Earl Strom

Earl "Yogi" Strom (December 15, 1927 – July 10, 1994) was an American professional basketball referee for 29 years in the National Basketball Association (NBA) and for three years in the American Basketball Association (ABA). Strom is credited as one of the great referees in the history of the NBA and was known for his flamboyant style and ability to control the game. Nicknamed "The Pied Piper", the assertive Strom made foul calls with his whistle by using a "tweet-pause-tweet-tweet" tune and pointing at the offending player. In addition to calling fouls with flair, he was known for ejecting players from games with style and he sometimes supported his rulings with physical force.

Over the course of his career, he officiated 2,400 professional basketball regular season games, 295 playoff games, 7 All-Star games, and 29 NBA and ABA Finals. For his extensive contributions to the game, Strom was posthumously elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1995.

Strom was born December 15, 1927, in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, to Orthodox Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants from Austria-Hungary, Max and Bessie Strom. Earl's father, Max, was a foreman at a bakery, and Earl grew up in the kosher household as the youngest of seven children comprising five boys and two girls. As a child, he became interested in athletics and competing in sports, and this interest lasted throughout his childhood and into high school. At Pottstown High School, Strom played football, baseball, and basketball. One of his classmates in high school was future major league baseball pitcher, and American League MVP, Bobby Shantz. In 1989, he was inducted into the Pottstown School District Alumni Honor Roll.

After finishing high school in 1945, he joined the United States Coast Guard towards the end of World War II. Returning from service, Strom attended Pierce Junior College (now Pierce College) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he graduated in 1951. Following school, the young Strom continued participating in sports and played for a local semi-professional basketball team in his early 20s. During a basketball game, he had an argument with a referee and the referee said "Look, you're not much of a player, and you've got a pretty good mouth on you, so why don't you think about taking up refereeing?" Following the advice of the referee, Strom decided to get into officiating. He officiated high school games for nine years as well as college games in the East Coast Athletic Conference for three years.

In 1952, he married Yvonne Trollinger, and the couple went on to have five children. Outside of officiating, Strom worked at General Electric in customer relations starting in 1956 and continued in this role through his first stint in the NBA. He felt this "day job" provided security to his family since officiating in the NBA did not at the time.

Strom became an NBA referee with the start of the 1957–58 NBA season after accepting an invitation to join the league from Jocko Collins, supervisor of officials. He further developed his skills in the league by learning from other officials such as Mendy Rudolph, Norm Drucker, and Sid Borgia. Strom ascended to the top of the officiating ladder by the end of his third season in the league as he was assigned playoff games, which was uncommon for lesser experienced referees at the time. The following year, Strom and Rudolph made NBA history when they officiated the 1961 NBA Finals between the Boston Celtics and St. Louis Hawks. This was the only time in NBA history that the same two officials worked an entire series, which was the result of the two teams not agreeing on any other officials to use in the series.

In 1959, Strom refereed the first NBA game Wilt Chamberlain played against Bill Russell, and he called the last game they played against each other ten years later. Early in longtime referee Joey Crawford's career he was paired with Strom in a game where Crawford ejected a coach two minutes into the game. Strom berated Crawford during halftime, with "every name in the book", and told Crawford, "'I like that you have guts, but you've got to have smart guts like me.'"

Six years into his NBA career, Strom had worked every playoff game in the semi-finals and finals along with Rudolph. In fact, the former was assigned to any seventh and deciding game in a series during this time. He was also involved in one of the most memorable moments in NBA history during the 1965 Eastern Conference finals between the Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers. In the seventh and final game, the 76ers trailed the Celtics 110–109 with five seconds left. The 76ers had possession of the ball and attempted to inbound the pass as the Celtics' John Havlicek tipped the pass thrown by Hal Greer and preserved the Celtics victory. Celtics' radio announcer Johnny Most made his most fabled call: "Havlicek stole the ball! Havlicek stole the ball!" And all this while, Strom had officiated the game in a cast as he had broken his hand while punching a fan during an altercation at a game the previous night.