By Jon Styf
LocalSportsJournal.com
Johnnie Tanner isn’t afraid of the big moments.
The Muskegon-based official has spent 29 years officiating and has been to the largest stage, Ford Field for the state football finals and Breslin Center for the state basketball finals. The basketball finals trip came in 2018, when he was paired with two officials he had never worked with before. It was a larger stage than most had worked at before and Tanner said the other two “swallowed their whistles.”
“I was out there pretty much by myself officiating,” he recalled.
Tanner was named the inaugural winner of the Clayton Cochran Referee Award at last year’s Local Sports Journal Varsity Blues Sports Award Show at the Frauenthal Theater in downtown Muskegon.
This year, the award will go to Ollie Sandifer Jr. at the March 8, 2025, show.
Sandifer is the official who started working basketball games with Tanner back in 1996, showing him the ropes while Rodney Wedlaw did the same for Tanner in football.
The biggest thing Tanner said he had to learn was to keep calm in all situations.
“Because if I overreact, the situation can be a lot worse than what it was,” Tanner said.
Tanner was the head official, the “white hat” for a record-setting state football finals game in the fall of 2018 as well, when New Lothrop beat Madison Heights Madison 50-44 in what was the highest scoring championship game in state finals history at the time.
“Nobody could stop nobody,” Tanner recalled.
One of Tanner’s closest officiating partnerships was with the late Cochran, who spent countless days and nights traveling the area to officiate high school games, American Youth Basketball Tour tournaments or anywhere
basketball was played. In the 1990s and early 2000s, they went to Indiana for tournaments in Fort Wayne, Bloomington and wherever the AYBT played.
“It meant so, so much to me and I was really honored that LSJ selected me for the Clayton Cochran Award because me and Clayton were really close friends,” Tanner said.
Both Cochran and Tanner are Muskegon Heights grads, with Cochran winning a pair of state basketball titles at the school in the late 1970s before a 1979 graduation and Tanner playing football before graduating in 1981.
Tanner has now had both a knee replacement and hip replacement, but is concentrating on working games with his son, Johnnie Tanner Jr.
He is learning the ropes but has plenty to learn, the father said.
“A lot of young kids, when they get yelled at the first couple of times, they decide that they don’t want to do it anymore,” Tanner said.
Tanner remembers working youth football games on Saturdays, learning how to become a head referee and take control of a game.
The respect for officials is earned, Tanner said, and he has done the work, knows the rules and has walked the walk.
“If you react to every situation that you’re in, then you’re not going to make it as an official,” Tanner said. “If you don’t have tough skin, you’re not going to make it.”
LocalSportsJournal.com
Johnnie Tanner isn’t afraid of the big moments.
The Muskegon-based official has spent 29 years officiating and has been to the largest stage, Ford Field for the state football finals and Breslin Center for the state basketball finals. The basketball finals trip came in 2018, when he was paired with two officials he had never worked with before. It was a larger stage than most had worked at before and Tanner said the other two “swallowed their whistles.”
“I was out there pretty much by myself officiating,” he recalled.
Tanner was named the inaugural winner of the Clayton Cochran Referee Award at last year’s Local Sports Journal Varsity Blues Sports Award Show at the Frauenthal Theater in downtown Muskegon.
This year, the award will go to Ollie Sandifer Jr. at the March 8, 2025, show.
Sandifer is the official who started working basketball games with Tanner back in 1996, showing him the ropes while Rodney Wedlaw did the same for Tanner in football.
The biggest thing Tanner said he had to learn was to keep calm in all situations.
“Because if I overreact, the situation can be a lot worse than what it was,” Tanner said.
Tanner was the head official, the “white hat” for a record-setting state football finals game in the fall of 2018 as well, when New Lothrop beat Madison Heights Madison 50-44 in what was the highest scoring championship game in state finals history at the time.
“Nobody could stop nobody,” Tanner recalled.
One of Tanner’s closest officiating partnerships was with the late Cochran, who spent countless days and nights traveling the area to officiate high school games, American Youth Basketball Tour tournaments or anywhere
basketball was played. In the 1990s and early 2000s, they went to Indiana for tournaments in Fort Wayne, Bloomington and wherever the AYBT played.
“It meant so, so much to me and I was really honored that LSJ selected me for the Clayton Cochran Award because me and Clayton were really close friends,” Tanner said.
Both Cochran and Tanner are Muskegon Heights grads, with Cochran winning a pair of state basketball titles at the school in the late 1970s before a 1979 graduation and Tanner playing football before graduating in 1981.
Tanner has now had both a knee replacement and hip replacement, but is concentrating on working games with his son, Johnnie Tanner Jr.
He is learning the ropes but has plenty to learn, the father said.
“A lot of young kids, when they get yelled at the first couple of times, they decide that they don’t want to do it anymore,” Tanner said.
Tanner remembers working youth football games on Saturdays, learning how to become a head referee and take control of a game.
The respect for officials is earned, Tanner said, and he has done the work, knows the rules and has walked the walk.
“If you react to every situation that you’re in, then you’re not going to make it as an official,” Tanner said. “If you don’t have tough skin, you’re not going to make it.”
––––––––––––––––––––
Subscribe to the Legal News!
http://legalnews.com/Home/Subscription
Full access to public notices, articles, columns, archives, statistics, calendar and more
Day Pass Only $4.95!
One-County $80/year
Three-County & Full Pass also available
