Christian Ortiz thinks the world needs more referees.
"We all like a little bit of order … And this is a small, minute version of that happening," he says.
The "this" is a viral prank that Ortiz has perfected: He goes to local parks and gyms where people are playing pickup basketball, and instead of playing with them, he pulls out a whistle and starts reffing their games.
Ortiz, who's 25 and lives in San Antonio, has found that these videos routinely attract millions of views on social media, where he posts under the usernames @whrissss and @whristan. His most viral video has over 16 million views on TikTok – he's seen jumping out of a car, revealing his NBA referee outfit and hopping on the court. The men slowly accept his authority until one
player challenges Ortiz's basketball skills. Ortiz takes him on, scoring a basket and calling his own foul: "And-1!"
The players may not always like his shtick, but Ortiz insists he's helping them, not harming them. He brings order to the court while also bringing levity. Plus, he's gotten millions of people online to cheer for a referee – that's got to be a first.
Court clown turned court official
In high school in Brownsville, Texas, Ortiz was the court troublemaker. "I used to be the player the refs hated," Ortiz says. "I got a school record of ejections. I got a school record of technical fouls ... I would always give the refs my opinions."
He says he's simply passionate about the sport. In 2011, he became a Dallas Mavericks fan after they won a championship. When he graduated high school, he knew he wanted to pursue a career in basketball, even if it wasn't as a player.
He began refereeing various local games in the summer of 2019, before his first year at college. "It was funny because all the refs who would give me ejections and technicals became the same refs I was working with later," he notes with a laugh, adding, "I got to have this new form of respect for refs that I never had when I was a player ... I jokingly say it in my videos that reffing is harder than basketball."
His reasoning? "As a ref, you are way more locked into a game than an NBA player … You get one call wrong, or anything, and now everyone hates you."
Ortiz refereed elementary school and college, but men's league games with grown adults in recreation centers were the hardest to control. "They're like, why is this little kid reffing us?" he jokes.
But Ortiz doesn't back down from trash-talking. That's what makes him a good content creator. It doesn't make him a good ref.
"I talk too much to be a ref," he says. He recalls one time when he clapped back at a parent who turned out to be the school's superintendent. "[She] didn't like that, especially since I look like I'm a high schooler myself."
Ortiz wants to spread positivity
Ortiz wanted to get revenge on the men's league players who made his job difficult. He and a friend thought it'd be funny to officiate their games and make a bunch of bad calls, just to infuriate them.
But the idea quickly lost its appeal for Ortiz, who realized it wasn't "spreading positivity." He thought up a new idea that might achieve that goal. "I've played pickup ball all my life. So I was like, dude, if we had a ref at those games, that would have been awesome," he says.
In pickup basketball, players call their own fouls. It's an honor system, but it sometimes fails. Ortiz notes that an argument over a foul call can "stop the game for five minutes," and on top of that, "people lie, people don't have good judgment."
"It's like, having a ref there does help," he adds. "And as much as they don't want to admit it at first … they start seeing that, although it is a little silly, although I am a little over-dramatizing the videos, they're like, okay, at the end of the day, I am being benefited by this guy being here … It's like a hive mind situation."
It doesn't always work out, though. When Ortiz tried to film a video in his hometown of Brownsville, the guys there were not receptive. "There are people who, especially in my city, just don't like different people who strive to do something differently," he says.
And what does Ortiz want to be? Not a referee, apparently. His day job is working for the sports social media company House of Highlights, making online content about the NBA. But he doesn't know where his reffing series will take him.
Some on the internet want him to start introducing other official elements of a basketball game to the pickup court, like cheerleaders, and a coach to run plays with the guys. He likes the enthusiasm, but he's not into that idea. "My end goal is to make sure I am not bothering these pickup players … I want to make sure me being there makes it better for them, not worse. If I were to get a coach to call a time-out and to talk to these players who don't know who he is, like, it would be a little bit of a nuisance."
"I like being a 'professional unofficial pickup ref,'" he adds, laughing. "I think that's the name I'm going to start using."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How refereeing pickup basketball games made this TikToker a star
