe one of these days I will have time to take up officiating and make my dad’s dream come true. Until then , even though he never told me he wanted this, I like to believe another one of his dreams came true last week: He was named the best at what he does, the best at one of his passions. Congrats dad, there is no one who worked harder at it than you. I am so proud of you. Don’t Blink.