Imagine doing something for more than 30 years of your life. Other than eating and sleeping, not a lot of people can say they have done one thing for more than three decades.
Now imagine that the whole time you have been doing that one thing that you have been doing for more than 30 years, you were surrounded by people who were howling and screaming at you – half for the decision you just made, the other half just cooling off from your previous one.
This has been the life of Eric Coburn as a basketball official … but not for much longer.
Coburn will be working the 3A North Semistate at Lafayette Saturday, and then he will be waiting for word from the IHSAA on whether he’s received an assignment in the state finals.
And then he will hang his whistle up for the final time.
Oh, I’m sure he might dust it off for a few elementary games if they ask, which I’m equally sure they will. But those games will be in small elementary gyms and not on the grand stage of the state finals in Bankers Life Fieldhouse or Hinkle, and in front of far fewer fans. Of course, the jeering and harassment will be about the same.
Coburn won’t mind. He never really did. He handled coaches whose lungs were about to come out through their teeth with a smile and a soft word. He responded to complaints with a very slow, deliberate explanation – a technique that police officers often use to diffuse emotional people and volatile situations.
It’s the kind of approach that has made him such a highly-respected official throughout the state, and an equally good police officer ‘walking the beat’ in Warsaw.
That’s what he was when I first met him, a member of the Warsaw Police Department. He worked alongside Lance Grubbs, both as an officer and as an official, and they had a similar approach: “This is fun, we’re going to have fun and we want you all (players, coaches and fans) to have fun too.”
Grubbs has been out of active officiating for a while, but now serves as an observer to help other officials get better.
Coburn has continued on.
The switch to three-person officiating crews has helped extend the careers of guys like Coburn and others I encounter along the basketball trail each season, but Coburn made it clear at the end of last season that this one would be his last.
He will missed at all levels.
My wife insisted that I tell you that she very much appreciates (even now) how much Coburn has taken the time to help the elementary players when he officiates those games. He doesn’t have to do those games at all, but he does and he has treated them with the same attitude of importance that he will the game in the boys state tournament Saturday. If he called a foul or a violation on a young player, and they seem not to understand why what they did was wrong, he’d put his hand on their shoulder and, with that gentle smile, try to make it make sense for them.
If the goal was to have fun, being a whistle-blowing snob who acted like he didn’t really want to be there was not going to do anyone any good.
He has given a lot to the schools, the teams and the communities of northern Indiana. In his final game at the Tiger Den as a varsity official, he was honored for his years of service just before tip-off. His loving wife, Yvonne, joined him in the center circle as his credentials were read to a big senior night crowd: 33 basketball seasons, over 2,500 game officiated, 27 girls sectionals, 19 regionals, 8 semistates, 5 girls state finals, 20 boys sectionals (now 21), 12 regionals (now 13), 5 semistates (with this Saturday being his 6th), and 4 boys state finals.
He got a standing ovation … and standing ovations for officials just don’t happen in the Tiger Den.
And it should also be mentioned that his wife has gone with him on many of his officiating trips. She has sat in the midst of the rapid crowds calmly, with only a rooting interest that the love of her life would do the best that he could and that the furor in the crowd wouldn’t get too personal.
See, when the ‘rules expert’ sitting two rows in front of her would scream until his pants start to slide down his torso with foul and unfair comments on his IQ, quality of vision, integrity and family history, Yvonne Coburn just sat there and said nothing.
That is the definition of grace.
I have no doubt that, whether there is one game left or two for Eric Coburn, he will stop before the tipoff on Saturday – just for a second – to cherish that moment and reflect on a life spent being in charge of forcing others to live by the rules of civilized society and to play by the rules of basketball.
It’s been a life very well lived.
And soon, the echo of the final buzzer will fade into the jubilation of a winning throng, and so will that part of Coburn’s life. Knowing him as I do, I think he will take that free time and divide it between being a husband, a grandpa and a flying instructor at Warsaw Community High School.
But, for many of us, he will always be known as “Eric Coburn, one of the best officials our area has ever known.”
