“The thing I love about sports is the team factor,’’ said Lagace. Working those games “is like being on a team again. They work hard. The players get our best game. You can’t do that alone.’’
In 2001, he was named high school football official of the year by the Eastern Massachusetts Association of Interscholastic Football Officials.
“He was zebra of the year,’’ Grinold quaintly put it.
It doesn’t always go smoothly. Lagace has heard it all from disagreeable fans.
“A couple of times I’ve had to be helped off the field,’’ said Lagace. “One thing officiating has taught me is you can’t please everybody.’’ Pass interference, he said, is the primary penalty fans don’t fully understand.
After graduating from MIT in 1978, Lagace started officiating sub-varsity and Pop Warner games. “I needed extra money to support myself.’’
As an undergrad, he officiated at intramural sports. He also ran a softball league.
“MIT has a very participatory environment,’’ said Lagace. “It’s not about winning, it’s about doing the best you can.’’
Lagace even worked with former Red Sox star Wade Boggs. Accustomed to hitting .330 or better, the future Hall of Famer dipped to .259 in 1992. He couldn’t figure it out, but a few people thought it had something to do with changing wind patterns caused by a new press box - higher than the old one - at Fenway Park.
It seemed like a good project for an MIT aeronautics expert. Lagace jumped in and supervised his students, who built a model of the park. “We did a scientific technique,’’ said Lagace. His students created a smoke trail to check the direction of the wind.
The wind often blew out at Fenway.
A big Red Sox fan, Lagace painfully recalls Bucky Dent’s homer that beat Boston in the infamous 1978 playoff game.
“It was a pop-up.’’
When the project was done, the conclusion was that “Boggs was right,’’ said Lagace. “The wind was blowing in.’’ Maybe it was just a fluke that season, although home runs were down.
