Spokane Referee Makes Final Call - Retirement

It’s unlikely that any Spokane resident has been screamed at more than Dan Niksich.

You’ve questioned his judgment, his intelligence, his vision and probably his parentage.

All at the top of your lungs.

Although you might have felt better by getting it off your chest, it was all wasted air; the Spokane basketball official, whose career has spanned four decades, never listened.

“I never let them get to me,” Niksich said, offering what might be the career epitaph of choice for the best of officials.

Unless you want to drop by the house to heckle him just for old-time’s sake, you’ve lost your favorite target to retirement. And as Gonzaga basketball coach Dan Fitzgerald put it, “the area is worse off because of it.”

The 59-year-old Niksich recently has returned home after having a pacemaker installed - and fighting off complications from having a lung punctured during the procedure.

Players and coaches have bounced through here by the thousands, but Niksich remained perhaps the most visible constant on the area’s courts.

Proof of that: Consider he worked his first college game in 1963 - Gonzaga vs. Eastern Washington. Gonzaga was coached by Hank Anderson and Eastern by Red Reese. Memorable figures from the distant past.

Idaho, meanwhile, has had nine coaches since that time, and chances are that Niksich has T’ed every one of them.

“I got to meet some great players, like Magic Johnson in the NCAA Tournament … and some great coaches,” said Niksich, a teacher at Ferris High when not dressed in vertical stripes. “I’ll tell ya, guys like (Jud) Heathcote and (Don) Monson and Fitzgerald keep you on your toes.”

When Fitzgerald heard of Niksich’s operation, he had the typical sympathy a coach might show for a ref.

“I told him he’s cost me a lot of games, but I don’t want him blaming me for his heart condition,” Fitzgerald joked. “Really, he’s been a great servant of this game for a long time, and we’ll miss him.

“I yell at him between 7 and 9 (p.m.), but if my mother showed up in stripes, she’s gonna get yelled at.”

Rolly Williams couldn’t even estimate how many times Niksich has officiated games he’s coached at North Idaho College, but he appreciates Niksich’s attitude.

“He recognizes there’s times when he’s not perfect,” Williams said. “There’s times when he’s said, `Yeah, maybe I missed that one.’ I think that Dan has had a lot to do with elevating the professionalism in this area.”

If you sit on press row for a dozen years, you learn the tendencies of refs, as well as players and coaches. We used to say - especially in big games with frantic crowds - to look for Niksich to make a tough call against the home team early in the game.

Watch him blow the whistle, saunter confidently to the scorers’ table, identify the culprit and stroll to the other end, oblivious to the chaos erupting around him.

Point made: He’s in control.

“I’m proud that I was doing the right thing because it was the right thing to do,” he said. “Coaches knew I would stay consistent and that a block was a block if it was at Eastern or Gonzaga or anywhere else.”

Such as DePaul. Fitzgerald remembers a game in 1980 when the Bulldogs traveled to Chicago for a game against Ray Meyer’s club. At the time, visiting teams in intersectional games could bring along a ref of their choosing. Presumably, one with a sympathetic whistle.

Niksich didn’t play that role.

“We brought Dan with us and I remember at one point shouting “Hey, Ray, look at this, my own guy is screwin’ me’,” Fitzgerald said.

Unwavering impartiality, and the willingness to make the tough call in the face of verbal abuse. After more than 30 years, and thousands of games, that’s a proud legacy.

“This never was a job to me; it was something I always was really enthused about,” Niksich said. “This is not the way I wanted it to end, but maybe somebody was telling me something.”

And this time, fortunately, he listened.

You can contact Dave Boling by voice mail at 459-5577, extension 5504.