PROGRESS: From the stands to the stripes

The squeak of rubber on hardwood hasn’t started yet. The scoreboard is dark, the bleachers still empty, and the sharp smell of floor cleaner hangs in the air. Somewhere down the hallway, though, a locker room door clicks shut and a whistle lanyard is pulled tight. Long before tipoff, at least two people are already in the building, preparing to keep order on the basketball court.

Tyson Sickles of Fontanelle is one of them.

By day, Sickles helps keep Iowa moving, working as a contract and inspection statewide support worker for the Iowa Department of Transportation. In a town of about 600, he’s also long served as a firefighter and EMT — and today is the community’s fire chief. His path after high school led him into construction and engineering, a career that stuck.

Another constant in his life has been sports.

He grew up watching Michael Jordan soar through the air, tongue out, and remembers Joe Montana spinning passes for the San Francisco 49ers on fall Sundays. In high school, Sickles ran cross country and played basketball, the thud of the ball and echo of sneakers becoming familiar rhythms as he gleaned insight for the game and life from legendary coach Darrell Burmeister, who he still looks up to today.

“It’s always stuck with me,” he said. “I like the competition aspect of it.”

His path to officiating didn’t begin quietly.

Sickles still remembers sitting in the stands at one of his daughter Josie Clarke’s games, the buzz of the crowd building as the game turned physical. When Clarke left the floor with a bloody lip, frustration boiled over.

“I was getting pretty animated with the referee. The referee turned around, looked at me, and said, ‘No more out of you!’,” Sickles said. “When he turned around and said that, it hit home with me that I’d never been out there like them. At the end of the day, you know you’re going to have someone mad or upset with you.”

The moment really did stick.

“I’ve gotta be out there,” he told himself.

Clarke went on to finish a standout career at Nodaway Valley and later played at Simpson College. Meanwhile, her dad picked up a whistle and a new perspective.

“I can’t judge a person until I’ve done their job,” Sickles said. “That’s kind of the mindset I’ve taken in life.”

His first real look behind the curtain came in Anita. Inside a small locker room that smelled faintly of sweat and leather, he shadowed veteran officials Ben Applegate and Scott Giles from arrival to final buzzer.

“I went into the locker room with them, saw their pregame routine, shadowed them,” Sickles said. “That opened my eyes to what happens on the referee’s side of basketball.”

There was no small talk — just focus. The officials discussed team tendencies, key players and what to watch for. Every detail mattered before they ever stepped onto the court and no stone of preparation went unturned.

“They were just very professional,” Sickles said. “These guys really had their stuff put together. I don’t think people understand what it takes to become a good official.”

Sickles began officiating in 2019. Since then, he’s attended clinics, passed annual tests and paid yearly fees to both the Iowa High School Athletic Association and the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union.

Most nights, he works youth, middle school and junior varsity games, occasionally filling in at the varsity level. His DOT job where he helps those who monitor payments for road projects — and the miles that come with it — can limit his availability, but he still worked 44 dates this season. His side hustle keeps him in tip-top shape for performing well at his day job.

“I only reffed with one person younger than me this year,” said Sickles, 44, noting many officials are in their mid-to-upper 50s.

On the court, the job is far more complex than it looks from the stands. With three-person crews now standard at the varsity level, each official monitors a specific area, eyes constantly scanning — feet, hands, contact, clock — as the game moves in a blur.

It’s a long way from simply “taking your coat off and walking up to the scorer’s table,” Sickles said.

As seasons pass, officials receive memos and training videos — reminders not just about rules, but about composure. The noise can be relentless: coaches shouting, fans groaning, sneakers squealing and the ball snapping through the net. Sub-varsity games often feature two-man officiating crews.

“You’ve gotta have really thick skin to do it and understand that, at the end of the day, most people aren’t making a personal attack on you,” Sickles said. “They’re so caught up in the game — they’ve probably got kids out there — and you can’t get sucked in. I’d be lying to say that I haven’t gotten sucked in before.

“You’re not supposed to talk to fans, you’re not supposed to talk to players — you’re supposed to go out there and do a job.”

The need for more officials is real. The IGHSAU reported losing 50,000 officials during the COVID-19 pandemic, prompting efforts to recruit a new generation.

Some programs are taking shape. At both the University of Northern Iowa and Centerville High School, KCCI TV reports that students are getting early exposure to officiating. Nodaway Valley alum Grace Britten is among them, using a program at Wartburg College to become certified in wrestling.

“I had to trust that I know a lot about the sport and trust my knowledge,” Britten said. “It can be very intense with coaches and parents yelling and doing their parts, but I’ve had to realize the match can’t happen without me.”

Back on the hardwood, Sickles recalls a story from a fellow referee working a Des Moines club game featuring a young Caitlin Clark. Playing with the boys, she drew attention — and a reminder from the official to take it easy on her.

The response: they needed her to take it easy on them.

For Sickles, moments like that — and countless others in quieter gyms — reinforce why he keeps showing up early, whistle in hand, before the lights fully come on.

“The most fun I have is when you can tell the players are out there to learn,” he said. “They don’t talk back. I know that probably sounds childish — but when you have kids who make a foul and know they made the foul, and they don’t jaw at you or slam the basketball, you know they’re well educated in the sport.

“Nobody ever thinks they commit a foul, but when you can do a game where there’s not a lot of talking back, when you have fans who come up after the game and thank you — that makes you feel like you’re out there for the right reasons.”