Columnist Dean Juipe: Unsung ref comfortable in limelight

Dean Juipe

Monday, Dec. 4, 2000 | 10:54 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or 259-4084.

This time Jay Nady was the one being asked to pose for impromptu photographs with boxing fans.

"Usually when I hear someone say 'Can I take a picture?' I'm the one grabbing the camera to take a picture of them with someone else," Nady said Sunday at the Plaza in downtown Las Vegas, where a Top Rank boxing card was in progress. "I bet I've taken a thousand pictures of Richard Steele with different fans of his."

Steele is a renowned referee with a multitude of mega-fights under his belt.

Nady, conversely, now has one. And it was a great one, as he refereed Saturday's high-stakes clash between Felix Trinidad and Fernando Vargas at the Mandalay Bay Events Center and did an excellent job under trying conditions.

As was apparent at the Plaza when Nady was approached by three or four camera-toting fans within just a few minutes, his life has changed. Overnight, you might say.

"You want to know the truth?" he said, when asked what he initially thought a week ago today when the Nevada State Athletic Commission assigned him to referee the Trinidad vs. Vargas fight. "It was 'Why?' "

That glib reaction has an addendum.

"I'm not normally the main-event referee," Nady said, although that assessment can now be tossed out the window. "Usually the main-event referee for a big fight is Richard or Joe (Cortez). That was my first thought when Marc (Ratner) told me I had the fight.

"But I was as happy as a man could be to get picked to do it."

Opinions always vary in boxing but Nady rated an excellent grade for his tactful and decisive handling of Trinidad and Vargas, who took part in a foul-filled bout that wasn't resolved until Nady stepped in to stop it with Vargas heading to the mat for the third time in the 12th round.

Earlier in the fight Trinidad had two points deducted for low blows and Vargas had one.

"I believe Tito (Trinidad) was going to keep fouling until I took that second point," Nady said of his seventh-round decision to penalize the fighter again, the first such penalty in the fourth round not having had the desired effect.

"It was a giant step for him," Ratner, the commission's executive director, said of Nady's performance in the spotlight. "He relished it and he handled it marvelously.

"Jay's put in many, many years and has been a world-class referee in my mind, but this was his first mega-fight and he did a great job."

Nady, 53, has been a referee since 1972 and has had some interesting bouts. He was the third man in the ring when Floyd Mayweather Jr. defeated Genaro Hernandez for the WBC junior lightweight title in 1998 and he worked the Diego Corrales vs. Derrick Gainer IBF junior lightweight title fight earlier this year.

But for Trinidad and Vargas, the stakes were considerably higher.

"I felt so good in that ring," Nady said. "I never had felt as good or as at ease as I was. It came easy."

That reaction, coupled with his performance, comes as a relief to the NSAC for the simple reason that the absolute truth of the matter is that Nady got the Trinidad-Vargas fight because Mitch Halpern is dead. Had Halpern not taken his own life earlier this fall he would have been in line to referee Trinidad vs. Vargas.

"I thought of Mitch all week long," Ratner said. "But they say life goes on, and it does."

Nady did his part to ease the transition and he now will likely find himself in the NSAC's informal rotation of getting assigned to big fights.

"We'll see," Nady said. "I hope so. I always thought I was a great referee but sometimes people see a big man like me and think I get in the way.

"But it was truly an honor to get the Trinidad-Vargas assignment."

He didn't expect it because he hadn't let it cross his mind.

"When I played football (at Nevada-Reno) I was a lineman," he said. "So I've always been a guy who puts the team first. That's how I looked at my role in boxing; I've always felt good just helping out, and I mean that sincerely."

Aside from playing football at Reno, Nady played basketball and boxed as well. He was 18-1 as an amateur fighter but had no real desire to try the sport professionally.

He's as busy a referee as there is in the world, as his appearance in the ring Sunday marked his 43rd fight card of the year. Six of those cards have been out of the country.

"I've also been doing some clinics lately," he said, "where I give classes to younger referees and teach them how to react in different situations. It's good for me, too, just to remind myself of how you need to be prepared.

"I've been very busy refereeing fights and when you work as much I have, you inevitably see some tough situations. You get accustomed to reacting."

He reacted in textbook fashion when the low blows were flying via the hands of Trinidad and Vargas.

"Each of the penalties I called were black and white examples of fouls," Nady said. "All I had to do was follow the instructions I'd given them before the fight. It was a clear application of the rules."

He said if he had any regret whatsoever it was not coming to Vargas' rescue with the fight a millisecond from being over in the 12th round.

"Right before the last punch I was moving in to stop the fight," he said. "I kind of feel bad for Fernando because he took that last punch before I could get to him, but Tito is so quick."

Nonetheless Nady came through the test with flying colors and as part of the payoff he can look forward to additional big fights in the future. But as he rewound the Trinidad vs. Vargas fight in his mind and expressed its importance to him to a reporter, reality checked in.

It was time to get in the ring at the Plaza and await a four-round fight between two guys with a combined record of 9-12-1. Nady, 15 hours after standing between Trinidad and Vargas and their combined 58-0 record, was back at the grass-roots level and looking happy enough to be there.

He is, after all, a team player.