Welcome to my first newspaper column ever.

Although, I was the editor of my high school paper way back in 1958, so, perhaps, this is not my first rodeo.

My name is, as you saw above, Les Miller. I recently retired after 53 years of officiating high school athletics.

At one time or another, I officiated football, boys basketball, girls basketball, baseball, softball, and swimming. My best count is that I have officiated for at least 136 different high schools, 14 junior high schools, and more than five colleges, not to mention many parochial elementary schools.

A friend thought my experiences would make interesting reading, and The Alpena News agreed. I would like to take this first article to give you some of my background and history.

After graduating from Michigan State University, I was not interested in officiating.

I wanted to coach and teach, and started in a tiny town in southern Michigan, Waldron.

I need to give this background, as some of my stories will refer back to Waldron. Particularly, you need to know that I might have been the world’s worst football coach. I coached football for two years and my football teams won one game in the two years I coached them and lost one game 61-0. I also coached a junior varsity basketball team that lost by a score of 121-22.

From the above paragraph, one might deduce why I got out of coaching.

My athletic director at the school where I taught in Saginaw, Ron Stelter, was one of the best football and basketball officials in the state. I talked to him and he encouraged me to give officiating a try.

So, in 1970, I embarked on a vocation that was both very rewarding and quite successful.

To brag a bit, I was selected to be one of 12 baseball umpires in Michigan to umpire the high school state finals both in 1993 and again in 1999. I officiated many district tournament games in boys basketball, including district finals, many girls district tournaments, and one girls regional basketball final. I also officiated seven football playoff games.

Most of my officiating was in the Saginaw area, until we moved to Hubbard Lake in 2010, where I continued to officiate in this area. In the Saginaw area, I was Umpire in Chief (UIC) of a National Pony League baseball championship, UIC of many Connie Mack district tournaments and one Connie Mack regional tournament.

I also umpired in one MAC college softball tournament.

In this weekly column, I plan on regaling you with some of the stories of my officiating career. That will include game incidents, travels, fans, coaches, players, dumb mistakes, and the like. I hope you will enjoy the ride with me.

My email address is theoldref@yahoo.com. I welcome comments, reactions to my experiences, and questions about rules. I might even digress into a commentary on some current topic.