For the love of the game: These football officials still enjoy calling it the way they see it after nearly five decades

Sept. 21--Returning home from a day-long reffing assignment that brought him to Houghton, Mich., Pat Fairchild was greeted on the front porch by his weary wife, Chris, who had a toddler in each arm.

She had spent an entire Saturday as a football widow, gamely chasing after the couple's 2-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son. Chris had a straightforward plea for her husband.

"I'll give you the $150, just please stay home," she told him all those years ago.

Fairchild relented -- sort of. He quit working college games on the weekend, but the tug of Friday nights was too great. That little slice of Americana that plays out every fall Friday -- the stadium lights, pep bands, color guards, crisp autumn air -- had a hold on Fairchild.

Still does.

He's 70 now, 50 years into a football-officiating career that started not long after he graduated from Morgan Park High School in 1966. And he's as committed to his craft now as he was a half-century ago. So when Fairchild's son-in-law, Pat Bergquist, sent video of the nine-man game they worked last week in Cromwell to Fairchild's cellphone, he picked it apart like a cinematographer.

Just like he did as a young official, though the dissections back then occurred via 8-millimeter film.

Progress.

Indeed, Fairchild has witnessed countless changes since he plunged willingly into a world of second-guessing and verbal volleys. He used to get $18 per prep game, a figure that has about quintupled. Fairchild, who's still employed in the insurance business, doesn't know what the rate is now. Maybe $90. Maybe less.

"That's how important it is to me," he said. "Obviously, you're not doing it for the money."

Three-man crews were the norm when he began. That's about seven players for each official. Have you ever tried to watch seven people at once?

"Our coverage had to be terrible," Fairchild joked. Five-man crews have since taken over.

Officially, this is Fairchild's 48th season. He missed two while living in Ann Arbor, Mich., where his son, Cade, was playing hockey in the U.S. National Team Development Program. He's not the only local longtimer.

Guys like Pat Milinovich and Jim Trachsel are approaching five decades as well.

Milinovich, whose father, the late Joe Milinovich, was an athletic director and coach at Hibbing Junior College, grew up on Iron Range fields. So when he finished playing hockey at the University of North Dakota, officiating offered a way to stay involved in sports.

This fall is Milinovich's 46th doing high school games and 38th doing college.

"There's nothing better than stepping out on the field," the 69-year-old said.

Even when it's 38 degrees, the wind's blowing at 24 mph and some form of confused precipitation is falling from the sky?

"Oh, crap, we've done it in snowstorms," Milinovich said.

Milinovich dodged a bullet in 2010 while serving as a backup to the crew assigned to the Minnesota Duluth-Northwest Missouri State NCAA Division II semifinal at Malosky Stadium. That December evening the wind chill dropped double digits below zero. They didn't call it the "Ice Bowl" for nothing.

The crew was from Texas, Milinovich said. Southern Texas.

"They were scared," he said, punctuating the thought with a word that sounds like spitless. "Those guys cleaned out Gander Mountain."

The biggest change Milinovich has witnessed is the formality of the profession. There was a time "you put a whistle around your neck and went out there." Now, he said, the training, which helps to foster consistency, is constant and professionalism expected.

It's telling that neither Fairchild, Milinovich or Trachsel could recall the exact dollar number that appears on their game checks. A call to Butch Glesner, who schedules for the Twin Ports Football Officials Association, revealed a stipend of $87 per varsity contest. Do it long enough, and that becomes secondary. Or an afterthought altogether.

Trachsel, the elder statesman of the group at 74, likes being able to give back to a sport he played at Duluth Cathedral. Running up and down the field for 48 minutes also helps keep him in shape. The biggie, though, is the camaraderie among crews.

"We used to drink up the profits before we got home," said Trachsel, in his 49th season as a prep football official. "Now we've gotten a little smarter and wiser."

Like Milinovich, Trachsel continues to call baseball and softball games, though he got out of hockey after 45 years. Couldn't keep up with 'em anymore, he said.

While the officiating business gets a bad rap thanks to overzealous coaches, fans and players, all three said they have it pretty good in the Northland. Perhaps that's a byproduct of the credibility they've established patrolling local fields since Richard Nixon was president.

Whatever it is, the same lenience wasn't extended to another of Fairchild's sons, Cory, who gave officiating a try. His first game was in Wrenshall. It doubled as his last game.

"He came home and said, 'I will never do that again,'" Fairchild recalled.

Coaches are going to complain. The key is thick skin and a willingness to hear them out, Fairchild said.

Trachsel has his own secret for dealing with criticism.

"I'm half-deaf anyways, so I just take my hearing aids out," he joked.

Trachsel thinks he has one more year left in him. Fairchild isn't sure how long he'll keep going. His wife, who has endeared herself to her husband's crewmates by baking and sending pies along on road trips, insists this is Fairchild's last season.

He might have to negotiate. That's because Fairchild is still having fun.

"I get excited for games. I really do," he said. "When I lose that enthusiasm, I'll quit."

At some point -- presumably -- mainstays like Jim Trachsel, Pat Milinovich and Pat Fairchild will hang up their stripes.

The Northland hardly can afford to lose qualified officials. Assigning games is daunting enough for Butch Glesner of the Twin Ports Football Officials Association.

"It's to the point now where we're asking teams to move their games from Friday night to Thursday or Saturday," Glesner said.

That was the scenario last week when Mountain Iron-Buhl and South Ridge bumped their game in Culver to Thursday.

"We just didn't have enough guys" to accommodate another Friday contest, Glesner said.

Glesner said there are 52 active members in the Twin Ports association, consistent with numbers from recent years but still not enough to satisfy demand. The shortage has resulted in jam-packed schedules for officials, as well as four-man crews for some nine-man games -- instead of the traditional five.

Simply put, it's become harder to recruit people into the craft. The whorror stories from around the country, of physically and verbally abused officials, pervade the news. While those are extreme cases, the damage is done. They deter would-be participants.

Then there's the reality that, for football especially, the financial reward is minimal. Varsity games pay $87, and the rate for a junior varsity contest is about $60. But you're not working four or five games a week like you would with basketball or hockey. Fairchild, for example, averages 10 to 12 games a season.

"For football vs. other sports, you can't make any money on it," Fairchild said.

Milinovich said there's a persistent push to get more people signed up as officials.

Glesner, the association's assigner and a crew chief, agreed.

"It's something we talk about constantly," he said.

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