The enforcer

By day, Kevin McDowell runs the basketball refereeing company Capitol West Officials Association, supplying referees to the myriad recreational basketball leagues that have sprouted up in the region. By night, he’s head of the Peace Patrol, the high-tech security force that keeps revelers in line at Polly Esthers, the 1970s- and 1980s-themed bar. You might think McDowell’s dual careers suggest a man with an appetite for control. Not so, says McDowell. He just wants everybody to be safe and have a good time. So, be safe and have a good time. Now.

What’s a typical Saturday night like for the Peace Patrol?

On Saturday night we’ve got about 16 people. I spend most of my night outside taking care of any issues that come up. Three or four times, I roam through to make sure all of our guys are in the proper spots and doing their thing. We all have radios and headsets on. We communicate with each other, based on my lead throughout the night, making sure everybody is doing what they’re supposed to. We have eight people posted up in certain spots. Another five or six are constantly roaming throughout the club.

Sounds like a big operation.

We want to make sure everybody is safe and having a good time. Our presence ensures that. It’s not that we need that many people for the problems we have. We are just there to prevent anything from happening. And, so far, we’ve done a great job. We’ve had very few problems.

Do people give you a hard time?

Not a lot. We’re very customer-service oriented. Our goal is to take care of problems before they arise. Yes, you get some people who want to spoil the fun for everybody else; we deal with them and make sure everybody else has a good time. We don’t have to physically remove people often. It doesn’t happen every week.

What are the things you’re looking for?

Like any place you put a lot of people together, some people don’t want to have fun, and they want to create problems. You hope that everybody else wants to have a good time, but, for some people, not having a good time is what they’re about. We make sure to take care of those before they affect anybody else.

Do you have to be really big and athletic to work on the Peace Patrol?

Big, little or in between. I look for people who can handle a fast-paced environment, someone who isn’t going to immediately react to a situation, but will take a moment, survey the situation and act appropriately.

Do many of the folks who work here have law-enforcement backgrounds?

We have some people who have aspirations of getting into law enforcement, people who see this as a stepping-stone. But the people’s backgrounds are pretty diverse.

Yours is sports?

I played football in college, but my game was basketball. I played throughout college, but a knee injury ended my competitive play. I’ve coached basketball at the high school and college level, and coached Little League Baseball and high school football.

About 10 years ago, I put the [Capitol West Officials Association] together. We supply basketball officials for adult recreational leagues, corporate leagues and children’s leagues. At any given time, we have about 70 [referees]. I’ve been around sports and refereeing for a long time, so my resources are endless when it comes to coming up with quality guys to cover games.

What do you look for in referees?

You have to be able to take control of the situation in a professional manner, to leave your emotions at home and deal with things in a rational manner.

I look at the people here as a team. We are dependent on each other. To me that’s akin to playing on or coaching a sporting team. It’s a challenge to bring everybody together, to be on the same page, working together.

So, the qualities it takes are similar to be successful at both. Both are a challenge.

People in the club, people on the court, sometimes they lose their cool. For whatever reason, they just lose their cool. If people are upset with you or the situation, you have to be the calming influence. You can’t take things personally. In basketball, in the clubs, stuff is going on all the time. I tell all my guys, “Take two seconds and make an appropriate action based on that.” That’s hard to do when you’ve got people yelling at you on the basketball court. It’s hard not to react. When you’ve got hundreds of people crammed in with each other, you have to deal with things calmly. It’s challenging, but fun, and it is something you can learn to do. A lot of people’s first reaction is just to do something. But you can learn to take everything into consideration and then deal with it accordingly.

Do you like telling people what to do?

Not really. I’ve been in charge, and I’ve had people in charge of me. Being in sports, there are times when you are the leader and times when you are not. I can accept both of those roles. For some people, whenever you get egos involved, that can be a danger. It’s just something that you have to work on. But for me it’s not an ego or power thing. Again, we just want people to have a good time, and we want people to be safe.