Jeff Tamarri was at home officiating. Football, baseball, basketball … it did not really matter the sport. Or the ages of the participants.
“He was so good about reading people,” said close friend and fellow official Terry Taylor. “He would get to know the kids on the field, or on the court, and talk to them about the games. The kids loved him. They always knew they could approach him.”
Tragically, Tamarri died on Friday night doing what he loved. The 63-year-old veteran official was working the varsity girls’ basketball game between Speedway and Monrovia when he collapsed near the baseline with 6 minutes, 39 seconds left in the second quarter. Despite the best efforts of the team trainers, followed by the emergency services workers, Tamarri died.
It was a heartbreaking scene for a man kids knew as “Jeff the Ref” in the youth football leagues, where he was quick with a high five or a fist bump and a smile.
“Jeff would apologize to the girls playing in the game tonight,” Taylor said, pausing as he fought back tears, “and would not want them to have that burden of a memory so tragic in a game we all love to be a part of.”
Monrovia athletic director Jon Regashus had worked with Tamarri at times during his own 15-year tenure as a basketball official.
“He was on the baseline,” Regashus said. “There was an offensive rebound, and he stepped back into position and lost his legs (balance). I’m not a medical expert but it appeared to be a cardiac arrest. It was awful. Just tragic. You feel for everybody who was involved in the game, from the players to the cheerleaders and everyone here … it’s just heartbreaking.”
Regashus said the gym was cleared as paramedics attempted to revive Tamarri. The teams were sent to their locker rooms, and the game was later postponed. Monrovia also postponed its game scheduled for Saturday morning against Tri-West.
“I feel awful for his family, the officiating community and all of his friends,” Regashus said. “I would commend everybody here from Monrovia and Speedway for the way they handled everything and followed protocols and directions. The trainers and emergency workers were amazing. They did everything they could.”
Officials who knew Tamarri best were still processing the news as they found out Friday night. Many were working their own games at the time when their phones started buzzing. That included Taylor, a fellow “divorced dad,” who was roommates with Tamarri for all but about five years since 2008.
Tamarri and Taylor worked together often and talked about officiating when they were not working games. The fun-loving Tamarri was quick with a high five and smile with young athletes but also took his job seriously.
“He had a great common sense approach,” Taylor said. “I would be the one to call techs. He would try to get out of there without picking a fight with anyone. It was always, ‘The kids are No. 1.’ He was well known at Zionsville youth football and we worked a lot of games at Grand Park and about a million AAU games over the years. We butted heads at times talking about refereeing and how to handle things. But he really enjoyed the craft of officiating.”
Michael Pawlik got into basketball and football officiating about 12 years ago because of Tamarri.
“He was a top-notch official in every sport,” Pawlik said. “He took care of business. But the biggest thing was all the kids just loved him. He would be in the middle of the field talking to the kids and high fiving them.”
Kevin Brown first came to know Tamarri, a 1980 Perry Meridian graduate, back in the mid-1990s through the Indianapolis Umpire Association run by Lenny Brickens. Brown said Tamarri was one of the umpires he learned the most from.
“He was a guy who work a bunch of games,” Brown said. “He would work a lot of games, too, in basketball and football. But he was an exceptional baseball umpire. Way better than me. He worked a lot of college games and should have worked the state finals. It was really a travesty that he didn’t.”
Brown, like Taylor, said one of Tamarri’s best attributes as an umpire or official was his ability to keep the calm. That came into play one day more than 20 years ago when Brown and Tamarri worked a North Central-Decatur Central baseball game. A couple of bang-bang calls, innings apart, went against Decatur Central and longtime coach Phil Webster.
“Well, he comes out going all Lou Pinella yelling at me about the play two innings before,” Brown said. “Eventually Jeff kind of bear hugged him and got him off the field. He always had your back.”
He was not always on time, Brown joked. He called him Jeff “if not today” Tamarri.
“I had a special bond with Jeff,” Brown said. “He was a fun-loving guy, and you always knew if you were working a game with him, you were going to have a good time.”
Lance Scheib called Tamarri “a close friend.” Scheib, a longtime staple in the football community as a coach and broadcaster, knew Tamarri as a football official when he was a coach at Franklin Central and Noblesville. When he started his Gridiron Games for youth football players from third to sixth grade, he knew Tamarri would be a great fit.
“He did it for all the right reasons,” Scheib said. “The passion he had for high school and elementary players was great for the game. He always made it about the kids. Jeff would put the same emphasis on doing a third grade game as you would see on a Friday night. It was always fun to see how kids would gravitate to him. You always felt like he would make it a teachable moment every time he could for those kids.”
Scheib said his league will do something to honor Tamarri’s contributions next season. The same can be said for the high school officiating community in Indiana.
Roger Fiesel, a longtime friend, was supposed to work eight games in the Danville youth basketball league on Saturday with Tamarri and six more on Sunday at Plainfield. Fiesel and Tamarri would work the Zionsville youth football league games, where kids knew him only as “Jeff the Ref.”
“It will be hard (Saturday),” Fiesel said. “But I know he would want the kids to play basketball. He was like a brother to me. He will be missed.”