For Wiley Barrett, who has been wearing the “zebra” stripes of a referee for more than three decades, blending seamlessly into the fabric of a game is ideal.
Some officials, like athletes, would rather put on a show when making a call, but that’s not Barrett’s style.
“My best night is when nobody knows my name,” Barrett says. “I just like to blend in with the crowd.
“Some officials like to put on a little show, and that’s who they are. That’s their personality and I don’t have a problem with that. I just like to make a call and go on.”
Barrett’s 35 years as an official are emblematic of his love for sports. The basement of his house is full of memorabilia. The walls are lined with plaques of recognition, both from his playing days and his days as an official. The ceiling is lined with hundreds of ball caps, some new, others much older. Many of the items, including a small scooter, are Carolina blue, the color of Barrett’s favorite college team.
A closer look reveals just how extensive Barrett’s involvement in North Carolina prep sports has been. Over the years, Barrett has done a little bit of everything as a basketball official, football official and baseball umpire.
A lifetime of sports is bound to generate a few interesting stories, but for Barrett, it has resulted in a rare career hat trick of sorts.
Few players are among those fortunate enough to say they’ve played for a state championship. There aren’t many coaches who get the chance to lead their teams to the top. For officials, getting the chance to officiate a state championship is about as good as it gets.
Barrett can lay claim to all three. As a wiry center for the Pinehurst Rebels basketball squad he never won the state championship, but played on a top-ranked team that made it to the state finals during his junior year in 1964.
Less than a decade later, he was on the sidelines when the Pinecrest High School basketball squad won the 3-A state championship in 1972.
Since that time, Barrett has officiated in six state championships and numerous sectional and regional events, both on the hardwood and the gridiron.
Playing the Game
He recalls his team losing to High Point Andrews High School in the 1964 1-A state championship.
“We were undefeated at 34-0,” Barrett says. “We had a chance to be undefeated state champions if we had just done a few things right in the last couple of minutes of that game.”
Barrett played three years on the varsity squad for the Rebels. Each year, the team went undefeated in the regular season. Barrett finished his high school career with a record of 97-3.
“We came back the next year after losing in the state championship and went 32-0 before losing in the first round of the playoffs,” Barrett says. “It happened on a last-second shot. With a little bit of luck we could have won 100 straight games. We’re literally talking about a couple of baskets.”
“I just loved it and was lucky enough to go to college on a basketball scholarship,” Barrett says. “I went to Pembroke State University.”
After graduating from Pembroke State, Barrett returned to Moore County and began coaching at the middle school level. It wasn’t long before Barrett reunited with his high school basketball coach.
“We had a great coach in Roger Paschal,” Barrett says. “While I was in college they had consolidated the high schools and built Pinecrest. He had moved to Pinecrest and I was his assistant. It was a thrill playing for him and then being able to coach with him.”
Barrett says there is a distinct difference between playing in and coaching in a state championship.
“Without question the most fun is playing,” Barrett says. “You don’t realize what’s going on. The coach just tells you to do something and you do it.
“When I was coaching with (Paschal), my responsibility was scouting defenses. It’s a whole different ballgame.”
For Paschal, watching his protege over the years has been a pleasure.
“He was a very skilled player for a Class A school,” Paschal says of Barrett’s playing ability. “He played center for us and took advantage of his ability to get to the basket. He also had a nice outside shot.”
Paschal says he wasn’t surprised when Barrett decided to get into coaching.
“Wiley was very good at developing the young players,” Paschal says. “He had the freshman team and once we got into the tournament he would help me during the games.”
Wearing the Stripes
Barrett decided to get out of coaching after 1972, a decision that allowed him to focus more on officiating.
“I’d been officiating on off nights (while coaching), and was also playing on a semi-pro team in Fayetteville,” Barrett says. “Something had to go.”
Barrett started officiating in 1969, right after he graduated from college. He recalls being in a little over his head while calling his first game.
“The first game I ever called was a high school varsity basketball game,” Barrett says. “I didn’t know what the heck I was doing, quite frankly.
“Back then the coaches used to rate you. They had to write comments on a card. The booking agent showed me the card and it said, ‘good judgment, doesn’t have a clue where he belongs.’”
Paschal took advantage of an opportunity to evaluate Barrett.
“He’s a very good official,” Paschal says. “He gives all the right signals and it’s easy to tell what he’s calling when he calls it.”
Paschal says one of Barrett’s strengths is that he doesn’t crave the spotlight like some officials.
“He’s one of the guys that tries to do things in a calm way,” Paschal says. “He never got too excited whether he was playing, coaching or officiating. He can get emotional at times, but he never let it show.”
Barrett, of course, got better and it wasn’t long before he began generating respect from his peers and the coaches he worked with.
The perseverance paid off with his first state championship game in 1979. He returned to the state finals in 1993, 1994 and 2000.
The heightened pressure of a championship match isn’t exclusive to players and coaches.
“It’s there for officials, too,” Barrett says. “Especially if it’s a close game. You know that you can make a call that could change a ballgame.
“You certainly don’t want to have to do that. But if it’s there, you have to call it.”
Barrett says the time-honored cliche that officials are “just letting them play” in the late stages of a critical game isn’t appropriate.
“They’ll say, ‘They’re going to let the players decide the game,’” Barrett says. “You know what? As an official, you can’t let the players decide. You let the rules of the game decide. If it’s a foul it’s a foul. It doesn’t matter if it’s the end of the game.”
Seeing the Future
Whether it’s been in a regular-season game, an early-round playoff match or in the state finals, Barrett has been around a lot of athletes. Most of them leave high school and never play organized ball again. But some move on to the next level and Barrett has come across his share of future stars.
“I’ve been lucky to see a lot of ballplayers over the years,” Barrett says. “You see a lot of kids on TV that you’ve dealt with when they were in high school.”
Barrett has officiated high school games involving ACC legends like James Worthy, Jeff Capel and Terrell McIntyre.
“McIntyre was the best high school ballplayer I’ve ever seen,” Barrett says. “He played for Hoke County High School and used to score 50 points a night on a regular basis.
“Marcus Melvin, he’s playing at North Carolina State now. I must have called 10 or 12 of his games while he was at Seventy-First High School. You get to see them in high school and then watch them at the next level. It’s a lot of fun.”
Barrett ran across another future star during his playing days at Pembroke State University. As a freshman, he crossed paths with the late Pistol Pete Maravich, who went on to stardom at Louisiana State University. Before Maravich went to LSU, he played at a prep school.
“Back then it was called Edwards Military Academy and he was there,” Barrett says. “We scrimmaged them when I was on the freshman team.
“We scrimmaged them that morning and he got about 50 points. We ate lunch and scrimmaged them again. I didn’t guard him and he must have had about 75 points, so I felt pretty good after that. Of course, he went on to be as good a player that ever put on a uniform.”
Barrett missed the opportunity to call a game involving Michael Jordan when he was a prep player, but did call a college all-star game involving the living legend.
“He declared on a Sunday that he was going pro,” Barrett recalls. “He played in an all-star game on a Monday night and I refereed it.
“Right then, he was everything. Back then they used to barnstorm a lot and the game was actually played right here at Pinecrest.”
Highlights of Career
Barrett did a little barnstorming of his own as a baseball umpire.
Following the Goodwill Games of 1988 he had the thrill of visiting Moscow as a man in blue.
“To make a long story short, a bunch of college all-stars went to Russia to play baseball on a tour,” Barrett says. “I went along with them and umpired.
“We put the tour together and actually gave umpiring clinics and taught them the fundamentals of baseball. It was very interesting.”
Barrett says he enjoys baseball, one of the sports he lettered in during high school, but had to give up umpiring.
“I had to give something up because it was a year-round thing,” Barrett says. “Even with football and basketball I’m working every Friday night from August into March. Basketball is three or four nights a week sometimes.”
Barrett began officiating football games at the middle school level in the mid-1970s, shortly after he stopped coaching basketball.
“It started because they didn’t have enough people to referee the middle school games and I’ve been with it ever since,” Barrett says.
A state championship assignment aside, there is one game that stands above the rest for Barrett. It was on the gridiron in Rock Hill, S.C.
“The highlight of my officiating career would be working the Shrine Bowl football game last December,” Barrett says.
The Shrine Bowl, an annual all-star contest that pits high school standouts from North Carolina and South Carolina versus one another, is also an all-star gathering of officials. Each year the Shrine Bowl raises millions of dollars for Shriners Hospitals around the nation, along with showcasing high school football talent to college scouts.
“As a high school official that is the pinnacle,” Barrett says. “That’s the crown jewel right there. From an emotional standpoint of what it’s for and why you’re there and how you got picked.”
Dealing With Coaches
Barrett says he enjoys officiating football games even though it’s the most complicated sport to work.
“In basketball you blow the whistle, call something and move on,” Barrett says. “In football I might throw a flag, you might throw a flag and then they might fumble the ball, then somebody else might throw a flag. Then we’ve got to sort it all out.”
A crucial element of officiating any sport is the interaction between referees and coaches. All sports fans are familiar with images of coaches berating officials who made a call against their team.
For Barrett, dealing with coaches is just part of his job.
“You’ve got to build up the respect over the years,” Barrett says. “You get it because they know who you are and that you’re going to treat them fairly.
“They’ve got to be able to come and talk to you. If a coach wants to come out and talk to me, I’m going to stop the game and talk to him and explain to him what’s going on.”
Officials are human, so mistakes will be made. Barrett says admitting mistakes and doing what he can to correct them is the best thing to do.
He recalls making a mistake on a penalty call during a hotly contested Scotland High School versus Richmond Senior High School football game.
“We screwed up a penalty,” Barrett says. “We didn’t take our time and missed our mark by a couple of yards. Of course, (Scotland Head Coach) Mark Barnes came out and I said, “Mark, I think you’re right.’ I talked to my linesman and we changed it.”
Barnes, who has been coaching at Scotland High School since 1992, has nothing but praise for Barrett.
“He’s always been very professional, both he and his crew,” Barnes says. “I’ve had him for a lot of big games.
“I think one of the biggest compliments you can pay an official is that they don’t try and dominate the game. He understands that the fans are there to watch the game and he doesn’t need to try and call things that don’t need to be called.”
Barnes also praises Barrett’s willingness to work with coaches and players during a game.
“I think he does a good job of communicating with coaches, but more importantly, he communicates with players on the field,” Barnes says. “He let’s the players know what they can and can’t do.”
Barrett says he understands why many coaches can’t go through the course of a game without giving an official at least a little bit of guff.
“They just want the call to go for their team,” Barrett says. “I’m a diehard Carolina fan and I want every call to go Carolina’s way. It’s amazing how much better I think the officials are when I don’t care who wins the game.”
Not all of the conversations between coaches and officials are what they seem.
“I’ve had coaches come up to me and say, ‘Look, I don’t have a thing to say, but my fans expect me to gripe at you,’” Barrett says. “There are guys that I’ve played ball with and known for years, but I have to tell them I can’t help them.”
Well over 10,000 fans have been known to show up for the Scotland versus Richmond games, one of the biggest rivalries in the state. Barrett says officiating big games like that is a thrill for referees, too.
Over the years Barrett has called too many games to count. Most of them are run-of-the-mill affairs, where nothing out of the ordinary happens. But every now and then something will happen that officials just can’t prepare for.
Barrett says he can’t count the number of kids that have gone the wrong way on a basketball court. But many of the more unusual plays he has witnessed occurred on the football field.
“In football, when the horn goes off the play is not over,” Barrett says. “We were down at Red Springs one night and they had the ball and the horn went off.
“They just dropped the ball on the ground and the other team just turned and walked off the field. The officials, we just literally stood there for at least 30 seconds before I finally blew the whistle and called the ball dead. It doesn’t sound like much, but he was running, the horn went and he just dropped the ball. They started high-fiving each other, not knowing that the other team could pick up the ball, but they never picked up on it.”
Barrett recalls being in Wadesboro for an Anson County versus Richmond game when an Anson player thought he had scored a touchdown, but mistook the 5-yard line for the goal line.
“He dropped the ball on the 5-yard line and Anson lost the game,” Barrett says. “Those kinds of things happen more than people realize because they’re just kids playing the games.”
Barrett, who is currently vice chairman of the Moore County Board of Education, is a former teacher and school administrator. His daytime career as an educator is reflected in his desire to see high school sports retain their status as building blocks for youth.
“Sports helps kids tremendously,” Barrett says. “Kids need positive things to do and as adults, we forget what it’s like to be a kid.
“Sports gives them a sense of competition, teamwork and structure. You’ve got to go to practice and you have to do things a certain way. It’s really an extension of the school day. I am a very strong supporter of high school athletics. It’s the last bastion of the way sports was intended to be and we need to protect it.”
Barrett enjoys the challenges of calling a football game and still has a place in his heart for baseball, but basketball will always be his first love.
“I just love basketball and I’ve stayed with it,” Barrett says. “It’s hard to believe I’ve been doing it for 35 years.”
Don’t count on Barrett stopping anytime soon, either. He may be done teaching and he’s no longer a school administrator, but he plans to keep on officiating.
“Sports have been good to me,” Barrett says. “I’ll never retire. As long as my legs will let me run, I’ll be doing it.”
