A few years back in San Antonio, we were riding the shuttle from the media hotel to the first of two Final Four games for John Beilein’s Michigan team. The head coach had led an improbable run to the basketball’s promised land for the second time in his career, and the Wolverines would beat Loyola-Chicago in the first game to advance to the final.
Getting an early start sometimes has its privileges. There were only two people in the limo-van, and one was former referee Mike Kitts, a man who officiated several of Beilein’s games over the years, plenty of them at Michigan. The two hailed from the same area in New York and rose through the ranks together, and Kitts recalled many times he and Beilein got into it on the court.
Kitts had become one of the people in charge of grading officials, but he had several memories of his own. He told us of a few times he hit Beilein with technical fouls in the early days.
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