coastvolleyballclub.com

The argument began before I reached the referee stand.
“You can’t put Reed on our court.”
The tournament director kept sorting score sheets without looking up.
“I already did.”
“Then undo it.”
A breeze lifted the corner of the bracket taped to the registration table. The director
pressed it flat with one hand.
“Good morning to you too, Nolan.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
Behind us, the beach was waking in layers. Volunteers dragged boundary lines across the
sand. Players carried coffee toward warm-up courts. An old white trailer sat open near the
parking lot, its shelves filled with scoreboards, antennas, tools, and years of equipment
that somehow survived every summer.
My name appeared beside Court Four.
First Referee: Nolan Price
Underneath it:
Line Judge: Reed Price
My younger brother.
We had not spoken in eleven years.
“That’s not happening,” I said.
The director finally looked up.
“Reed volunteered.”
“For Court Four?”
“For the tournament.”
“You knew.”
“I suspected.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No.” The director handed me the score sheet. “It’s a schedule.”
I stared at the paper.
Court Four hosted the men’s semifinal at two o’clock. Before that, it would carry junior
divisions, amateur matches, and one women’s qualifier. Enough time for two people to
stand near one another while pretending history had not placed itself between them.
“I’ll switch with someone.”
“You can ask.”
“I am asking.”
The director smiled tiredly.
“You’re asking me to solve a family problem with a clipboard.”
That was exactly what I wanted.
They refused.
I walked away carrying the assignment.
The coffee shop on the corner had changed owners since my last season, but the green
awning remained. So did the long window facing the beach. I ordered black coffee and
stood near the counter watching athletes gather beneath morning fog.
The owner slid the cup toward me.
“Referee?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“You’re wearing a whistle at seven in the morning.”
I looked down.
Fair point.
“First tournament?”
“First one in a while.”
“How long?”
“Eleven years.”
The owner paused.
“That’s not a break. That’s another life.”
I carried the coffee outside before the conversation could become accurate.
For most people, I had retired because of work.
That was the explanation I gave tournament directors, players, and old friends who asked
why I stopped officiating.
Work became busy.
Travel got harder.
Weekends disappeared.
All true.
None complete.
The last match I refereed had ended with Reed standing beneath my ladder, shouting that I
had cost his team the championship.
The final rally had been close.
His partner served deep. The receiver passed near the net. The set drifted toward the
antenna, and the hitter swung down the line.
I saw the ball graze Reed’s fingertips before landing out.
Touch.
Point.
Match.
Reed insisted the ball missed him.
His partner agreed.
Half the crowd agreed louder.
I stood by the call.
The argument continued after trophies were handed out, into the parking lot, and later
inside our parents’ kitchen.
“You always needed to be right,” Reed said.
“I made the call I saw.”
“You saw what you wanted.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you like having authority over people.”
The sentence reached farther than volleyball.
I told him he had always blamed officials for losses.
He told me I had always hidden behind rules because people were more complicated.
Our mother asked us to stop.
Neither did.
Reed left before dinner.
A month later, I turned down my next assignment.
Then another.
Eventually people stopped asking.
Court Four was empty when I arrived.
Reed stood near the sideline carrying two flags.
He looked older, which was unfair because in my mind he had remained twenty-five,
furious, and covered in sand.
His hair was shorter. A scar crossed one knee. He wore a faded tournament shirt with the
sleeves cut off.
“Morning,” he said.
I checked the net height.
“Morning.”
“You need help?”
“No.”
He placed the flags beside the scorekeeper’s chair.
The silence between us was carefully built.
Neither wanted to damage it too early.
A volunteer approached carrying a scoreboard.
“Where do you want this?”
Reed and I both pointed to the same spot.
The volunteer looked between us.
“You two work together before?”
Reed laughed once.
“Something like that.”
Our first match involved two junior teams who apologized after nearly every mistake.
The players looked toward coaches after each point. Parents clutched coffee cups and
whispered advice nobody on court could hear.
At eight-all, a serve landed near the sideline.
The nearest player called it out.
Reed raised his flag.
In.
I confirmed the point.
One parent protested.
“That was outside the line!”
The junior who had made the call looked ready to cry.
I climbed down during the timeout.
“The line judge had it in.”
The parent pointed at Reed.
“He wasn’t even looking!”
Reed remained still.
Years ago, I might have defended the decision by citing position, angle, and procedure.
Instead I said, “He had the best view.”
The parent continued muttering but stepped back.
Reed looked at me after I returned to the stand.
No thanks.
None needed.
The match continued.
Between assignments, we sat beneath opposite ends of the same umbrella.
Reed ate an orange.
I reviewed the schedule.
“You still write notes after every match?” he asked.
“It helps.”
“You used to write notes after family dinners.”
“That happened once.”
“Three times.”
“I was practicing observation.”
“You wrote that Dad interrupted fourteen times.”
“He did.”
Reed smiled despite trying not to.
The expression disappeared quickly.
Around noon, wind arrived from the north.
The flags above the pier shifted. High sets began drifting toward the parking lot.
Experienced teams shortened their swings. Younger players kept hitting harder, as if effort
could negotiate with air.
Reed watched one server miss long for the fourth time.
“They’re fighting it.”
“They’ll learn.”
“That what you tell yourself?”
I lowered the clipboard.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He peeled another orange slice.
“Nothing.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Say something and pretend you didn’t.”
Reed looked toward Court Three.
“I said they’re fighting the wind.”
“No. After that.”
A whistle sounded nearby.
Crowds gathered for the qualifier final.
Reed stood.
“Our next match starts in ten.”
The conversation closed.
At two o’clock, Court Four filled.
The semifinal featured the top-seeded team against a partnership that had survived the
qualifier. Spectators stood three rows deep around the boundary. Photographers knelt
near the sidelines. An announcer introduced each player through speakers that cracked
whenever the volume rose.
Reed took his position near the right sideline.
I climbed the stand.
For the first time all day, I remembered why I had loved officiating.
Not authority.
Clarity.
Before a match, everything had structure.
The court measured sixteen by eight.
The net stood at a fixed height.
Teams switched sides at agreed intervals.
Points followed rules.
People complicated those rules, but the structure gave conflict somewhere to go.
The first set ended 21–18.
The second reached 19–19.
A long rally drew the entire crowd forward. The qualifier team defended three hard attacks
before sending a high shot toward Reed’s sideline.
The ball landed near the corner.
Reed raised his flag.
Out.
The attacking team celebrated.
The defender shook their head.
“In!”
Spectators erupted.
I looked at Reed.
His flag remained steady.
Out.
I confirmed the call.
The qualifier team called timeout.
One player walked beneath the stand.
“That caught the line.”
“The line judge called it out.”
“He missed it.”
I felt the old match returning.
Not as memory.
As muscle.
My jaw tightened.
The player continued.
“Ask him again.”
I looked toward Reed.
Eleven years earlier, I had wanted him to accept my certainty.
Now the tournament waited for mine.
I signaled for Reed to approach.
The crowd quieted.
“What did you see?” I asked.
“Out.”
“Any doubt?”
Reed looked at the corner.
Then at me.
“A little.”
The honesty startled me.
“How much?”
“Enough that I wouldn’t overrule you if you saw line.”
I had not.
My angle from the stand was worse.
The scorekeeper watched.
The players waited.
The entire beach wanted an answer shaped like certainty.
I did not have one.
“Replay the point,” I said.
The crowd reacted immediately.
Some cheered.
Others complained.
The seeded team’s blocker approached.
“You can’t replay because he’s unsure.”
“I can when the officiating crew cannot confirm the call.”
“That’s not what you called originally.”
“No.”
The word felt strange and freeing.
“I’m correcting it.”
The point was replayed.
The qualifier team won the rally, then the set.
They eventually lost the third 15–13.
After handshakes, several spectators continued discussing the disputed line.
Nobody agreed.
The tournament continued anyway.
Reed gathered the flags.
“You would’ve never replayed that eleven years ago.”
“No.”
“Why now?”
I climbed down.
“Because I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t know then either.”
The words landed without volume.
I removed the whistle from around my neck.
“I believed I did.”
“That was always the problem.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
Reed stared at me.
“I don’t know what you know. We haven’t spoken in eleven years.”
The beach moved around us.
Volunteers replaced score sheets.
Players warmed up for the final.
Someone near registration asked for more ice.
Everywhere, ordinary work continued while the oldest argument in my life stood beside
Court Four.
“I didn’t quit because of work,” I said.
“I know.”
“How?”
“Mom told me.”
“She shouldn’t have.”
“She said you stopped sleeping before tournaments.”
I looked toward the ocean.
“That match followed me.”
“It followed me too.”
“You still think there was no touch?”
Reed laughed without humor.
“I don’t know.”
I looked at him.
“What?”
“I watched an old video years later.”
“There’s video?”
“Somebody filmed from behind the court.”
“And?”
“You can’t tell.”
For eleven years, we had built our distance around a moment neither could prove.
Reed sat on the bottom step of the referee stand.
“I wanted you to admit you might’ve been wrong.”
“I wanted you to respect that I had to decide.”
“Both could’ve been true.”
“Yes.”
The word arrived late.
Very late.
Still, it arrived.
We sat beside Court Four while the final teams began warming up.
Reed handed me one orange slice.
I accepted it.
“You still hate oranges?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“You ate them every tournament.”
“Because you brought them.”
“You could’ve said something.”
“I thought you knew.”
Reed shook his head.
“That right there.”
“What?”
“That is our entire family.”
I laughed.
The announcer called the finalists to the court.
We returned to our positions.
The final contained no controversial calls.
No arguments.
No dramatic ending.
One team simply played better and won in two sets.
After trophies, the champions helped volunteers carry chairs. The losing team stayed to
speak with juniors. A photographer took pictures of everyone except the scoreboard.
The beach slowly emptied.
Reed and I helped roll boundary lines.
Mine came out uneven.
He looked at it.
“You still do that wrong.”
“It’s a circle.”
“It’s an oval.”
“Nobody cares.”
“The trailer driver cares.”
We unrolled it and started again.
Near sunset, the tournament director approached.
“How’d Court Four go?”
“Fine,” I said.
Reed nodded.
“Fine.”
The director looked between us.
“That’s disappointing. I was hoping for a disaster.”
“You scheduled one,” Reed said.
“Didn’t happen.”
The director smiled.
“Sometimes schedules are wrong.”
They walked away.
Reed loaded the final line into the trailer.
“You working next weekend?”
“I hadn’t planned to.”
“There’s a tournament in Hermosa.”
“I know.”
“They’re short officials.”
“They’re always short.”
Reed closed the trailer door.
“I volunteered.”
“As line judge?”
“Maybe.”
I looked at him.
“You asking me to referee?”
“No.”
He smiled.
“I’m telling you where I’ll be.”
The next Saturday, I arrived before sunrise.
The coffee shop lights had just turned on. Volunteers unloaded poles. The equipment
trailer stood open. Wind moved gently through the flags above the pier.
Reed waited near Court Three holding two coffees.
He handed me one.
“You still drink it black?”
“Yes.”
“Some things don’t improve.”
We walked toward registration together.
The director looked up from the clipboard.
“You two again?”
Reed placed one coffee on the table.
“Try not to make it sentimental.”
The director handed us our assignments.
Court Seven.
Junior semifinal.
Nothing important, according to the bracket.
By then I knew better.
Every court held something somebody would remember longer than the score.
We carried the flags through cool morning sand.
At Court Seven, two nervous teams waited beside the net.
A parent adjusted an umbrella.
A scorekeeper sharpened a pencil.
One player asked whether the wind would change later.
Reed looked toward the ocean.
“It always does.”
I climbed the stand.
Reed took the sideline.
The first serve crossed the net cleanly.
The rally lasted only three contacts.
The ball landed near the line.
Reed raised his flag.
In.
I looked at the mark.
Then at him.
He met my eyes.
This time, neither of us needed certainty from the other.
Trust was enough.
I confirmed the point.
The match continued.