The average fan may not have known who Pat Chambless was, but for anyone involved in the Hattiesburg sports scene, he was one of the most well-respected men in the industry.
Chambless, who spent over 30 years as a youth and high school referee and as a member of Southern Miss’ stats crew, was laid to rest this past weekend after losing a battle with cancer. He was 78.
Yet what made Chambless so respected and beloved was his kind nature and uplifting attitude, an unusual commodity for someone who commonly received the opposite end of that as a high school football referee and umpire.
HIGH SCHOOL REF DAYS
In sports, the classic saying about referees is that when they do their job, you don’t notice they are there, and Chambless embodied that. His natural nature made him a beloved person to work alongside, according to Greg Engle, who worked with Chambless starting in the early 1990s as an umpire.
“You never saw him argue with a coach,” said Engle, now an umpire assigner for the MHSAA. “He was the first one that could calm a coach down.”
“He handled the coaches probably better than anybody I have ever seen. He was excellent on the field as far as knowledge of the rules and things like that. Pat was a great man. A good Christian man and a great friend. He is going to be sorely missed by our association.”
His demeanor as a football referee was no different.
“Pat was probably one of the most professional guys in the association,” said Charles Green, who worked with and known Chambless for over 25 years. “He was mild-mannered. He never got worked up or bothered by a whole lot. He worked well with coaches and conversed with coaches. He was always one of those ones who could keep cool under pressure. He was one of the kindest, most professional guys you could work with.
“His smile was affectionate and contagious. He always had a smile on his face no matter what. You can’t help but love the guy.”
Even after Chambless stepped away from being an official, Green, who is also Hattiesburg High’s head track coach, could always call his longtime friend to help work meets.
“He was one of the better ones,” Green said. “Even after he got out, if I needed someone to run the clock, I would just call or text him. He enjoyed being around the kids, and that was something he loved doing. He loved being around the kids, helping and serving the kids.
“I remember the last conversation I had with him was about this time last year, and his cancer had come back, and even with that, he was positive about it. He wasn’t sad. Most people would be saying this is the end and be worked up and bothered. He was smiling and happy.”
SOUTHERN MISS’ STATS CREW/UMPIRE LIAISON
During the mid-1990s, Chambless also became a member of Southern Miss’ stat crew, and later in his career, he became the umpire liaison for multiple conference baseball tournaments that were hosted in Hattiesburg and Biloxi.
Much like his time as a referee, Chambless maintained a calm nature in a fast-paced and, at times, stressful environment as he helped keep stats at Golden Eagles baseball, football, and basketball games. For former Southern Miss sports information director Shirly Hill, working with Chambless made the job even better.
“He was just so easygoing, and he had this calmness about him,” Hill said. “He was soft-spoken and could talk to anybody. I attribute that to him being an official and having to work with young people and coaches. He was so patient, people, and that was just Pat. Everything I was with Pat it was so much fun and so pleasant…He was a well-respected person here in Hattiesburg.
“I don’t think I had ever been around him when talking to him that we did not laugh. That was the thing about Pat. We could laugh about anything.”
Once Southern Miss began hosting the Conference USA baseball tournaments during the 2010s, Chambless became the liaison, tending to the umpires’ needs. During that time, he developed lifelong friendships with many longtime collegiate umpires.
“He was just one of the guys,” said Scott Wilkerson, who was also an umpire for multiple C-USA tournaments in Hattiesburg. “He enjoyed the friendship of being around fellow officials and listening to their crying and whining and storytelling. He just fit right in.
“In the 25 years of knowing him, he never spoke a bad word about anybody. He was always just trying to find the best in somebody. Guys from all over the country knew who he was. The hospitality at Southern Miss was second to none, and the big reason was the coaching staff and Mr. Pat.”
During the C-USA tournaments, the umpires’ locker rooms were across the street at Reed Green Coliseum, where Chambless would golf cart the officials back and forth in between each game. Longtime college umpire David Wiley, who maintained his friendship years after working the C-USA tournaments, recalled that one tournament when RGC hosted a local high school’s graduation. This led to an unexpected visitor inside the umpire’s locker room, and the mild-mannered Chambless’ patients created a comical scene.
“We came back, and there was this lady walking through the locker room picking up chips and sandwiches and whatever she wanted,” Wiley said. “It was hilarious watching him be polite to her and trying to run her out. In the most Southern accent, he finally said, ‘Ma’am, you are not allowed to be in here!’ and it was like she was in a convenience store. He was so frustrated, and we were cracking up because he was trying hard to be nice to her.
“There was not a better human being in the world. He was the nicest guy in the world. I talked to him on the phone a few days before he passed, and even at that moment, he was still in good spirits.”
When the tournament moved to Biloxi, the umpires from the conference requested Chambless to again serve in the same role, which led to then Southern Miss head coach Scott Berry ensuring that he was to take part in the tournament.
“They asked for Pat Chambless to host us because we love that guy,” Berry recalled. “There are very few people in life that when you talk about them to other people, there is never a bad word said about them, and I have never heard anyone say anything bad about Pat Chambless. He was one of those guys of a handful that lived life right.
“He was so positive and grateful for the life that he had been blessed with, and never in the time he had cancer or when his wife, Kaye, (passed) those things never enter into why me? It was always there’s a plan for us all, and he always felt like everything was God’s will and God’s timing, even with his own life at the end. For those of us that had known and the honor and privilege knowing Pat Chambless were better for having known him because of the lessons he had taught.”
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