Dad loved to travel. And he loved to come visit us in Nuuuuuuu YORK! There was a certain way he said it that just told you he was proud that his son and daughter-in-law lived in the biggest city in the country.

He would talk for days and weeks and months leading up to his trips here. I often didn't know the details or the reasons for his business calls, but he would have clients lined up to visit, mostly in New Jersey or upstate New York, or even as far away as Delaware, using our house in Brooklyn or in Westchester as a base. At first, the trips were different parts of the year, but then he made sure to time them around the holidays - which was his favorite season in New York City - and then later his grandkids sporting events, recitals, performances, and graduation ceremonies. 

When he was traveling for business, even if it wasn't the day of a business meeting, he would always wear a suit on the plane. On the occasion I would be picking him up at LaGuardia, he would be wearing his cologne and using one of his SICOA branded travel bags as a carry on. I never had to wait for dad at the airport. He was a quick in and out. 

During the years when he was a supervisor of college officials, and later in the replay booth, dad would arrange to be assigned a game nearby. Some of our favorites were the games at the West Point Military Academy or the Naval Academy in Annapolis. 

I don't know how he did it, but he would make it to New York every single year, typically 2 or 3 times a year. 

During the early years, when Emilie and I were still in Manhattan and Brooklyn and before we were juggling the kids schedules, I would be on the hook to take mom and dad on a tour of the city. This always included a stop at Carnegie Deli or the Stage Deli. Later, we would go to Katz's deli. It really didn't matter as long as it was a New York deli.

I recall sometimes standing out in line to get in, something any savvy New Yorker would never, ever do. But dad didn't care, he just wanted to be there at a New York deli, flirting with the waitress who was either his age or older, ordering the Dolly Parton (two enormous meatballs on a plate), or his favorite, the Reuben. 

One infamous trip involved mom and dad coming to New York the Christmas before Brendan was born, so it had to be 1992, and we had just bought a car - a guilty pleasure in New York. We were living in a one bed room apartment on 105th and Broadway and had a little Hannakuh bush decorated with paper ornaments Emilie had made. 

Dad traveled up here with his business partner Bob Hawkins and mom and Bob's wife joined them. They stayed at either the New York or the Manhattan Sheraton in mid-town and there was a Nor'easter coming up the coast. That particular Friday, we had theater tickets and I was expected to take them all on a tour by car to see the sites. The entire city was shut down - even Broadway was canceled for the night due to the storm - and my driving tour ended up with us being stuck in a crazy traffic jam. At one point, I had mom and dad and their two friends in our Isuzu trooper, stuck in traffic, not moving one bit, and me driving up on the sidewalks downtown to get around the cars in endless gridlock. Oddly enough, I think Dad was happy to be in New York even in that moment, because it was a place where traffic could be that bad.

With almost everything canceled - I think the subways were even shut down - we ate dinner at a little cafe on the upper west side next door to our apartment. Dad just beamed. He was so happy to be in New York, even in the worst of situations. 

The following evening, even though Broadway was closed, we ended up going to the Rainbow Room on the top floor of Rockefeller Center. To this day, Emilie talks about dancing with her father-in-law at the Rainbow Room and how he seemed to be the happiest man alive. 

When the kids came, and we moved out to Brooklyn and then the suburbs, there was still the obligatory trip to the city. I became pretty good at doing a one-day driving tour of Manhattan with mom and dad on one of the days of their visit. There were still trips over the holidays, and we would do a drive-by of all the stores with the windows decorated for Christmas. One memorable holiday visit, we had a latke party on one of the nights of Hannukah. I think mom made over 150 latkes that night to help feed our kids and their hungry friends. On another trip to the city to look at the Christmas windows, we got stuck in the middle of Santa Con, with thousands upon thousands of young revelers dressed in Santa costumes all around us. 

It didn't seem to matter what we had on the agenda. Mom and dad were just happy to be in New York. 

When I would meet or become re-acquainted with one of dad's friends or business partners, they would ask if I was the one who lived in New York. This was then followed by "Oh, your dad always talks about his trips to New York City." 

I am sure he was beaming with pride when talking about visiting his family in the big city - Nuuuuu YORK.

I trust there are good New York deli sandwiches where dad is now.

This article ran in the Courier-Journal on June 15, 2020. 

https://www.courier-journal.com/story/sports/2020/06/15/how-paul-schmitt-helped-grow-louisvilles-pool-minority-referees/3190816001/

Louisville’s most influential referee was a whistleblower renowned for his restraint.

Paul Schmitt, who died Friday at age 82, coupled keen eyes with a judicious application of football’s rules. In more than half a century as an on-field official, observer and replay official, he practiced what Conference USA officials supervisor Gerald Austin abbreviates as “CFS.”

Common Football Sense.

“Not all officials have that,” Austin said Monday. “They may know the rules. They may know what a foul is and what a foul isn’t, but one thing that I thought Paul and I were on the same page on in teaching young officials was that there’s a lot of fouls out there that may not impact the game.

“What’s going to determine whether you’re a good official or not is being able to discern between what should be called and what shouldn’t be called. Paul had a very good feel for that.”

An official’s ability to distinguish between the important and the irrelevant can keep a game moving or turn it into a tedious, penalty-plagued grind. Paul Schmitt was a man who knew what mattered.

Following a 1955 facial injury as a senior at Flaget High School, he earned the distinction of being the first football player in the state of Kentucky to wear a facemask and would later earn a varsity letter as a lineman for Frank Camp at the University of Louisville.

But Schmitt’s more lasting mark was made after a controversial call by an all-white crew prompted a brawl and allegations of racial bias following Trinity’s 3-0 victory over Male in 1970.

Then president of the Kentuckiana Football Officials Association, Schmitt enlisted former U of L teammate Lenny Lyles to launch an initiative to expand Louisville's pool of minority officials. Karl Schmitt, president of the Louisville Sports Commission, says his older brother crashed a meeting of African American officials who were considering forming an independent association and was able to prevail upon them to remain underneath the association's umbrella.

“I think he might have been blind to color; he just knew good officials,” said John McGrath, a Schmitt disciple who served as head linesman in Super Bowl XLIV between the New Orleans Saints and Indianapolis Colts. “The amount of people that he’s had a direct influence on, it’s unheard of.”

Founder of the Southern Independent Collegiate Officiating Association, Schmitt’s recruits included Al Riveron, now the NFL’s vice president of officials. Riveron referred to Schmitt Monday as a “father figure in many ways.”

“He just saw me work a scrimmage and offered me a job after that,” he said. “He gave a lot of us an opportunity.”  

Sarah Thomas, the NFL’s first full-time female official, worked her first game in Conference USA with Schmitt in attendance as the league’s designated observer.

"Paul had such a grace about him when I first met him," Thomas said. "You just knew that he had my best interests (at heart) in the world of officiating regardless of my gender.

"... I wouldn’t say he embraced me. He just accepted me as an official. Paul treated me like he treated every other rookie. It was just such a blessing to me to have someone of Paul's caliber, his stature, his reputation to accept me and tell me what I did right, but also to constructively criticize me to grow me as an official from Day One." 

Schmitt’s own officiating career included a point-blank view of the famous Hail Mary touchdown pass Doug Flutie threw for Boston College against Miami in 1984. According to Karl Schmitt, it later fell to his brother to inform Oklahoma’s suspended Brian Bosworth that he was not permitted to participate in the ceremonial coin flip preceding the 1987 Orange Bowl.

“He had a way of basically seeing everything,” said C-USA official Maurice Pierre “To this day, I don’t know how he did it.

“After one particular scrimmage, where he was coming out to evaluate us, he comes in and tells everybody you did a good job. Then he gets to me. ‘Mo, you did a good job. But you’re kind of stiff out there. ... You’re lacking some swag.’ He’s 70-something at this point. What the hell does he know about swag?”

On reflection, Pierre conceded that his work was then, “way too technical, like a robot.” Henceforth, he intends to heed Paul Schmitt’s advice.

“Consider it noted,” Pierre said. “I’m going to swag it up from here on.”

Paul and Barbara met on Christmas day in 1954, and had their first date the very next day – to see the film White Christmas at the Kentucky Theatre on Fourth Street.

Sixty-five years later, their daughter Gina would take them to the White Christmas retrospective at the Frazier Kentucky History Museum.