Otho Kortz spent 32 years as a referee and umpire for Illinois high school baseball, football and basketball games, and he also was a college football referee for the Big Ten Conference for 17 years.
Kortz, 97, died of natural causes on Dec. 24 at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, said his son, Jeff. A longtime Oak Lawn resident, Kortz had been dealing with health complications, including from several recent falls, his son said.
Born in Chicago in 1928, Kortz grew up in the South Side’s Englewood neighborhood near the corner of 61st Place and Normal Boulevard. He graduated in 1946 from the old Parker High School — now Robeson High School — in Englewood, where he played baseball and basketball. While at Parker, Kortz played center in the city’s Public League junior basketball championship game against Waller High School in March 1946.
From 1947 until 1951, Kortz played basketball and baseball at the University of Mississippi, where he got a bachelor’s degree in education in 1951. He led the team in batting in his senior season with a .373 average.
Early on, Kortz played minor-league baseball, including at shortstop and third base in 1951 for a Class C team in Hot Springs, Arkansas, that was part of the Chicago White Sox organization and then in 1953 for two teams in the Cincinnati Reds organization.
Kortz spent much of his career working as a cattle salesman. From 1954 until 1971, he worked at Chicago’s Union Stock Yards as a cattle salesman for the Miller White Woods firm. He then worked in livestock sales at Joliet’s stockyards for the Peters-Turnbull firm from 1971 until 1982.
From 1982 until 1996, Kortz was a field representative for Swissland Packing, a company in tiny Ashkum, in Iroquois County. Then, in 1996, Kortz shifted gears, taking a job for the Cook County sheriff’s office overseeing janitorial services at the Bridgeview Courthouse.
Outside of his day job, however, Kortz’s greatest love was officiating. He began refereeing football games while in college.
“One day I was in the (athletic) office when a school in Mississippi called and asked if we had two referees to do their high school games (that night),” he told Tony Baranek of the Daily Southtown in 2018. “My roommate had a car, and we got two shirts from the intramural department. We went over and reffed a girls game and a boys game. We picked up maybe three more Friday nights. We made $15, which was fine at the time.”
After college Kortz returned to Chicago, and as a side job he began officiating games for youngsters, then began officiating games in the Chicago Public League and the Catholic League. Kortz worked as a high school and college basketball official from 1954 until 1986, and he was a high school and college baseball umpire from 1955 until 1983.
Kortz also was a high school and Big Ten football official from 1969 until 1986, including officiating in the 1978 Rose Bowl, in which the University of Washington — led by quarterback Warren Moon — defeated the University of Michigan 27-20.
“There was nothing like the Rose Bowl,” Kortz told the Southtown in 2018. “There were 106,000 people (there), millions watching on TV. It was a fantastic game and there I was, from Oak Lawn, Illinois, running the whole darned thing as the referee. It was just a fantastic feeling to be out there and having (son) Jeff and my wife in the stands. A tremendous thrill.”
Kortz also was a referee at the 1976 Fiesta Bowl and the 1985 Liberty Bowl. With noted umpire and referee Jerry Markbreit, Kortz was a baseball umpire at the 1967 Pan American Games in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
At the high school level, Kortz officiated boys basketball state title games in 1970, 1971 and 1972. He also umpired Public League baseball championship games in Chicago for many years.
Across all levels of athletics and all sports, Kortz’s officiating was marked by integrity of play and sportsmanship, his son said.
“He liked all the competition — (and) enforcing the rules, seeing the kids get a chance to compete and seeing a reward for all their hard work at practice,” Jeff Kortz said.
Kortz was inducted into the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association’s Hall of Fame in 1990. He also was one of two recipients in 1974 of the Illinois-based Athletic Officials Association’s Recognition Award.
After retiring as an official, Kortz met frequently with friends and fellow sports enthusiasts, including at the McDonald’s restaurant at 105th Street and Cicero Avenue in Oak Lawn. After the COVID-19 pandemic, the group began meeting at a nearby Panera restaurant.
Kortz also enjoyed watching sporting events at Richards High School in Oak Lawn, including football, boys basketball, girls basketball and baseball games.
“We had a little club, the coffee club, where we would talk sports — football, baseball, basketball, whatever — and he was very influential in my life,” said Quentin Daniels, a friend of more than a dozen years. “He gave me a lot of insights. He was a very proud, very strong man and a very good friend. He was like my father figure.”
Ricci Rodríguez, a 2002 Richards High School graduate who played football and baseball at the school, recalled getting to know Kortz when Kortz operated the clock for Richards football games while Rodríguez was playing. He affectionately referred to Kortz as “Pops.”
“I’d stop and see him at McDonald’s or Panera, and then when he started getting sick a little bit, I’d stop by his house and talk sports, like high school football,” Rodríguez said. “I always kept in touch with Pops from when I graduated, and he’d come see my daughter play softball when we lived closer in the area. We’d also talk about horse racing. He was just a great guy.”
Kortz enjoyed watching Ole Miss sports on TV, following the New York Yankees and watching Big Ten football, his son said. He also held Chicago Bears season tickets for 51 years.
Kortz told the Southtown in 2018 that he was delighted with his officiating career.
“I don’t have any regrets,” he said. “Every week was a thrill, no matter where I was.”
Kortz’s wife, Billie, died in 2011. In addition to his son, Kortz is survived by three grandchildren.
Services were held.
Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
