No one really grows up wanting to be a basketball referee. It just kind of happens. But to be a good referee, the keys are to possess good communication skills and avoid making emotional calls. That’s the secret of Moritz Reiter, one of the leading referees in Germany.
The 33-year-old Reiter is in his 12th year refereeing in the German Beko BBL league. The FIBA-certified referee has also worked Euroleague and Eurocup games since 2009. And he called games at two EuroBasket Women tournaments – in 2011 in Poland and 2013 in France. He was also a referee at the 2010 FIBA U17 World Championship in Hamburg, one of many youth international competitions he took part in as referee.
It all started for Reiter while he was playing youth basketball.
“The club needed more referees and went to the youth teams and asked if you wanted to be a referee. At that time I said, yeah, why not. I saw that maybe I could pick up something that could help on the court as a player,” Reiter recalled.
“I played in the third division, the Regionalliga, and also officiated in the Regionalliga. At that time I decided to switch priorities. Before that, my priority was playing. But then I started looking in my calendar for when I had time to referee. And when I started working, I had to finish playing because of time management.”
Reiter is one of 34 referees calling professional games in Germany. But he doesn’t call games as a full-time ref. The only German to do that is Robert Lottermoser. But it was an opportunity for Reiter, who works in a private accounting company, to stay in the game he loves and at a high level – higher than he would have gotten otherwise.
“I recognised that as a player I would not reach the BBL. So maybe I thought I had a chance to reach this level as a referee,” he said.
Players always talk about role models they have growing up in the game. What about the guys blowing the whistle?
“I didn’t have a role model. I was just looking at referees and trying to pick up something, like a buffet. If you see something you like, you try to take it and adapt it to your personality and your style. To copy a referee 100 percent you will not be better than that referee. You need to watch and take whatever you like from these other referees. This is the way.”
When asked about his style of officiating, Reiter said: “I just want a well-run game and take the decisions that the game needs. This is my philosophy. Sometimes there are difficult or tough decisions to take, but this is the life of a referee. You need to accept the challenges.”
And what makes a good referee?
“First of all, you need to know the rules, the regulations. If you know the rules, you can be a good referee. You need to be a good communicator. We communicate as a team, we communicate with the table officials, we are communicating with the players and coaches. So for sure you have to develop this skill, and you need to develop it fast if you want to be at a certain level.”
He continued: “What is also important is that you have to have self-confidence, like the players do. You have to have self-confidence to do a good job on the court.”
Referees don’t have it easy. Besides the difficulty of recognising fouls in an ever faster game, there is more money in the game and more pressure on teams to perform – adding to the stress of the situation. Add to that a loud coach with a team on a losing streak or fans who have partaken in the pleasure of consuming certain beverages and referees find themselves the targets of less-than-positive screaming and yelling.
“The lesson I learned, or the experience I learned in my career, once you get emotional as a referee for sure the people will get emotional. You do not want to get emotional and make the emotional call – we have a phrase, the emotional call. You better not make this call,” Reiter said.
He said referees have received a lot of support to understand situations like this, that the fans are passionate – and boisterous – about supporting their team. Or the coach is facing immense pressure to win.
“The most important thing in my view is to have the experience of going through this experience a lot of times.”
You can picture it now, a fan of the home team is angry that the point guard is charged for a foul. “Reiter! We’re not here to see you!” – the fan might scream.
“For me, I love to be in a big gym with a big crowd because the more people the more impersonal it will be. You go to a gym with 50 people and you can see every single face. If you go to a gym with 15,000, you can’t.”
Of course, as the Roman philosopher Seneca said: “To err is human.” Calls are missed. What happens when you as a ref realize you’ve missed it?
“There is not a guideline from the league or organization or competition about this. It’s part of your personality as a referee and with the relationship with the players and coaches. And for sure in some situations it helps the referee to communicate with the player or coach in this way. ‘I’m not sure, maybe I missed it. I will do better next time.’ This is something I use. Of course you cannot use it 50 times a game.”
But Reiter does not believe in make-up calls – as often referred to in coverage of NBA games where an official is believed to make a call at the other end to make up for a missed call previously.
“The missed goal is there because we are human. We are not robots. For sure there are missed calls. But I don’t think it’s good to make up a missed call with another missed call or a call which is not there.”
Reiter said the support that he and his fellow officials receive is part of a system which ranks among the best in all of Europe.
“If you look at the Beko BBL and the support that we receive and the training we receive and the feedback that we receive to improve and you have to say it’s one of the best systems in Europe right now. I think a lot of European leagues are looking to the German system to pick up something that was established in Germany.”
The Beko BBL referees have the games they just called on iPads 10 minutes after the game in their locker room to review, discuss and receive input on. The officials can cut clips and share them with supervisors and comment on them and get instant feedback. Not only is the system a time-saving tool, it also helps officials prepare for future games – analysing their performance from the game to improve for future games.
“I love this tool. It was hard work to establish this system,” Reiter said.
Of course, fans, players and coaches will never fully understand referees. But what does Reiter consider the biggest misunderstanding about referees from others?
He mentioned watching a recent documentary about long-time NBA referee Joey Crawford who will retire after this season. Crawford noted that after a Game 7 of the NBA Finals nobody was talking about the referees and that made him the happiest person in the world.
“This sentence is 100 percent what referees feel,” Reiter said.
“We don’t want to be in the picture. We don’t want to be in the newspaper. We don’t want people to talk about us. But sometimes you cannot escape this. Sometimes you are on the court and you have to take a decision. But we are not the people who want to be on the front page of a newspaper. But a lot of people when they come to the games and see the referees maybe they think too much in this way.”
You can listen to the full interview with Moritz Reiter on the up-coming episode of Taking The Charge on January 27, available on heinnews.com.
