| Overall UK Wins: 23 | Overall UK Losses: 7 | Win % 76.6 |
Date of Birth: November 14, 1928
Date of Death: January 15, 2017
Hometown: Wilmington, DE
Alma Mater: Goldey-Beacom
For a generalized listing of officials, please consult this page.
Obituary - New Castle (DE) News Journal (January 16, 2017)
Hall-of-Famer Moser Dies; Officiated NCAA Hoops Final
P.S. du Pont High grad worked every basketball level, up to NBA
by Kevin Tresolini
His crowning achievement as a basketball referee was working the 1981 NCAA Tournament title game between Indiana and North Carolina at the Spectrum in Philadelphia.
But what made Lou Moser unique, said two sons who also became Division I college basketball officials, was that no assignment was too small.
For someone who worked in boys club, recreational center, YMCA, and high school gyms - as well as the most hallowed college and NBA arenas - in a career that stretched from the mid-1950s into the late 1990s, that was the ultimate compliment.
Moser, the 1994 Delaware Sports Hall of Fame inductee, was 88 when he died Sunday from various heart and kidney ailments. The long-time Brandywine Hundred resident had been residing in Long Neck.
"You want an official that if something's called a foul in the first half, you want it to be called as a foul in the second half. The guy that does that is Lou Moser," said former Salesianum basketball coach Mike Gallagher, repeating words told to him by one of his Salesianum predecessors, The Rev. John Birkenheuer.
"It was a great compliment because he was a consistent official," added Gallagher, a 1969 Sallies grad who was the Sals coach from 1989-2012. "That was what Father Birkenheuer said to me. 'That's the kind of guy you want in a game.' And talking to Lou over the years, he used to say 'We shouldn't be intrusive. You shouldn't even know who we are out there.' And I think that's another outstanding trait people attribute to him. He was pretty seamless."
Moser worked NBA games in the 1967-68 and 1968-69 seasons and then refereed American Basketball Association games in 1970-71. He then decided to focus on college basketball because the travel schedule was less demanding, including nearly 20 years working Atlantic Coast Conference games.
"He'd be on TV one day doing an NBA game," said son Michael of Kennett Square, "and the next day he'd be doing a high school game or a CYM [Catholic Youth Ministries] game back here. People would see him and go 'Wow! He's doing my CYM game.' He just loved people and the game of basketball."
Moser's brothers Bobby and Richard, sons Michael, Robert and Mark, grandson Ridge and granddaughter Madison also became basketball referees.
"He would come home from an NBA game and then do a middle school game," said son Mark of Newark. "He would say to me, 'It might not be important to you, but little Johnny may not have been able to sleep last night [thinking about his game] so if you're not going to give your very best in any game you ever do at any level, then don't do it.' That's the perspective we have when we officiate now."
Officiating was Moser's avocation, not his vocation, as Moser worked in The News Journal circulation department for 14 years before moving to the New Castle County sheriff's office.
A P.S. du Pont High graduate who then attended West Chester State and Goldey-Beacom, Moser was refereeing lower-level college games and those in the Eastern Basketball League, which was a pro feeder to the NBA, when he got his big chance. Jack Ramsay, the former Mount Pleasant High coach who later became coach at St. Joseph's University and with the Philadelphia 76ers, played a role.
"He was doing a freshman game at West Chester. Because Jack Ramsay liked him and knew him from St. Joe's," Michael Moser said, "he told Dolph Schayes [76ers player and coach and then NBA supervisor of referees], 'You might want to look at this young official coming up.' Dolph Schayes came all the way down to West Chester, liked him, gave him six or eight exhibition games and then hired him."
On Feb. 4, 1968, News Journal sports editor Al Cartwright traveled to a nationally televised Knicks-Celtics game with Moser at the Boston Garden and chronicled the gritty details, including banter between Moser and Knicks coach Red Holzman, in an article several days later.
"The anxiety disappears as soon as the ball goes up," Moser told Cartwright, "but for the first time in my life I have trouble going to sleep after a game. I want to be accepted - by the officials first, the players second."
Moser, who worked a Baltimore Bullets game the night before, told Cartwright he didn't like the nationwide travel involved with working the NBA. No wonder that college basketball, which he turned to a few years later, was more to Moser's liking.
In the ACC, Moser developed a reputation as a referee who wouldn't be intimidated by the whining and grumbling of North Carolina's Dean Smith, the league's coaching luminary. Smith, therefore, would frequently express his distrust.
In the 1981 NCAA Tournament, Moser had been matched up with Booker Turner of the Pac-10 and Kenny Lauderdale of the SEC and the threesome earned the right, through its graded performance each round, to work the title game in which, ironically, Smith's Tar Heels lost 63-50 to Bobby Knight and Indiana. President Reagan had survived an assassination attempt that day, and there was a question until early that evening whether or not the game would even be played.
"It was a most gratifying experience," Moser told The News Journal soon after working the NCAA final. "It made all the other years that I've put in as an official so worthwhile. This is something I'll always cherish, always remember."
When Moser stopped doing college games in the late 1980s, he remained a fixture on the high school hoops scene in Delaware.
"He was always a calming factor," fellow official Layne Drexel said. "There was no situation in basketball that got ahead of him. When you went out there with Lou on the court, you just felt that."
"He had everything. He had coaches, he had bench personnel, he had the clock. That feeling of comfort is just helpful when you officiate. Because you knew that I can concentrate on the court here, and Lou's going to take care of any situation that's going to be a challenge to us."
Funeral arrangements are pending and will be available at www.chandlerfuneralhome.com. Moser is survived by his wife, Janet, six sons, one daughter, and 20 grandchildren.
