Little did Phil Bova know when he stepped in to referee a charity basketball game the Cleveland Browns were playing at Berea’s Roehm Middle School in 1968 that it would lead to officiating Men’s NCAA March Madness Tournament games for 20 consecutive seasons and multiple Final Four contests before retiring from the profession after 30 years in 2006.
The Westlake resident shares his unforgettable memories of the decades he spent on courts around the country in Throwing Back the Chair, a book he co-authored with family friend Nino Frostino. The title refers to the legendary action Indiana Hoosiers coach Bobby Knight took on February 23, 1985, when he fired a chair across the floor to protest a call Bova and his team of referees made. “This was the easiest no-brainer ejection of my career,” Bova writes.
“We had 17,000 fans in attendance [at Assembly Hall arena on the Indiana University campus], and it was being nationally televised. Before each game, we referees go through a checklist of every single thing we need to be cognizant of as officials,” he says. “For example, maybe a coach is a vocal coach who we need to keep an eye on, or a player is known to be real physical, and we have to keep an eye on him. But never did we ever have to consider that a chair might be thrown across the floor.”
That summer, Knight made a surprise appearance at an officials camp Bova was conducting in Cleveland.
“He stayed for three hours and refused a fee for his time and effort,” Bova recalls. “He has the reputation of being a crazed, wild coach. But Knight went out of his way to show respect for me by attending my camp. This was his way of saying, ‘Hey look, it’s over, it’s behind us. Let me do something special.’”
On the book’s cover, eminent ESPN college basketball analyst Dick Vitale compliments the former referee on the pivotal stories he’s penned.
“Phil Bova has been a part of many magical moments in college basketball history,” Vitale wrote. “He has been on the scene, wearing the striped shirt, and blowing the whistle, with all of the game’s greatest coaches and players. …”
A documentary about Bova’s life on and off the court is currently in production.
“In the book, I emphasize how important it is to embrace your passion,” he says. “In my case, I happened to be the right man in the right spot at the right time and took advantage of it.”
A three-sport athlete at Cleveland’s West High School, Bova captained the baseball, basketball and football teams and played two years in the Cleveland Indians farm system. He began officiating college basketball games in 1976, which led to officiating 20 consecutive NCAA Men’s National Basketball Tournaments; and calling National Invitation Tournament Games for two decades, including the 1993 championship at Madison Square Garden.
Bova also estimates he’s officiated “close to a thousand” Big Ten Conference games throughout his career — a statistic he says he’s grateful for.
“Big Ten basketball consists of iconic coaches and Division I players who are big and strong, play hard and fill arenas,” he says. “The Big Ten Conference was always the elite conference in the country because of the fact that many of the players go to the pros — and, on average, five or six teams go the NCAA tournaments every year. The electrifying atmosphere you face every single night was such a challenge and such a high for me.”
High school sweethearts and the parents of three children, Bova and his wife Donna have been married for 56 years. They’ve lived in Westlake for 37 years and are proud of the place they call home.
“Mayor Clough, the elected officials, our economic development staff, our safety forces — police and fire — and every city employee does an outstanding job of making the town one of the premier suburbs in Northeast Ohio,” he says.
For 45 years — 12 of which were held at Westlake Recreation Center — the celebrated referee hosted a youth baseball school that helped more than 200 students each summer prepare for their next level of competition and have fun at the same time.
“No matter what level of sport an athlete is at, it’s all about respect,” Bova attests. “I firmly believe it’s important to treat people the way you want to be treated. As the sign on my office wall says, ‘I may forget what you say. I may forget what you do. But I’ll never forget how you made me feel.’”
