Q&A: Ref D.J. Carstensen talks old Milwaukee, tough calls and cool memories

D.J. Carstensen will be waiting anxiously on Selection Sunday. Is he going to the NCAA Tournament this year or will his streak end at 12 straight trips?

Good news would come via email, followed by a phone call to tell him where he’s headed. No TV show for him. Referees are picked on the same days as the teams, just without all the fanfare.

Carstensen, 54, was born in Milwaukee and is still well connected to Wisconsin. Calling games in the Big Ten and Horizon League brings him to his home state numerous times each season.

Before working a game at the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena, Carstensen struck up a conversation at the press table and agreed to an interview about his experiences.

The resulting interview, conducted by telephone during the Big Ten tournament, evolved into a conversation during which Carstensen wandered through stories about his roots, playing at Utica College for Milwaukee Bucks championship-winning coach Larry Costello and strange encounters with players. He also discussed the business of officiating, misconceptions and one call he’d like to have back. (Hint: It involves Wisconsin.)

Here are highlights:

Q. You’re from Milwaukee? What’s the connection?

A. I was born in Milwaukee. My whole family actually originated in Milwaukee. Our start was my grandfather came over on the boat from Germany and ended up in Milwaukee. My mom and dad and both my uncles were Custer High grads. My uncle Jim was first-team all-City and I think the captain of the team the year Freddie Brown was on the (all-City) team. …. When I was young, my dad was into Marquette, Jim Chones, Dean Meminger up through the Butch Lee, Earl Tatum, Jerome Whitehead, Gary Rosenberger, Bo Ellis times.

My dad (Don) graduated from UWM, got his masters from UWM, was director of admissions at UWGB when it first opened and then went on to ACT, the American College Testing programs, and was vice president there for a number of years. Their national headquarters are in Iowa City. But (we) still had family in Milwaukee and Oconomowoc and Madison. So getting back to that area is always a bonus outside of the officiating for me.

Q. My dad was an old City Conference basketball player. I had fun looking at his old scrapbooks.

A. Yeah, yeah. Who’s the good program that Diamond Stone came out of there? Dominican or something? My dad and uncle would be like, we used to kill those private schools. Now today, the private schools pluck all the good kids off the public schools.

Obviously, small world, for a guy like me to be able to play for Larry Costello, having grown up in Milwaukee was really a cool thing. I remember exactly where I was at when the Bucks won the (1971) world championship as a kid. I remember where I was at for Game 6 against the Celtics in Boston in ’74, and then they came back to Milwaukee for Game 7 and lost. But I don’t think either team won a home game in that series. But what people forget is that Lucius Allen got hurt before the playoffs. If he doesn’t get hurt, the Bucks win it again.

Q. When did you leave Milwaukee?

A. Just my early years in Milwaukee, then we went up to Green Bay. We moved to Philadelphia in ’72, so I had 9 years … in Wisconsin but always came back because my grandparents had a place up in Three Lakes. On Townline Lake. So all the way through college, I’d always come back in the summertime to see them or hang out for a little bit with family. … Early on, my dad was coaching at Port Washington High, teaching and coaching at Port Washington High. And then we lived, like, four blocks from Bart Starr. We’d go trick-or-treating at his house. … To grow up in Green Bay, with 60,000 people and you’ve got the Green Bay Packers, there’s no family gathering that there isn’t some Green Bay Packers talk. We follow that closely.

Q. So, you go from Wisconsin to out east to Iowa. How did you then end up …

A. Back east? I was playing high school basketball, a pretty good high school basketball player. Had some lower Division I schools, some of the better Division II schools (interested) and really I think if I had my choice I would have gone to Green Bay, UWGB. But it didn’t work out.

Syracuse was recruiting me a little bit … just communicating. I wasn’t good enough. But Bernie Fine was the assistant coach. I think what happened was they looked at tape … Utica was going Division I, so I think Bernie Fine called Coach Costello and said, hey, we’re not going to offer this kid, but this may be a kid who can help you. Coach Costello called my high school basketball coach, and I decided to visit. It was probably the two nicest days in the history of upstate New York, weather-wise. I was sold a bill of goods. I went out there and played the first four years of Division I for him. There was a group of guys that stuck with it and in our fourth year had a winning record. We were a small school, maybe 1,800-2,000 students, in Division I.

Probably one of the neatest things, we came back and played Marquette my senior year and should have won the game. We lost in overtime, and Rick Majerus was coach. But for Coach Costello, that was one of the first times back in Milwaukee. There were signs up in town: “Welcome back, Coach.” And for us to almost beat Marquette … it was probably the only time we lost a game and he went around and patted everybody on the back. He was such a competitor. Marquette was good. They had Mickey Johnson, Kerry Trotter, Walter Downing, Tom Copa … they had some players. Walter Downing hit a shot at the buzzer to send it into overtime, and Tom Copa hit a shot with four or five seconds left to win it. Playing in the Mecca and then refereeing there 30-some years later is sort of cool … a flashback.

I stayed out east, got into coaching. I was the head basketball coach at an inner-city high school for a couple of years, and what they did was consolidate the city schools. In New York state, if you don’t teach, if a teacher applies for a coaching position they automatically get it ahead of you. When I didn’t get the job, somebody said, hey, do you have any interest in getting into officiating? So that’s when I got into officiating and just slowly, all the way from elementary school up to junior high to high school to small college and just slowly I’ve been fortunate to progress to where I’m at today.

Q. Let me get back to Costello.

A. Yeah, I’m trying to get him in the Basketball Hall of Fame. Like a lot of people, I just can’t believe he’s not in the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Q. You knew about him from your time as a kid in Wisconsin and paying attention to the Bucks. When your high school coach says, “Hey, you’re not going to believe who I talked to …” how did that conversation go?

A. Same reaction. I didn’t believe it. Obviously watching that growing up, that was a big deal. It’s sort of funny because you have this perception, right? NBA coach, NBA player, successful, and then you go play for him and it’s different. He was tough. He was demanding. In a positive way. Those life lessons you learned while playing for somebody like that really help you. We had a couple kids that were from tough situations that he stayed on that got their degrees, who are doing extremely well today, but while you’re going through it you don’t always understand it. Like, this guy’s a pain in my rear. … It’s like when you grow older you say, my parents were smarter than I thought they were. You look back and you say, wow, he really shaped me and instilled a work ethic and values and accountability, things that today I try to put into the things that I do as a husband, father, referee, employee.

And I still keep in touch with his four daughters. They come up and always come by the house. What’s crazy is I live eight houses down from where he lived (in Utica, N.Y.). My house is … when I came on my visit, I went to his house … same road, I live eight houses from where he used to live. I drive by his house every day, what used to be his house.

He was such a humble guy. Like today. It’s just night and day (different for coaches), you wouldn’t know with his resume the success that he had. He was just a regular guy, never looked at himself (as special). He was a blue-collar kind of guy. It didn’t matter if it was pickup or if he was playing or demonstrating or whatever, it was 110%. And he expected that out of you.

Q. You go from coaching to reffing … you gotta figure this a low-pressure job, right, nobody’s ever mad at you, it’s going to be easy? Probably not.

A. The funny thing was coaching I was … immature as a young coach. So when I got into the officiating, I think there were some officials that did my games when I was young, they gave me a hard time. But I think having played and having coached – right? – it gives you a perspective when you’re officiating. You understand the preparation, the emotions, everything that goes into it. At this level, your people skills and management skills are as important.

Q. That’s a great point. You have seen it from all sides.

A. Yes. When the game starts, everyone is an adult. But as the game goes on, some people revert to childish behavior. Then your job is to get them back to adult status and get them doing what they should be doing. Coaches … they’re in the position they’re in because they’re successful and very good at what they do, not because they’re good officials. Right? So if they’re spending more time officiating, the reality is they’re not helping their team or themselves. I always look at it like it’s my job to get you back doing what you do best. And you’re one of the best coaches in the country, so we need you to coach. And if you’re spending time doing other things, it’s not helping me, it’s not helping you, it’s not helping your players.

Q. And you have a real job as well, or is this your real job and your other job is your side job?

A. I worked for a really good company for 21 years and then less than a year ago I gave up that position. So right now I’m just officiating, doing a little consulting on the side. It was a great company to work for, I’d been there 21 years, but it just became too much. It was just a decision my wife and I made. We’ll see. I can always do something if I have to, if things change.

Q. You do, like, 60-plus games a year, right?  With the travel and everything, it’s quite the commitment. (Until last year Carstensen also held a full-time job.)

A. It is. It is. And one of the misconceptions of officials is there’s no accountability. Trust me. There’s a ton of accountability. The guys that come to Milwaukee and Madison, you see, they treat it like a full-time job. Whether it’s a full-time job or not. Guys are after the games looking at the game again. They’re looking at plays. They’re getting evaluated. There’s feedback. And with technology, everything is just changed. Before you leave the locker room, you know whether you were right or wrong on a particular play that came up in the game, and you’re able to see it. It’s something the guys that I work with, whether they have another job, they treat it like a full-time job.

Q. I was going to say, not that you’ve ever blown a call, but if you did, when would you know about it?

A. Before I leave the locker room. Or in the car, pulling out of the parking lot. And you want to know about it. When you think about a game, you can have 150 possessions in a game. If somebody dribbles it five times each possession, that’s 750 times you can have a travel, a foul, a shot, a rebound, an out-of-bounds, a deflection. People say, “Oh, they missed a travel.” You’re going to miss a couple of calls in a game that has 750 decisions to a thousand decisions. It is what it is. You don’t want to miss anything. That’s your goal going in. But the reality is there’s a million decisions and the game’s fast. Just like the teams don’t want to miss free throws or don’t want to turn the ball over, it’s the same thing.

Q.  Over the years, is there some area you’ve improved or adjusted that you feel you did the best or you’ve grown the most?

A. Learning how to communicate and deal with coaches from a young official to a veteran official is something that you’re always working on. It’s an area that’s more of a strength for me today than it was when I was coming up, trying to figure things out.

But you’re always … you evaluate. You make sure there isn’t a trend. When you look at your plays or you get clips back from evaluations, you’re looking to see, is there a trend? Am I missing a particular travel call or an illegal screen? So maybe going into a year after evaluating the previous year, I want to get better on everything, but I really want to focus on the pivot feet in the post. Or I really want to focus on dislodging the rebounder. So when I’m in the center or trail position I’m really focused on rebounding. You always want to improve in every area, but you’re targeting an area or two or three after evaluating the year before.

Q. I’d venture to guess that among college basketball fans and the people in the business, maybe the block/charge thing is the most complained about?

A. It’s complained about a lot, but it’s probably one of the more misunderstood calls. From an official’s standpoint, you’ll hear people say, “Aw, he was moving.” Well, he can move. If he’s established legal guarding position, the defender can move. He can’t move into, say, the dribbler, but if he’s retreating, even though the guy runs him over while he’s moving, that’s an offensive foul.

The reason why people think the block/charge is the hardest call is probably because it’s the most misunderstood rule with fans and media, announcers. Sometimes I’ll be watching and they’ll say something and I’ll think, that’s not right. Everybody in the world watching the game takes it as gospel. So you’re always fighting perception.

Q. So is that the toughest? Are there tougher calls?

A. Goaltending is tough. Guys are so athletic and sometimes there’s the ball ... is it on it’s way down, is it at its peak, did it come off the glass? And usually those are plays where you’re running. You’re in transition, so you’re not set where your eyes are fixated on an area.

The toughest plays are the out-of-bounds calls. You’ve got a ball that bounces … the calling official, you’re too close to the play, in essence. All of a sudden the ball shoots out of bounds and you’ve got four or six hands in the area. Those are tough.

Q. I almost hate to go here, but it helps to explain what you need for this job. You got lit up a little bit nationally for the thing a couple of years ago with Diamond Stone and Vitto Brown, where Stone kind of crunched Brown’s head into the court and came away with a flagrant 1. When you have that, you’re always going to get second-guessed. How do you get over that?

A. The one good thing about basketball is you’ve got to have a short memory, right? Even in the game. When I referee, what I try to do is referee just like the media timeouts, I try to referee in 4-minute segments. I want to be as good as I can for these 4 minutes. Then I want to be as good as I can be for the next 4 minutes, and whatever happened in the previous 4 minutes I want to forget about and just focus on the 4 minutes I have right now.

Getting back to that situation, the penalty would have been the same: the free throws. The difference was Diamond Stone wasn’t ejected. But there are situations that all you can do, right, wrong or indifferent, is learn from those situations. … You’re standing there at the monitor, you’re looking at a play, you’re waiting for the play to come back from the truck. A lot of times people are, “What’s taking them so long?” Well, it’s taking us so long because we’re not even looking at anything yet. It’s coming from the truck to us. We want to get out of there as fast as you do. Like we want to stand there for a minute and a half, two minutes.

The good thing about basketball is the next day you may have another game. Right? Now you’ve got to be focused on that game. Whereas football, there might be another week and people are going to be focused on it continuously. What’s ironic about that, if I recall correctly, that same day was a day Grayson Allen tripped a kid. (Actually the Allen incident was several days earlier.) So while that (Stone-Brown) got a lot of publicity, it didn’t get as much because all the focus was on the Duke situation.

When I first started refereeing, if something like that happened, you might find out about it two weeks later. Today, 10 seconds after it happens, it’s on Twitter. I don’t do any social media. I’ve always told my kids, if you want to feel good about your dad, stay off social media. But it’s not taken lightly.

Q. So, to clarify, are you saying you wish you’d done that one different?

A. Me, personally, I wish I would have. … That’s one where looking back, I take ownership of that. There’s a human side too. As a referee, you hate to throw anybody out of a game. You want to make sure it’s legitimate. I’m far from perfect. I recognize it, and I’m sure there were thousands of people at the Kohl Center that recognized it too. And any other arena.

Q. I’ve enjoyed this conversation, and I’ve learned a lot and it’s cool to meet people you wouldn’t regularly in the course of life.

A.  You never know how you impact people. Coach Costello, when we would be practicing, he would bring the Milwaukee Bucks. Dandridge was always sort of … I took it that he was difficult for Coach Costello. Super-talented guy. I ran into Lucius Allen later on, when Coach had cancer and passed away. I was talking to him and he said the one guy that communicated with a lot of former players about Coach’s health was Bobby Dandridge. I thought that was pretty cool. Like you said, you meet people you don’t normally get to meet. You talk about Wisconsin, one of my favorite (stories is) there was a dead ball at a game and a couple of the players came over to me from Wisconsin. They said, hey, you look like Sam Dekker’s dad. It was Sam Dekker, (Frank) Kaminsky, (Josh) Gasser … those guys.

So I would be refereeing, and Dekker would say, “Hey, Dad …” or the other guys would say, “We saw you the other night (on TV) and texted Dekker, ‘Hey, your dad’s refereeing so-and-so game.’ ” Every time they saw me, that group, they’d always come up and say something. That was always on the lighter side.