Personalities
Home Personalities
Profiles and stories about officials and people close to officiating.
Dale Scott Redemption
Half sleep-walking through darkness to the refrigerator in his Santo Domingo apartment in the dead of night in January 1986, all Dale Scott wanted...
Tom O’Neill’s Long Haul
It’s difficult for an official working a national championship game to avoid the spotlight. But during the opening minutes of the 1997 NCAA men’s...
At Home — with Referee Staffers
Just because the COVID-19 pandemic has put a temporary halt to work at Referee’s physical offices hasn’t meant a stop to the work of...
Referee Gets Creative to Fight Cancer
Lou Levine always teased one of his friends about his friend’s thick nest of black hair. Before the start of the basketball season a...
FONZY
By Dan Ronan
major League Baseball umpire Alfonso Márquez was driving April 21, 2005, to an early season game in Tampa, Fla., when he got...
John Wooden: An Interview
You might wonder why a magazine for sports officials interviewed a coach, even one as legendary as John Wooden.
Through our decades of experience,...
FIFA Referee Mark Geiger
By his own proud admission, the man is a nerd. Conjure images of that wisp of a kid you remember from high school who...
Marc Of Distinction
He used to sit anonymously in the Silverado High School bleachers in Las Vegas during the mid-2000s, a bookish, kind man who could easily...
Home Bruns
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Tiger Woods and Randy Bruns have more in common than you might expect. All three have been to the pinnacle of their...
Meet Barry Mano: ‘One Breath Of Scandal Freezes Much Honorable Sweat’
NASO President Barry Mano was featured on the cover of Compliance and Ethics Professional (CEP) Magazine and was interviewed for the issue by NASO...
“I’ll Never Forget”: Officiating Legends Recall Their Most Memorable Game
It is June 14, 1998, at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City. The Chicago Bulls are playing the Utah Jazz in Game 6...
Five Decades of Pam Young
When the U.S. Department of Education leveled the playing field for males and females in 1972 by ratifying Title IX, the agency did more than open doors and...
Going to War with Joe Crawford
NBA fans’ character sketch of Joe Crawford has been drawn in indelible ink. They long ago dismissed him as that referee with a centimeter...
Pati Rolf Moved From College Coach to High Level Official and Has Never Looked...
A lime green toy pig, gifted to Pati Rolf by the distraught motorist who accidentally struck her on snowy Minnetonka Boulevard in Hopkins, Minn., nearly 50 years ago, endures all...
Former MLB Umpire Larry Young Brings Training to the World
Larry Young retired as an MLB umpire at the close of the 2007 season, bringing down the curtain on a career that spanned 24...
From The Chair: Effective 21st Century Communication
Joseph Rost was a dis-tinguished scholar in leadership studies and was noted for his conception of followership. He defined the leadership process as “an...
Profile: NFL Referee Clete Blakeman
NFL referee Clete Blakeman lights up the room and the field. That’s what his crewmates say about him. Tripp Sutter, a Big Ten official,...
Ron Groover is In the Groove
L
Life sometimes can hinge upon a chance meeting. That’s how it worked for NCAA basketball official Ron Groover. From relaxing after a pickup basketball...
No Wake Zone
I don’t know if Little League Baseball, small-fry wrestling or other youth sports build or reveal character, but I do believe in the innocence of children. That belief...
Soldier on After Tragedy
Ten-year-old Chris Stover wanted to be a soccer official, but the rules said he had to be 11. The assigner “felt sorry for him...
Carl Cheffers: A Family Man
To Carl Cheffers, officiating has always been a family affair.
From being introduced to the avocation by his father, who had an impressive career as...
Officiating is a Family Affair
Nestled between the San Diego Bay and the scenic splendor of the coastal mountain foothills in Southern California are the sprawling sun-kissed expanses of...
‘I’m Still Here’
A boy with hoop dreams, the scope of which he could never have comprehended would one day come to fruition during those halcyon days...
Gold Whistle Award Winner: UMPS CARE — Helping People is an Easy Call
It is often said every dark cloud has a silver lining. Good things come from the darkest places sometimes. In 1999, one of the...