In Maine, Peter Webb was known as the one who decided which basketball officials would be assigned to work the high school state tournaments.

At the national level, the Houlton native was held in high regard for his deep knowledge of basketball rules.

Across the globe, Webb was a sought-after clinician, teaching aspiring and veteran basketball officials alike the proper mechanics for making a call, and more importantly the reasons behind the rules.

Webb, who spent 27 years as the Maine Basketball Commissioner — a role that was retired when he retired in 2019 — died Wednesday afternoon at Eastern Maine Medical Center. He was 88.

Webb knew how to help where help was needed, recalled Dick Durost, the former director of the Maine Principals’ Association.

Like when the MPA needed some extra car parking attendants for baseball tournament games at Mansfield Stadium in Bangor.

“You might think that someone who had achieved as much as Peter did, both in Maine and internationally, would think parking cars might be beneath them,” said Durost, the MPA’s top administrator for 18 years until his retirement in 2019. “But someone needed to do it, so Peter would do it.”

Webb was living at Sanfield Rehab & Living Center in Hartland. While his speech was slurred and slowed by a 2019 brain aneurysm, his mind remained sharp said TJ Halliday, 59, of Waterville, a long-time friend who succeeded Webb as the coordinator of basketball officials in Maine.

In terms of his knowledge of basketball’s rules and love for the game, Webb had few peers, Halliday said.

“He was way more than just an assigner. He was the lead educator in the state and one of the foremost authorities of basketball in the country,” Halliday said. “He understood the rules, but even more, he understood the importance of them, why each rule was important and why it kept things fair between two teams.”

Halliday said Webb’s interaction with staff and other patients at the nursing home left a lasting impression of a different sort.

“My father went in a nursing home and he was grumpy. Peter was the opposite. He made connections and always treated people like they were the most important,” Halliday said.

Last February, Halliday took Webb to a basketball game at Nokomis High in Newport. One of the certified nursing assistants at Sanfield Rehab was playing her last home game. Several other CNAs were Nokomis cheerleaders.

“They all came and flocked to him. Peter was just that kind of person. Very well liked,” Halliday said.

A WELL-RECOGNIZED CAREER

Webb was inducted into several athletic halls of fame, including the Maine Basketball Hall of Fame and the New England Basketball Hall of Fame. He is the first of only two Maine representatives in the National High School Hall of Fame, entering in 2006.

Webb was long affiliated with the International Association of Approved Basketball Officials, an organization with over 18,000 worldwide members. He was a rules interpreter for decades, including 17 years as coordinator of all IAABO rules interpreters. He was IAABO worldwide president in 2001-02.

He conducted officiating clinics in over 20 states, as well as in Europe and Asia.

Webb brought his national and international knowledge home to Maine and encouraged a high level of performance from the officials he oversaw.

“The impact he had on high school basketball will be felt in Maine and around the country for generations to come,” said Julie Goupille of Presque Isle, the site supervisor for officials in Bangor.

EVERY RULE MATTERED

Webb was an accomplished basketball and baseball player at Houlton High and Ricker College before embarking on a career in education that included 22 years as a school administrator at the elementary and middle school levels.

A certified official for over 55 years, Webb officiated over 1,000 baseball games and over 2,000 high school, college and professional basketball games. Known as an excellent official in his own right, it was as a teacher of officials that Webb made his biggest impact.

Since Webb was ultimately responsible for which officials would work tournament games, he emphasized and taught the techniques and rules knowledge he wanted to see from his officials.

“His impact for us as officials was immense,” said Jeff Benson, the MPA’s commissioner of officials across 14 different sports. “He got us all on the same page. All the same mechanics, the same applications of rules.”

He spent two separate four-year terms on the National Federation of State High School Associations basketball rules committee and served as a non-voting advisor on the committee for many additional years.

“All the rules changes, all the language, everything went through him,” Goupille said.

Webb was a stickler for applying all the rules, all the time.

“I don’t know how many times I heard him say, ‘officiate the game regardless of time and score,'” Goupille said.

In 2018, Maine’s high school basketball officials became a target of criticism and social media ridicule because players were given technical fouls after dunking the basketball. The officials were enforcing Rule 10, Section 4, Article 3 on player technical fouls: “a player shall not: grasp either basket ring at any time during the game except to prevent injury.”

Since the rule was seldom enforced during the regular season, the prevalent theory was officials were calling the technical fouls to get in Webb’s good graces and get assigned another game.

“Maine just goes by the rule and I don’t know if other states do or don’t,” Webb said then. “It’s not for me to get involved with or to judge the rule. It’s not about me anyway. It’s about the rules that govern the game.” 

Durost, who was the MPA’s director at the time, said the “No Dunks Allowed in Maine” furor, “used to irritate me and I’ll tell you why. (It) is a national rule. That rule is there. Some coaches and players and fans didn’t like it, but Peter’s view was all the rules are there for a reason.”

Goupille said Webb was “by the book. If it said it in the rules, that’s what you were supposed to do. And this is high school basketball. Peter wanted high school basketball to be as pure as possible.”

Both Goupille and Halliday related similar stories that Webb would tell young officials to help illustrate why every call mattered, even in a regular-season blowout game. While the details were slightly different in their telling, the core story was the same:

In the final minute of a lopsided girls basketball game, a reserve player is fouled in the act of shooting. Nearly everyone in the gym is just looking for the game to be over, but the referee — Webb in Goupille’s telling; a protege according to Halliday — interprets the rule correctly and calls the foul. The girl misses the first free throw but makes the second. It’s the only point she scores in her high school career. Years later, she meets the referee and says that single point was meaningful for her. It told her that sticking with something would eventually have a reward, and that thought helped her succeed as an adult.

“The message was, you never know who’s on the floor, and it means just as much to those subs as it does to the starting five,” Goupille said. “That was the kind of person Peter was and what he tried to impart.”