THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: Bill Bopp, 'arguably the most successful basketball official in the state of Idaho’s history,' calls it a career after 37 years

The exact game in question is a little fuzzy, as it often is with officials.

They remember the calls that were made, the interactions with coaches.

But as far as who won the game — and sometimes, who even played — they often can’t remember.

In this case, it was a Lake City High boys basketball game, and Jim Winger was the Timberwolves coach.

And Bill Bopp was one of the officials.

John Posnick takes it from there.

“Everyone misses a call once in a while,” recalled Posnick, a referee for 35 years, and as the District 1 commissioner for the past two decades, assigns officials to games in our area. “And I’m in the stands watching. And there was something that got missed; the officials were wrong. And Winger just flies out of his chair, is stomping and everything, and calls timeout. And I just said to myself, ‘Uh-oh, this is probably going to end up in a technical foul or something.’ Because Winger was right. And Bill went over there and talked to him and I swear, within 15, 20 seconds, he had Winger giggling. And I don’t know what he said, I don’t know how he did it, but that’s just … he could just defuse things.”

AFTER BEING a high school basketball official for 36 of the past 37 years — and a college ref for more than a dozen of those years — Bill Bopp recently hung up his whistle at age 61.

The 1978 Sandpoint High graduate got into officiating in 1984, encouraged and influenced by many of the referees of that era — Jim Wilund, Dan Malcolm, Dave Corbeill, Bill Dowling, Mike Keough, Doug Olin, Steve Hudson, etc.

Bopp worked an estimated 38 state high school basketball tournaments — 20 boys, 18 girls. And he would have worked more, except for most of his career, there was a rule in District 1 that refs could only work one of the two state tourneys each year, to give more officials a chance to go to state.

He also worked some junior college basketball games in the 1990s and early 2000s, and even had visions of someday working Division I games, before deciding to return to solely reffing high school games.

Bopp worked every season except for the 2004-05 school year, which he sat out after dislocating his hip in an ATV accident while elk hunting.

“That was the same year I worked my first state basketball tournament — probably because he was out,” Rayna Longstreet, a longtime volleyball and basketball official, and Bill’s “better half” for the past 25 years, said with a laugh.

Bopp has long been regarded as the top basketball official in North Idaho by his peers.

But time catches up to even the best.

“The last two years I’ve been contemplating it, and finally I pulled the pin,” Bopp said. “Part of it is injuries … I was struggling with some hamstring things.”

He strained a hamstring reffing a championship game at the state girls tournament in February.

“And I came back for boys districts and I had to pull off three games and I ended up working one last one,” he said. “And I thought, there’s someone knocking at my door … you might want a different hobby in the winter.

“It was time,” added Bopp, who has worked in the beverage sales business for the past 35 years. “I was pretty well wore out, mentally and physically. 37 years. I thought maybe it was time.”

“That’s a huge loss — just massive, for the high schools around here,” said Winger, a varsity basketball coach since 1992 — but before that, he was an official, working games with Bopp more than three decades ago.

“I remember the late, great Jim Wilund,” Winger recalled. “Billy and I did the JV game at, I think, Priest River, and Wilund was getting ready for the varsity game and he said ‘You know, you two are going to be good ones; you’re going to be damn good officials; you’re on your way.'

“And then I decided to coach.

“And Billy went on for another, what, 36 years?”

Bopp said the decision to leave officiating was easier than having to call Posnick in October and give him the bad news.

“I almost felt like I was letting him down, because I know he’s struggling to get people (to officiate),” Bopp said.

“Oh, man, I was heartbroken,” Posnick said when he got the call from Bopp. “I know how much our association benefited from him, how much our state has benefited from him … it was the toughest one we’ve had to lose.

“He was involved in our negotiations with the schools on our contracts, he was heavily involved in training, he was on the NIOA board for decades. He was on our local evaluation committee for decades … Him and I were probably the two biggest proponents in the state of getting (the switch from two-man to three-man officiating crews at state) going … No school ever complained about having him. No partner ever complained about working with him. He was arguably the most successful basketball official in the state of Idaho’s history.”

ASK COACHES and his fellow officials for a thought or a story on Bill Bopp, and you usually end up with five. And many of them were about his ability to defuse a situation — calm down a coach upset with a call, and sometimes even make them laugh.

And the happy-go-lucky Bopp did it with what one coach termed an “aw-shucks mentality.”

MIKE McLEAN, Post Falls High boys basketball coach: He did everything in his power to de-escalate the situation, without losing control of the situation. … And it was never about him. That is such a special skill set; you can’t learn it in a conference, or a referee clinic. That’s just the way he is.

BILL BOPP: I had to find out how to do it, how to do it properly. Like, don’t instantly yell back at a coach. It took a couple years to figure out how to do it. But the one thing I realized is, just answer them, honestly. Answer them with what you saw, and hopefully that will work. Ask them what they saw and tell them what you saw. … it’s always been easy for me to make a comeback to somebody; it’s just saying the correct thing, I guess.

NEAL PEDERSON, who reffed a state 3A girls championship between Sugar-Salem and Snake River with Bopp a few years ago: The Sugar-Salem coach was about 8½ months pregnant, and she got mad at Bill, and this lady was nicer than can be … Middle of the fourth quarter and Bill’s like, ‘It’s OK, we’ll calm down.’ Bill goes, ‘I don’t want you to have that baby out here, because I’ve been a birth coach before, but I don’t want to do it here.’

She started laughing. I think she patted him on the shoulder or something, and we ran down to the other end of the court.

STEVE SEYMOUR, longtime Lakeland High girls basketball coach: Bopp is certainly one of the great characters of North Idaho. What I remember most is, he always had a joke to tell — always. It wouldn’t matter if you bumped into him before the game, or at the supermarket, or church, he would have some joke … and some of his jokes were funny.

BILL BOPP: (The one-liners) came early; maybe within my fifth year. It came from working with good people. Jim Wilund always had some good one-liners, and Doug Olin … and Dowling … basically just listening to the situations they had in games. In the younger days all the officials would meet up after the games … say you have five different crews come in, you’d have five different situations everyone’s going to want to talk about. And I would just listen to how these people would handle it. A lot of them were with coaches. I would listen to how Wilund would handle it, how Doug handled it, and Bill Dowling … and Mike Keough … and I said 'yeah, that makes sense. Just be honest with them.'

PAUL MANZARDO, in his 28th season as a basketball official: Bill, he’s probably one of the best officials the state of Idaho has ever seen in many facets. He’s an unbelievable communicator … he could change a negative scenario into a positive scenario, and he could have a coach extremely upset with him in one moment, and then laughing 10 seconds later.

DARREN MALM, who has been reffing basketball for some 30 years, and since 2013, been the supervisor of officials at the state boys and girls tournaments: There’s few guys like Bill. I can think of a few guys from the past, like Jim Wilund, they have that people power. We all have position power when we throw that shirt on and have that whistle, because people have to take our decisions. Bill had the people power, to where he could engage with people, and communicate with them. He could almost referee without a whistle, or a shirt, he just had that control over a game, and people had respect for him.

NEAL PEDERSON, in his 17th season as a basketball official: It was back when the 3As played (their district tournament) at NIC, and (Jeff) Lambert was the coach at Kellogg, and he was just pissed off. He called timeout to yell at us. And it was back when we were doing two-person (mechanics) too. He’s screaming at us, and we both walk over there, and we’re both standing next to him and he’s screaming bloody murder at us and Billy just goes ‘Jeff, why are you yelling at us? We’re standing right next to you’ … and he went from a 10 to a 2 in pissed-off-ness.

DOUG OLIN, who reffed basketball for 22 years, starting in 1971: Back then we had tiers for officials. Wilund, Corbeill, Dowling, myself and others were in the top tier. We would be assigned the top games of the week — I believe we even got paid more than the lower tier officials. After a couple of years working with Bill, I told him I could get him in the top tier if he got me a date with his sister.

Patsy and I have been married for 34 years.

NEAL PEDERSON, on Bopp’s biggest impact on him: Probably how to handle the coaches. Around 2011, or ‘12, or ‘13, I said ‘Billy, how do I finish higher (in the vote among coaches, which helped determine which officials worked at state)? I had the mechanics, I had the calls. I would never get the coach vote, because I could never communicate with them like Billy Bopp can.

He was like, ‘Why don’t you just try to always see it from their point of view? Just think of it from their point of view.’ And I did, and I went from finishing middle of the pack to finishing first or second (in the coaches’ voting).

STEVE SEYMOUR: He had a way of defusing coaches — his sense of humor was definitely a big (reason), but he knew the game, and he knew that it meant something to coaches, and I think coaches understood that it meant something to officials too. They weren’t out there trying to make mistakes.

There were times I would question him and he would be like, ‘Yeah, I might have missed that one.’ He’d let you know that they, like coaches, like kids, make mistakes sometimes. … And other times it’d be like, ‘I got it right; that’s enough.’

TONY HANNA, Lakeland boys basketball coach, former coach at Timberlake and Coeur d’Alene: I’ve always had respect for officials as it is, which is weird coming from a coach, but I couldn’t officiate. I don’t have thick enough skin. Because you could never make the right call; somebody’s always upset.

BILL BOPP: People don’t realize, when you put on the whistle, and you take off to make a call, it’s split-second reaction. I’ve seen people that say, ‘I can do this,’ and they go up and down the floor and they don’t have a clue what they’re doing. They're lost.

BRYAN CHASE, St. Maries boys basketball coach: With Billy, every time I got mad at him, or yelled at him, he always just had that quick one-liner that would just shut you up. … something that just made you take the game just a little bit lighter. It always worked. You had to crack a laugh, or giggle, calm down and move on.

I remember several times him saying something witty and simple like, ‘You must have had a better angle than I did, Bryan’... as I would be barking at him.

I really think he’s one of the best officials we’ve ever had in North Idaho.

NEAL PEDERSON: About 10 years ago, I was down at NIC doing a girls game, and Roger Stewart, I think he might have just taken over as football commissioner. … He looks at me and goes, ‘Take notes from Billy on how to deal with coaches.’

That’s what he told me, right before the game.

I’ve been taking notes from Billy on how he handles coaches for years.

TONY HANNA: I tend to think of myself as a relatively mild-mannered person. Can’t say that I haven’t gotten upset at a few calls. But he is definitely one that, if tempers ever got flaring, he just had a way about him to calm people down, just smooth things out. Which is fantastic for somebody in that position, because we do get hot once in a while in games.

What I can say about Bill, I never saw him lose his composure one time. Ever.

JIM WINGER, Lake City boys basketball coach: One time we were at the NIC tournament and we had a young team. We were one down or it was a tie game, and he called an intentional foul on us for grabbing a uniform — and we did. And they made the free throws and they won.

Even though he probably could let that go, it really was (an intentional foul), and I remember that I had so much respect for Billy that I went into the officials’ locker room, and normally that’s not good news when officials see that, and I said ‘Billy, I just want you know that we lost, but that was the right call. .. I don’t know if that means anything to you.’

He said ‘Yeah, it really does. I really appreciate it.’

That’s the type of respect he has with coaches.

BILL BOPP: He (Winger) gets excited sometimes. One time he came up to me and it’s like 9-2 in fouls (against his team). And that’s still something we can’t control. He’s really mellow and he says, ‘I don’t want to say much, but it is 9-2 in fouls.’ And we’re at Lake City. And I looked at him and said, ‘It is; you’re getting screwed,’ and I just took off down the floor, and he started laughing. And I looked over and he was telling (assistant) Kelly Reed and they were all laughing.

DARREN MALM: The thing that was constant about Bill then and Bill now is he could always find a way to get out of a situation with a coach. Coach might have been mad as hell about something, and you look over and you’re thinking, ‘How’s Bill going to get out of this one?’ Well, within 15-20 seconds, both of them are laughing and they’re on their way.

He always had that ability.

JIM WINGER: I don’t think I’ve ever seen him give a technical foul to anybody — player, coach … I’m sure he has, but I’ve never seen it.

BILL BOPP: My first year or second year, I’d come in (to refs’ gatherings after games) and say ‘I T’d this guy. I’d T’d that guy.’ Because they want to make sure you can throw a technical when you’re younger; that you don’t swallow your whistle. I think it was Mike (Keough), or it was Bill (Dowling), that said ‘OK, we know you can call a 'T' now, now I want you to try not calling a 'T.' That’s probably where it triggered talking to (coaches), getting out of situations by talking it out.

PAUL MANZARDO: When coaches looked across the court at who was officiating their game, they were at ease when they saw Bill. … and not only that, he was going to be very approachable. In tight situations, they could vent, and know that it’s safe with him, that he’s not going to react or get too wound up, and escalate the situation and make it worse.

STEVE SEYMOUR: He was just a terrific official. He knew the game, he knew how to talk to kids, knew how to talk to coaches, and he worked hard. You knew you were getting one of the best when he walked in the gym. For all the jokes and the stories that he had to tell, there was a sense of, ‘OK, this guy’s a good official.’

BILL BOPP: One of the things I’m probably going to miss the most is the camaraderie after the games, when all the officials meet to go over their plays. It’s pretty much all referee talk for a couple of hours. It’s kinda like a training clinic.

JOHN POSNICK: Boy, I’d love to have a few more of him … he’s just tough to replace, because he could work any game, at any time, with anybody.

NEAL PEDERSON, when Bopp was inducted into the North Idaho Officials Hall of Fame: Don White was the president, so he put up this whole video of Billy starting out, and all these pictures … Don makes this whole video, and it’s like a montage, like something you would play at a memorial service.

And now it’s Billy’s turn to get up and speak and he goes, ‘Thanks, Don. Can we just save that for when I die? We can play that at my funeral too.’

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 208-664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter @CdAPressSports.