Coupeville Sports

The man, the myth, the legend.

Missing: one seeing-eye dog. Please return to the referees who worked Saturday afternoon’s Coupeville High School basketball game.

“Mr. Ed.”

“Rogaine.”

He goes by many names, but no matter what moniker you pick, he is the worst. The absolute worst.

Pompous. Preening. Gum-gnashing. Self righteous. Obtuse. Rarely right and yet never self-aware.

The more he knows the call is the wrong one, the louder and more emphatic he gets. Cover up your mistakes by shoutin’ them down is his game plan.

Some will call Wolf Nation whiners. Cry-babies. Bad sports. And a lot worse.

But the fact remains, we have suffered some God-awful reffin’ at Coupeville High School basketball games the last two years. And the man above is Suspect #1.

Is there a vendetta among local refs against the Wolves?

It seems that way, as games are increasingly called one-sided, with visiting teams allowed to be far more physical and yet called for less fouls.

And that’s not even getting into the whole an-Orcas-Island-player-threw-a-punch-and-was-NOT-ejected argument from last season.

We get it. Nick Streubel is not called “The Big Hurt” for nothing. He’s a big guy, a football lineman built like a mountain.

He’s also a pretty low-key guy on and off the hard-court, a young man aware of his size and pointedly careful NOT to unnecessarily hurt others.

The next time he intentionally inflicts pain on a foe on the basketball court will be the first.

And yet, watching “Rogaine” at work, you’d think Streubel and Co. were the second coming of the Detroit Piston “Bad Boys” of the late ’80s and early ’90s.

But it’s more than the constant stream of ticky-tacky fouls, the reversed calls, the willingness to turn a blind eye to traveling, moving screens and elbows to the head (if they’re used by guys NOT wearing red and black).

It is the overwhelming feeling that these guys (and a few gals) in the black and white striped shirts simply do NOT understand their own rule book. If they read it in the first place.

Hey, it’s nice you’re giving up your time to do this. Whatever you’re being paid is probably not enough for being yelled at all game long.

But c’mon, man. You need to be a little more subtle about the whole being in the bag thing, cause it ‘s getting old.