After 36 years as a college basketball referee, 32 of them in the Big Ten, it isn't easy for Ed Hightower to experience something new on the court. After 34 years as a college basketball coach, the last 19 of them as the headman at Michigan State, the same applies for Tom Izzo.

Yet here the two of them were Tuesday, on the floor of the Breslin Center, a timeout with two minutes and change left in a Spartan blowout victory of North Florida. Izzo went to the scorer's table, grabbed the microphone and ventured them into unchartered waters.

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This was Hightower's final game in East Lansing. The 62-year-old is retiring after games this weekend at Nebraska and Iowa. Izzo wanted to acknowledge a good ref and a better man – a devoted husband and father, not to mention teacher, principal and now superintendent of public schools in downstate Illinois.

Izzo barely got the words of appreciation out though before his voice began cracking and he started choking up. When he was done, he flopped down on the bench nearly in tears. The emotion had overwhelmed him.

"Yeah, it did," Izzo said Friday.

"I felt the same way," said Hightower, who had to blow the whistle and call the rest of the game.

Izzo had cleared his speech with the Big Ten office and North Florida coach Matthew Driscoll, but he had no idea how it would play out.

For Hightower it was a complete surprise, even though Indiana coach Tom Crean had made similar in-game remarks to the crowd during Hightower's final visit at Assembly Hall. Plus, other schools, not to mention the Maui Invitational, have honored Hightower with game balls on his final pass through their gym.

All this for … a ref?

"He's done the job with such class and professionalism," Izzo said. "Integrity is what he is about."

"He deserves it," Crean said. "My respect for him is incredible. As a high level official, yes, but even more so for the kind of man he is."

"It's been really gratifying," Hightower said.

This, however, is more than just a feel-good story of a bunch of coaches taking a moment to say nice things about an old ref that they spent years arguing with in the heat of battles past. This is more than getting a guy who heard a million boos a couple standing ovations.

This is a reminder to everyone that there are dynamics at play in sports that go beyond winning and losing, charges and blocks. It's a moment to remember that what we see on television isn't always the full story. And, perhaps most importantly, to recall that officials, yes, even officials, are people, too. Sometimes they are great people. And they always have great families who take every blood-thirsty scream or vicious tweet more personally than they do.

One of the reasons Izzo says he respects Hightower so much (and vice versa) is because through the years, no matter how tough their in-game arguing could get over a call, each would later study the tape. If someone discovered he was clearly in the wrong, he would phone the other one and acknowledge it.

"Ed will call and say, 'hey, I messed up on that,' " Izzo said. "That's class. And I think that's what we are all looking for."

"Tom has never been afraid to call the next day and say, 'I was wrong,' " Hightower said. "No one has been harder through the years on Ed Hightower than Tom Izzo, he's such a competitor. But that's the kind of guy Tom Izzo is."

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