The second I heard Paul McCarthy’s Achilles tendon snap in two, I decided it was time to retire from playing softball.

I was coaching third base, and Paul was playing the hot corner. One of my teammates smashed a ball that went between Paul’s legs. From the sound of it, I thought the ball hit him in the shin, but it continued on a straight light to left field.

Paul crumbled to the ground, clearly agonizing in pain.

“Did the ball hit your leg?” I asked.

“No. I snapped my Achilles,” Paul said.

Since Paul was not and never has been a doctor, I wondered how he could diagnose his own injury so quickly. The reason, it turns out, is because Paul snapped the Achilles tendon on his other leg a couple years earlier.

So, not only did Paul know the severity of his injury, he knew the long road to recovery he was facing — right at the beginning of summer, too. 

I was in my mid-30s, and Paul was a few years older. We were playing a game where you stand around and do nothing forever. Then, you go all out for a short burst. It is a muscle- and tendon-killing sport. 

It is really a silly thing for someone older than 30 to do.

That is what I realized as Paul’s teammates helped him to the dugout. I decided right then that my days of playing softball were over. I finished out the season, and never played again.

I gave up playing pickup basketball games for the same reason. I don’t want to tear an ACL or snap a tendon trying to relive the glory days that weren’t so glorious in the first place.

It just isn’t worth it. There is no reward in it.

Refereeing basketball, however, is different. It is worth the injury risk. Or, more likely, it is worth the injury certainty.

At 48 ½, I was much too old to start running up and down the court with high school athletes. Yet, that is what I started doing last season.

After years of encouraging others to referee or take it easy on referees, Jon Kinzle called to encourage me to join the Butte pool. He knew that I was no longer covering the sports as a writer, so I had no reason to not do what I had long been telling others to do.

Living with labrum tears in both hips — as a lot of people my age deal with — was not an excuse as long as I could make it up and down the court.

Players play in pain quite a bit. Referees do it all the time.

That was one of the biggest eye openers when I joined the Montana Officials Association. Seeing what the men and women go through in the locker room to get ready for the games is a true testament to the dedication the officials give to their craft.

Some of those referee suitcases look like a medical closet. They bathe their legs with Bengay to try to ease their aching muscles. Others have to hit all those muscles with a massage gun for 20 minutes or more before they get dressed.

Getting dressed is another story. Putting on all the braces, compression pants and sleeves is very time consuming. 

Physical therapy is also no stranger to a lot of referees. I know one official who went through weekly dry needling sessions just so he could get through one more season.

Grey and white hair is nothing out of the ordinary, either. I will be 50 in a couple of months, and I look around our weekly study club meetings to see that there are more officials older than me than there are younger.

I know that very few of them are feeling close to 100 percent. Most are dealing with at least one injury or soreness as we work our way into the crunch time portion of the schedule.

A few weeks ago, I suffered the dreaded calf strain that so many of my fellow officials have battled. Refereeing a freshman boys’ game in Butte High’s old gym, I took a step back as I watched the action from the “trail position” outside the 3-point line.

I had to look back to make sure there really wasn’t a guy behind me with a knife because it felt like I was stabbed. It wasn’t a snapped Achilles like Paul suffered, but it hurt.

While I was visibly limping the rest of the game, I was able to finish. Then I went to the study club and got some great advice from a handful of officials who knew exactly what I was talking about.

I iced and stretched for eight days before my next game, and I felt pretty good. So, I took two games each day on Tuesday and Thursday the next week.

That was a mistake.

By the end of the first half of the first game, I could hardly walk because the injury flared up. Butte High football coach Arie Grey lent me one of his calf sleeves, and that helped a ton when walking or laying around off of the court.

It didn’t help during those games, but I made it through. I had no idea how I was supposed to do it again two days later. But I had no choice.

Our pool leaders were practically begging people to try to fill some games. So, there was no way I could back out.

So, a tube of Bengay, my son’s massage gun and a ton of stretching got me through. The injury is feeling a lot better, and it probably won’t make me miss any games. But it takes a whole lot of extra time to get ready for each game.

For about an hour before I even leave my house, I am loading up on ibuprofen, Bengay, massaging and stretching. 

When it comes to aches and pains, though, I take a back seat to so many other officials around the state. Some men and women have been doing this for decades. They know how to play hurt.

We have so few officials that they have no choice but to play through injuries. Otherwise, our young athletes would not be able to play games at all.

That is why we officiate. We don’t do it so we can pick which team will win. We do it so the boys and girls get the chance to play the games like we did.

When you tell an official that he or she is a cheater, or awful, or pathetic because you don’t like a call, you are only reducing those dwindling numbers. You might think you are helping your son or daughter, but you are doing the exact opposite.

Not only are you looking like a fool while setting a poor example for the future generations, you are pushing officials out the door. You are pushing us one step closer to the days of canceled games or even canceled seasons.

There is no doubt that officials get some calls wrong. But they have studied the rules, and they make a lot more correct calls than you probably care to notice.

Plus, those officials out there are playing through pain and the threat of a snapped Achilles tendon just so your son or daughter can play the game.

Hopefully, you will think about that the next time you yell at them.

— Bill Foley, who will never get the smell of Bengay out of his nose, can be reached at foles74@gmail.com. Follow him at twitter.com/Foles74. Listen to him on the ButteCast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.