That was the treatment he got the other night from a Cincinnati State fan sitting six rows up from the court after one of the Surge’s players was called for a foul during a scrum beneath the basket.
“Wake up!” the fan groused. “You missed it.”
But it was the right call and Edwin Young knew it. And with his ever-animated face offering a cheeks-full-of-air exhale, he was up on his toes, gingerly sprinting back up the court, past one defender, then the next.
That’s how he used to do it when he was the point guard on Oliver Purnell’s teams in the late 1990s and it’s how he does it now, wearing long black pants and a zebra-striped shirt with a whistle clenched in his teeth.
That’s right, Young is a referee.
“I’ve gone over to the dark side,” he said with a grin just before he walked onto the court to officiate Cincinnati State’s victory over Vincennes University.
Afterward, as the other two refs used the women’s soccer office as their makeshift dressing room, Young found an empty bench, sat down and talked about a basketball life that began on an old hoop in the Cutty Dixon Park in Zanesville.
From there came a state prep title, a span at UD as one of the Flyers’ more popular players, some coaching of his own and now a budding refereeing career that has him working junior college, college and some high school games not only in the region, but as far away as Atlanta.
“Every night I’m around great athletes and the competitive spirt that they bring, as well as that of the coaches and the fans — it’s one of those things where I feel like I’m still in the moment,” he said. “I come out to the court and I smell the popcorn and hear the band playing and it reminds me of my own playing days.”
Fast learner
Young was the Ohio Division I High School Player of Year his senior season. At UD — with Darnell Hoskins sitting out the first half of the 1996-97 season to meet NCAA requirements after transferring in from Wisconsin — he immediately was made the starting point guard.
“I wouldn’t change anything of my UD experience, not the footprints, the relationships I cultivated, none of it, good, bad or indifferent,” he said.
“I still remember the article Bucky (Albers) wrote: “Edwin Young gets baptized in Oxford.” It was my first road game collegiately and I turned the ball over three times in a row at the start.”
But he also remembers the game against Northeast Louisiana his sophomore season when he set a UD Arena record that still stands, going 18-for-18 from the free-throw line.
He remembers the trips to the NIT and the NCAA tournament and how he picked up his nickname for the way he wrapped himself around the opposing team’s big scorers.
And I especially remember the ESPN-televised game against Xavier at sold-out UD Arena his senior season. With under two minutes left, the Muskies were up by one. UD had the ball and that’s when Young tapped the top of his head, signaling his teammates he’d take it from here.
He drove around Xavier guard Maurice McAfee, went down the lane, maneuvered a shot past 6-foot-7 Aaron Turner and put Dayton ahead.
At the end of the play he crumpled to the court with an ankle sprain. Purnell brought him to the bench, but Young spurned the trainer’s help and successfully pleaded to get back on the floor.
Back in the game, he stole the ball from Xavier guard Darnell Williams, was fouled and made two free throws to seal the victory.
“It was a hell of a game,” he said when reminded of it. “It was just an unbelievable atmosphere.”
With that he rubbed his bare arm: “It still gives me chill bumps.”
Young started 104 of his 118 games at UD and is sixth on the Flyers’ all-time list of best free-throw shooters, making 77.1 percent of his attempts. He’s tied for ninth in career steals (134) and is 10th in assists (407).
He said he stays connected to the program, thanks especially to coach Brian Gregory:
“He and Coach (Billy) Schmidt and Coach (Jon) Borovich and the rest do a hell of a job extending a hand to former players. They let you know you’re part of the family.”
Paying his dues
After college, Young played on a semipro team that traveled the Midwest. He also worked as a financial consultant and then, with the help of former Flyers player Al Sicard, got a job with State Farm Insurance.
After working as an agent in Trotwood, he’s now a consultant, managing agents in a territory that stretches from Findlay to Mason, where he lives.
He has remarried and he and wife Amber have an 18-month-old daughter, Layla. His 12-year-old daughter, Alexis O’Rea — whose initials and birth date he had tattooed on his biceps when he was a married UD player — now lives in Gahanna with her mom and sees her dad regularly.
For a while, Young was an assistant coach at Miami University Middletown and at Miamisburg High and also coached a Dayton Metro AAU team.
At the prompting of veteran Cincinnati ref Jackie Sanders, he got into officiating. After going to a referee school in Middletown, he paid his dues, working his way up from the junior high ranks. Now most of his 70 or so games a season are at the junior college and college level, including places like Central State, Urbana, Cedarville, Wilberforce, Wilmington and in the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.
When he played at UD he was known not only to chat up the refs during breaks, but to try to pull a fast one on them when he could.
“If the official was on one side of me, I tried to use my body to shield him from seeing me reach in with the other hand,” he laughed. “I figured, ‘You can’t call what you don’t see.’ ”
All that helps him as a ref, he said: “It’s having a feel for the game — and you can’t get it just reading a book.”
In the preseason this season, he refereed UD’s annual red-and-blue scrimmage and a couple of Flyers players were surprised to see him in stripes.
“Matt Kavanaugh and Wan Staten both played on my AAU team,” Young said with a grin. “When they saw me they went ‘Coach???’ ” Maybe they remember the AAU tournament in Atlanta where he got hit with a technical for questioning the referee.
“Truthfully,” Young said with a shrug, then a smile, “the guy was right. ... I earned that tech.”