Referee Answers Comments by Stern
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/05/sp...iw6qskXEyTrYGQ
Over 27 years as an N.B.A. referee, Hue Hollins became inured to criticism and practically immune to name-calling. But the words he heard attached to his name a few days ago stung too much to let them pass.
Hollins was labeled a “disgruntled former official” whose competency eroded at the end of his career. The description came not from a bitter player or fan, but from Commissioner David Stern, who last week ripped Hollins and another former referee, Mike Mathis, for publicly criticizing the league’s officiating program.
“The N.B.A. was very good to me, and I was extremely good to them,” Hollins said yesterday in a telephone interview. “I’m not a disgruntled ex-employee. I worked 27 years in the N.B.A. I missed one game out of 27 years. If that’s not loyalty, I don’t know what is.”
The N.B.A.’s officiating program has come under intense scrutiny since the revelation in July that Tim Donaghy, a former N.B.A. referee, provided inside information to professional gamblers and bet on games. Donaghy pleaded guilty last month to two felony counts of conspiring with gamblers. He is awaiting sentencing.
No other referees are believed to be involved, although the N.B.A. could discipline some referees for legal gambling that violated league rules. Yet the Donaghy case has exposed a divide between the commissioner’s office and the referees it employs.
Hollins and Mathis, who are both retired, have said the league’s officiating system is broken, and have specifically blamed Ronnie Nunn, the director of officials, and Stu Jackson, the senior vice president for basketball operations. A number of current referees have also aired their discontent, but they have done so anonymously because the N.B.A. prohibits them from speaking with reporters.
Stern singled out Hollins and Mathis when he met with the news media last Thursday in Las Vegas, where he was attending the Olympic qualifying tournament.
“I guess all I’ll say is that Messers Mathis and Hollins at the end of their careers were not model referees, and it comes with ill grace for them to spend their time battering their former colleagues and the quality of them,” Stern said. “As a staff, the quality is a lot better than when Mr. Hollins and Mr. Mathis were roaming the floor, I might say, certainly toward the end of their perhaps otherwise-distinguished careers.”
The 65-year-old Hollins, who lives in Southern California, said he learned of Stern’s comments over the weekend.
In defending his record, Hollins noted that he officiated 19 finals games and five All-Star Games, assignments generally reserved for the N.B.A.’s best referees, and became a crew chief in his fifth season.
“Does that sound like a person who couldn’t referee?” he said.
According to Hollins, a great number of current referees are disillusioned with the program and want Jackson and Nunn fired.
“They’re doing that as we speak,” Hollins said.
In response to Hollins’s assertions N.B.A. spokesman Tim Frank said: “Hugh Hollins’s unhappiness with the N.B.A. predates Ronnie Nunn and Stu Jackson.”
Stern indicated last week that he stood by Nunn and Jackson. However, the league has launched a wholesale review of its officiating program, which could conceivably lead to changes in personnel. A former federal prosecutor, Lawrence B. Pedowitz, is in the process of interviewing all 60 referees, as well as team and league officials.