He is probably one of the few Filipinos who’s had the, well, privilege of getting yelled at by Kobe Bryant. And even legendary Utah Jazz head coach Jerry Sloan once had a lot to say to him on court.
“He (Sloan) got to me pretty good,” said Riel Banaria, the first known Filipino to have officiated in the NBA.
“You have to learn how to talk to them (the coaches and the players) and explain to them what happened,” the 39-year-old Marikina native added.
And sometimes, the explanation doesn’t have to run long.
“Coach, I hear you. I understand.”
Yet it was not an easy task to walk on the same hard court with, let alone officiate, the likes of Bryant, Sloan, the legends, and hoping-to-be legends of the NBA.
The referee characterized as “assertive, yet amenable” on the court by Poor Man’s Commish blog of Dream League, a basketball organization that sets up basketball leagues and tournaments in the greater San Francisco Bay Area, Las Vegas, New York City, and Houston, shared his experiences going through hoops of fire to get to officiate in pro basketball’s highest stage.
“After I got an opportunity to referee in front of the NBA scouts, I had to go to their (NBA) training programs. It’s a lot of hard work,” said Banaria.
“It takes a lot of thick skin.”
Banaria admits that not being gifted with height—like most Filipinos—was almost as tough as it would be for a 5-foot-7 player to crack the NBA.
“I don’t look like a referee, I don’t even look like an athlete. In basketball, I’m always the last guy to be picked,” joked Banaria, who is now in the country to bring the knowledge he has learned in the United States and share it with his kababayan referees here in the Philippines.
He has also opened up business here and is looking to stay in his hometown for good.
“But I was always very proud. I always let everyone know I’m a Filipino.”
Banaria recalled having several conversations with Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, who is the first person with Filipino—and Asian—lineage to hold a head coaching position in US professional sports history.
Banaria attested that running up and down the court with the whistle is actually harder than it looks—probably even tougher than a routine facial throw-down for most guys in the NBA.
“When you’re a referee, you deal with 10 players on the floor, the two coaches and even the fans,” said Banaria.
Plus, look at at this way: When Kobe misses a three pointer or even a game winner—he might hear a collective painful groan from the stands, but he still gets a pat at the back from his teammates even just for trying.
But when a referee misses a crucial call—say, a traveling violation with 20 ticks with the game on the line—he or she will never hear the end of it.
“Everyone expects that you don’t miss calls and you don’t make mistakes. So it’s very difficult.”
One time, Banaria even never heard the end of it from himself.
He vividly remembers a non-call in one college game he officiated when the player who went up for a basket got hacked pretty hard, and even got injured in the process, yet he fired no whistle.
“It hurt me the rest of the game because I kept thinking about that (the non-call),” said Banaria, who officiated in NCAA Men’s Division I basketball for eight years before working with the NBA and the Korean Basketball league, where he is currently involved in setting up tune up games for member teams, like the tiff between Smart Gilas Pilipinas and SK Knights last Sept. 7.
Despite the sleepless nights, the memory of the stomping of the feet, angry faces and high-pitched complaints—Banaria has found a way to ease the stress of officiating: he doesn’t take things personally.
“It wears on you, but you don’t show it. You just have to remember that they’re yelling at you as a referee,” said Banaria.
Interestingly, Banaria thinks that it wasn’t the games in the NBA or in the US NCAA that were the most difficult to officiate.
“The most difficult games are adult league games, when you have the families in the stands, or maybe in the barangay,” said Banaria, who has had previous officiating stints of that nature in the US, but has yet hear the “love” from, the barefoot bystanders or the fans cheering for their neighbors in a “paliga” here in the country.
Not that he hasn’t tried.
“No one lets me referee,” he said, laughing. “I offered.” Photo by Mark Giongco
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