After all, the best officials are invisible. And they are independent contractors. No one wonders how they got there, or where they are going next. They have no home court. It is easy to vilify referees as arrogant and unfeeling, brazenly screwing up calls and shining their shoes to a cavalier gleam. But that is certainly not the dad I have.

From early November through late March, for my entire life, my father was on the road — calling home to Danville, Calif., from Spokane one night, San Diego the next. To him, officiating was the ultimate responsibility, and one he never took lightly. As the game has changed over the years — the introduction of a shot clock, the addition of a third official and the advent of instant replay, among other changes — his approach stayed the same. He felt strongly about maintaining the flow of the game, keeping the emotion on the court in check and doing his best on behalf of the student-athletes. I once saw him pat a player’s back on senior night and say, “It was an honor to watch you play.”

The time he made his most damaging wrong call, he could not sleep for months. While there was nothing that could be done to fix it, his remorse was deep and sincere.

As a child of a referee, you know the many merits of a Fox 40 whistle. Most of all, they are loud. Like a junior high jock, he would blow his in the house to announce he was home or surprise my sister and me when we were doing our homework. My sister and I are identical twins, but he always treated us like two teams on the court, as if following an N.C.A.A. handbook. We instinctively knew better than to ever say, “That’s not fair.” Because it always was.