Lacrosse season has started in Georgia, so veteran referee Louie Diaz of Marietta is back in the stripes again.
A Long Island transplant and Delta Air Lines retiree, Louie, 73, has been officiating lacrosse — and basketball, football and soccer — for more than four decades and is now wrestling with when to call it quits.
A mentor to countless referees in the Atlanta area, Louie has officiated thousands of lacrosse games in the U.S. and abroad, some at the highest levels. He’s no stranger on the campuses of such lacrosse powerhouses as Johns Hopkins University and Duke University.
Now Louie wonders what he will do next after he hangs up his stripes. What will it be like to stop something that has been a part of him for more than half his life, something that has shaped his identity, something that stops time for him and melts away his worries for two or three hours? He's already steeling himself for his last game. He knows it will be a heart-breaker.
“Emotionally, I already planned that out,” he said, his tone resolute. “I know it is coming. It is the same thing as, ‘You are going to die someday.’ I feel that if I cannot run with the players, it’s over. And I accept that.”
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