Longtime River Falls' resident Dan Hoffman has been officiating and umpiring games in our area for close to five decades, 48 years to be exact. For 35 of those years, he and Jim Celt have been brothers in blue and sidekicks in stripes for over 5,000 games together.

From football and volleyball in the fall to basketball in the winter and baseball and softball all spring and summer, Hoffman and Celt have been calling 'em like they see 'em for a combined 93 years.

"I'm a dinosaur and so is he," said Celt, "but I'm a realist and Dan is not a conformist."

Dan Hoffman may be front and center behind the plate on the baseball and softball diamonds right now, but he is off the grid, so to speak, in his retired life. There are no cell phones and no social media for the Durand native. His wife, Pat, served as administrative assistant for the multiple times it took to connect for this story.

"We don't need garage door openers, but isn't that nice?" said a revved up Pat Hoffman. "I didn't have air conditioning growing up, but isn't that nice? He's a Hoffman, that's all I can say."

"You either call his landline or send up a smoke signal to him," said Celt. "He’s dead set against cell phones."

When Hoffman was umping behind the plate at a town team baseball game a couple summers ago, according to Hoffman, a fan yelled, "Hey ump, check your phone, you have a lot of missed calls!"

The joke was on the fan. Hoffman has never owned a cell phone and his weather-beaten umpire skin can sure as heck take a ribbing or two.

"That one was pretty good, I'll have to admit," said Hoffman. "I have found over the years, being able to laugh at yourself and use humor can diffuse most situations. I took my mask off and laughed at that one." 

Hoffman does use email and the first part of his email address, "Hoff the grid," is a fastball right down the middle for his personality.

"That fits him perfectly," chuckled Celt, a 1975 graduate of Ellsworth High School and longtime principal in Glenwood City, now retired.

Hoffman spent 31 of his 32 years teaching biology at River Falls High School. He wore a tie to work every single day and, even in retirement, sneers his upper lip like Elvis with the idea of teachers wearing jeans on the job.

"It's just like wearing the proper uniform for officiating," said Hoffman. "The uniform helps command respect right away, otherwise you're starting right off the bat behind the eight ball."

Hoffman's dad, Vaughn, was a longtime superintendent and coach in Elmwood. His son, Dan, followed in the family business of education.

"I guess I definitely got wearing a tie every day to school from my dad," said Hoffman. "He wore a suit every single day, too."

Vaughn Hoffman also officiated games and Dan was an active four-sport athlete at Durand High School, graduating in 1977. Hoffman played football, basketball, and baseball, but doubled up in the spring and also ran track. After pitching a game against Ellsworth his senior year, Hoffman had his track uniform on underneath his baseball uniform.

"As soon as the game was over," said Hoffman. "I ran over to the track and ran the two-mile race because it was at the end of the meet."

An old school Durand version of Deion Sanders.

"You can't put Dan Hoffman and Deion Sanders in the same sentence," said Hoffman.

Hoffman took a gap year after graduation and was saving money for college. He worked at the local grocery store, coached eighth grade basketball, bartended at night, and blew his very first whistle refereeing a basketball game with his high school football coach in the fall of 1977. He made the basketball team at UW-La Crosse the next year and continued to ump softball and baseball games all summer, as well as intramural games at UW-L.

Umpiring slow pitch men's softball tournaments in the late 1970's and early 1980's was where he met Bill Forster.    

"Bill played for Cub's Pub and they won a ton of tournaments back in the day," said Hoffman. "Next time you see Bill, please tell him I said Elmwood is a suburb of Durand," snickered Hoffman.

Hoffman was a River Falls assistant football coach for seven years in the 1980's with then River Falls' Football Coach Forster, who is now in the WIAA Football Coaches Hall of Fame.

Hoffman umped close to 400 men's softball games each summer for seven years.

"I got $12 per game back then," said Hoffman. "But that was a lot of spending money when I umped 32 games a tournament every other weekend."

It's difficult to safely call exactly how many games Hoffman has officiated in his 48-year career, but a conservative guess is over 25,000 games. From AAU basketball tournaments to slow pitch softball to high school and college sports, in over 48 years of officiating, Dan Hoffman has only thrown out two coaches during that time.

"Luck of the draw, they were both from St. Croix Falls," said Hoffman. "Two different guys, but they each got two quick techs (technical fouls) called and that's an automatic ejection."

Hoffman has called 26 WIAA state tournament games and has a great story about a coach, a fan, or a player from every school between Pierce County and Eau Claire.

"Oh, it's been a hoot," says Celt. "And the reason is because Dan says he knows no one, but he knows everyone."

Hoffman has been calling games long enough where he's come to know local athletes in the early 1980's, their kids playing, and now their grandchildren. He and his crews have visited a superfan with cancer from Baldwin and he's been trout fishing with coaches.

"I don't hear that well," said Hoffman, "but my eyes are pretty good. The coaches tell me 'That's debatable.’"

One summer, Hoffman, an avid trout fisherman, went fishing 33 times and caught 429 trout on 15 different streams. Prescott Head Baseball Coach Jeff Ryan was with him quite a few of those times.

"Jeff is a staunch Democrat and I'm pretty conservative," said Hoffman. "He’s a coach and I'm an ump. We should be adversaries, but we talk about life while we're fishing and we can find common ground and it's a really good life lesson. The same is true with fans."

The average age for officials in Wisconsin is 57, according to the WIAA.

"The guy I heard speak at a conference said only some of those are ambulatory," joked Hoffman. "Anytime I get a chance to help run a clinic for new officials, I do it. The sportsmanship and how we're treated as officials has greatly improved at the varsity level; however, I'm extremely worried about the lower levels. People just don't get it. The lower level is where a lot of younger officials are training and if those parents that think those games matter keep destroying them, we're in big trouble. Let the kids play and have fun." 

Jim Celt added a new twist to his retirement officiating side-gig, an idea he received from another longtime crew member Jeff Linehan. Celt drives a team bus to the game and is paid for those services, and then, he also officiates the game while he's there. Is that in Dan Hoffman's future?

"No," said Celt. "He’s probably the worst driver on the face of this Earth."

Hoffman will stick to fishing and officiating. He and Celt are going to retire from football and basketball in two more years, but, at 66 years of age now, he still plans to continue umping baseball and softball and officiating volleyball.

"I've done a lot of games and a lot of sports," said Hoffman. "I'll bet you 99.5 percent of my experiences have been positive."