Joey Crawford Retiring from NBA at Season's End: "I don’t want to make a fool out of myself"

Joey Crawford, who is 64 years old and has been officiating NBA games since 1977, has announced he will retire at the end of the season. Jack McCaffery of the Delaware County Daily Times relays:

"“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” Crawford said. “You know what happens? It’s not that you lose your passion. I have that. That’s insanity. But it just comes to the point where you say, ‘I don’t want to make a fool out of myself.’ And it’s been so good that I want to go out on a high note. I don’t want to go out on a low note. I want to be in the NBA Finals, and I don’t want to be reffing just for the sake of reffing.”"

Crawford is recovering from knee surgery, and hopes to return to refereeing at the beginning of March, and to grade well enough to be chosen to work in the NBA playoffs and finals. Though he’s been thought of highly enough in the league office to appear in 29 of the past 30 NBA Finals, Crawford will be best remembered by NBA fans for his histrionics.

When he went over the line with Tim Duncan in 2007, he was suspended for the remainder of the season (in the story linked above, he professes regret about that, and sincere appreciation for David Stern later reinstating him). Here are some of our other Crawford memories:

I predict (not sarcastically) that we will look back on Crawford’s time with a nostalgic smile; at least the games he officiated were never dull.