Northern MI Officials Honor 'Pioneer'
December 30, 2016
By Mike Spencer
Special for Second Half
TRAVERSE CITY – Barb Beckett was in a familiar spot – center circle at the Traverse City St. Francis gymnasium – for a boys varsity basketball game.
The longtime Michigan High School Athletic Association referee was not tossing up another ball to start the Dec. 17 contest with visiting Cadillac, but she was nonetheless the center of attention.
The Northern Sports Officials Association, and St. Francis athletic officials, honored Beckett for her decades of officiating service at halftime. A 34-year official and longtime president of the NSOA, she received plaudits, a trophy and a bouquet of flowers.
“To be recognized by your peers is probably the greatest thrill that one could hope for,” Beckett said. “It was a totally unexpected and humbling experience.
“I could never give back as much as the NSOA has given to me. And looking up and seeing a sea of officials and generations that I had officiated in my career was amazing.”
"Barb has been instrumental in mentoring, developing, and coaching officials to be the best they can be,” said Bill Parker, who succeeded Beckett as the association’s president earlier this year. "She has always had a great passion for high school sports and her way to stay involved has been officiating and as a leader in NSOA."
Parker said honoring Beckett was a great way to show her that the NSOA appreciated her efforts.
“When someone devotes so much time to an association, it is great to acknowledge their contributions,” Parker said.
Beckett is well known in statewide officiating circles. The first woman to officiate an MHSAA Boys Basketball Final (1995) was awarded the MHSAA’s Vern Norris Award in 2000 and Women In Sports Leadership Award in 2013.
“Barb has been a true pioneer in what she, along with the other leaders of the Northern Sports Officials Association, has been able to accomplish in areas of recruiting, training and retaining sports officials,” said MHSAA assistant director Mark Uyl, the association's director of officiating. “At her core, Barb is a people person. The relationships that she has built with fellow officials, school administrators, coaches and student-athletes have been exemplary.”
Uyl said he was not surprised to see Beckett honored by her fellow officials.
“It’s a true testament of the kind of person Barb is,” Uyl said. “She has blazed an incredible trail as a leader in high school officiating. We need more people like Barb that are true advocates and supporters of those that are officiating games in school sports.”
Although Beckett turned in her whistle more than a decade ago, she is still involved in the NSOA as an assignor, advisor to the board and mentor.
“I knew many years ago that I was here to serve,” said Beckett, who also has been the program director for the Grand Traverse Bay YMCA. “I have been able to fulfill that life expectation of myself.”
Beckett, who officiated numerous high-level basketball and softball tournament games, said getting the association to assign games through a web-based system and getting officials better trained are two major accomplishments from her presidency.
“The assigning system has completely changed the way in which we operate and so has the training,” she said. “We emphasize the importance of educating and we wanted our officials to have the best and most comprehensive rules, mechanics and game-situation knowledge of anyone in the state.”
Beckett said she got into officiating just like a lot of others because she thought she could make a difference and do better than those that she had watched.
Beckett said working her first MHSAA Softball Final and the Class C Boys Basketball Final were among her officiating highlights.
“The boys Final was the best experience ever,” Beckett said. “I didn’t get any sleep the night before the game and I was never comfortable with all the attention of being the first female to work a boys Final.
“I saw myself as being just another official, not a female official.”
Beckett said she’s always had the “greatest partners ever,” and “they made me look way better than I actually was.” Among the greats were Joe Lemieux, Tom Post, Kenny Allen, Scott Jones, Clint Kerr and “many more, too,” she added.
As far as accolades, Beckett said she’s not a fan of self-recognition nights. But she’ll remember the cold, snowy winter night of Dec. 17, 2016.
“I like casual and homey nights like that,” she said. “My NSOA family was there with me so it was extra special.
“It’s a bond that we have as officials. We are all brothers and sisters.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Barb Beckett stands along the sidelines with her trophy and bouquet of flowers after the ceremony in her honor Dec. 17 during halftime of the Traverse City St. Francis boys basketball game against Cadillac. (Middle) Northern Sports Officials Association members, from left: president Bill Parker, assignor and mentor Barb Beckett and secretary Mark Stewart. (Photos by Mike Spencer.)
NFHS Voice: Punish Bad Fan Behavior
October 2, 2019
By Karissa Niehoff
NFHS Executive Director
About four weeks ago, we distributed an op-ed suggesting that inappropriate behavior by parents and other adult fans at high school sporting events was causing many officials to quit before they even reached two years on the job.
Although we received mostly positive support from this article, some people thought we went too far in telling parents to “act your age” and “stay in your own lane.” On the contrary, perhaps we should have been more direct.
Last week, one of our member state associations shared a resignation letter it had received from a 20-year veteran soccer official who had taken all the abuse he could handle. A portion of that letter follows:
“Soccer parents: you are absolutely 100% the reason we have a critical refereeing shortage and games are being cancelled left and right. And you are at least a part of the reason I’m done here. The most entitled among you are the ones that scream the loudest. And every time you do this, you tell your son or daughter the following:
‘I do not believe in you, I do not believe in your team, I do not believe in your collective ability to overcome your own adversity and you absolutely will not win and cannot do this without me tilting the table in your favor.’
“On behalf of myself and so many other referees – and I say this with every ounce of my heart and soul – shut up about the referees, and let your kids rise or fall as a team, as a FAMILY. Because the vast majority of you truly have no idea what you’re talking about, and even if you have a legitimate gripe about one play or one decision, you’re not fixing anything.”
And if that wasn’t enough, last week the Eastern Panhandle Youth Football League in West Virginia released the following statement:
“Unfortunately, it has come to the point that because of the abuse, negativity and utter disrespect shown to our officials from parents, coaches and most recently from our players, the Eastern Panhandle Officials Association president stated today that the association will no longer schedule officials for our league games at any field. This means effective immediately all remaining games are cancelled.”
This statement is from a youth league, which means the coaches are likely also parents of players, and the players are sons and daughters who are emulating their parents’ behavior.
So, no, our previous message was not too direct or emphatic. The kind of boorish parental behavior that compels a 20-year soccer official to quit cannot be allowed to continue. While we would hope that parents and other fans would embrace the concepts of education-based athletics by respecting the efforts of those men and women who officiate high school sports, that unfortunately is not occurring in some cases.
As a result, schools must adopt and enforce a strict, fan behavior policy. In soccer, a player receives a “yellow card” as a first warning for unsportsmanlike conduct. If the action occurs again, the player is hit with a “red card” and is ejected from the contest. Some schools have implemented a similar penalty structure for parents and other fans – not just at soccer games but all high school events. If the inappropriate behavior and verbal abuse of officials continues after one warning, the person is removed from the venue. There must be consequences for these offenders before we lose any more officials.
Most of the 7.9 million participants in high school sports are on the fields and courts every day to have fun and compete as a team with their classmates, and the 300,000-plus officials assist in that process. Now, if parents would let the players play and the officials officiate!
Dr. Karissa L. Niehoff is in her second year as executive director of the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) in Indianapolis, Indiana. She is the first female to head the national leadership organization for high school athletics and performing arts activities and the sixth full-time executive director of the NFHS, which celebrated its 100th year of service during the 2018-19 school year. She previously was executive director of the Connecticut Association of Schools-Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference for seven years.