Texas Creator, 25, Goes Viral Refereeing Pickup Games, With His Top Video Topping 16 Million Views
Christian Ortiz, a 25-year-old creator who lives in San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas, has gone viral on TikTok for doing something few people thought of: instead of playing, he shows up at pickup basketball games in parks and gyms, pulls out a whistle and starts refereeing them. According to USA TODAY on November 11, Ortiz posts the videos under the usernames @whrissss and @whristan, they routinely attract millions of views, and his most viral video has topped 16 million views on TikTok.
In that video, Ortiz jumps out of a car, reveals an NBA referee outfit and hops onto the court. The players are skeptical at first, then slowly accept his authority, until one player challenges his basketball skills. Ortiz takes him on, scores a basket and calls his own foul: "And-1!" Pickup games normally rely on players calling their own fouls, and Ortiz says an argument over one call can stop a game for five minutes, so having a referee there actually helps everyone.
As a high school student in Brownsville, Texas, Ortiz was exactly the kind of player referees dreaded. He told USA TODAY he set a school record for ejections and technical fouls and always gave referees his opinions. He became a Dallas Mavericks fan after their 2011 championship, and in the summer of 2019, before his first year of college, he began refereeing for real, working elementary school and college games before finding that men's league games between grown adults in recreation centers were the hardest to control.
Ortiz's day job is making NBA content for the sports social media company House of Highlights. He has given himself a new title: a "professional unofficial pickup ref." He says his end goal is to make sure his being there makes the game better for the pickup players, not worse, and he is not planning to take up viewers' suggestions to add cheerleaders or a coach to the pickup court.
Source: USA TODAY
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：野生篮球局比赛资料图（摄于 San Diego，CC0，经 Wikimedia Commons），已裁为16:9，画面人物并非 Ortiz、亦非其视频现场。/ Pickup basketball game (file photo taken in San Diego, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons), cropped to 16:9; the players shown are not Ortiz and the image is not from his videos.
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