“Based on his outstanding contributions to the profession of officiating lacrosse and dedication to the communities and leagues our organization serves for over three decades, Indiana Lacrosse Officials Association will, from this year forward, present an award for Outstanding Official of the Year, in the name of John McGrath.
This award will be presented each year to one deserving official who best exemplifies and engenders those humanistic and professional qualities of self-discipline, loyalty, teamwork, resolve and application of fair play, so characteristic of Mr. McGrath.”
-Declared this 28th day of January 2020 by the Indiana Lacrosse Officials Association.
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Selection Criteria
The John McGrath Outstanding Official of the Year Award shall be awarded by committee made up of at least three individuals, including one presiding board member. The committee will be formed each fall at the ILOA Board Meeting. Nominations may begin on the 1st of May each season with the award recipient selected not later than the timing of the end of season, on or about the 1st of June.
Any ILOA member in good standing may nominate a deserving official (must be in good standing). To be eligible, the official must be certified in both US Lacrosse Youth and NFHS Rules, an active member of the ILOA, have an active US Lacrosse membership and exemplify the above characteristics.
The award recipient will be notified by the current ILOA President, along with notification and announcement to all ILOA members. The award recipient will receive an invitation to the end of season celebration, where they will be recognized and awarded a plaque with their name, showing the year of award. As well, their name will be provided for record-keeping to the Indiana Chapter of US Lacrosse.
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Award Winners
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John McGrath Biography
John McGrath become involved in lacrosse in 1966 and has been a player, coach and an official. He played from the 4th grade through the year 2002, his last game for a USA Team in the World Games with over 45 divisions in Australia.
John first became a certified lacrosse official in the Spring of 1979, while a graduate student at Ball State and a coach-player-faculty advisor for the Ball State Lacrosse Club. At that time, there were no lacrosse referees in Indiana and teams were forced to pay high costs for referees to travel from Ohio or Chicago John remembers:
“I was certified at Notre Dame along with another adult grad student so that we didn’t need to cancel games for a lack of refs. I never knew if I would be reffing or coaching or playing on any given home or away game until the last minute. I just packed it all! In those days, only Culver had a high school team, so I was broken into lax officiating by working college and post collegiate City club games throughout Ohio, Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky and an occasional game at Culver when they played a college club team.”
John began a job with his current employer, Bell Techlogix in 1983 and transferred to Atlanta, Georgia managing an office branch from 1984-1989. While in Atlanta, John connected with Eric Rudolph who is still a lacrosse assigner in NILOA District 7 in the Southeastern US. John continued to play some post collegiate lacrosse (there were over 100 players in the Atlanta Lacrosse Club), coached a little and officiated numerous college club (Auburn, Clemson, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Alabama, Emory) and post collegiate for City teams like Charlotte, Birmingham, Pensacola Naval Air Station and Jacksonville Naval Air Station, as well as Atlanta A Team games. The Atlanta Lacrosse Tournament in the Fall was a prominent event and officials came from all over the east coast and southeast. John was able to work with and become friends with the original founders of the National Intercollegiate Lacrosse Officials Association (NILOA). Those connections paid off for John, when he returned to Indiana and needed guidance on how to get an officials association started.
In 1989, John transferred back to Indy and officiated college club, varsity, and city teams in in the Midwest until 1998, the year the Indiana High School Lacrosse Association (IHSLA) was formed. That year, the first four Indianapolis-area teams, along with Culver, started playing lacrosse under the IHSLA. Games were scheduled around John’s schedule as he was the only official in Indiana and worked solo on the field. Soon, John began to recruit officials and recalls:
“I began recruiting by tracking down anyone with a lacrosse shirt that I saw and going into the stands at halftime and pleading for parents to become lacrosse officials. Those NILOA contacts helped me get my trainers certification in 1999 at a weekend session in Nashville. In 2000, we had enough referees to do more than one game at a time with guys like Clint Carter, Rick Nicolini, Jordy Almgren, George Leistensnider, Bob Sweeney, and ultimately Jeff Poto and Steve Hood. That was also the year the IHSLA held their first state championship. Pretty soon, Indiana Youth Lacrosse was formed under Tim Clark and the need for officials grew dramatically. I trained these guys in my basement using materials from US lacrosse and NILOA, showing PowerPoints on my wall and setting up a goal in my back yard with an orange electric cord to create a crease. We continued to add new referees each year and by 2003 Clint Carter was also a certified trainer. I used those NILOA connections and friendships with other college refs to draft an initial set of by-laws in 2003, for what became the Indiana Lacrosse Officials Association (ILOA). Steve Hood, Clint Carter and myself became a three-man board to establish the fledgling organization. I was President, Assignor, Rules Interpreter and Liaison with US Lacrosse. As the number of IHSLA teams grew, I gave up the assigning to Jeff Poto, who later passed it along to Clint Carter.”
“Over the years we became more closely aligned with US Lacrosse and officials associations from other states. We assigned officials to Louisville for the Icebreaker tournament in early spring and others besides me started attending the US Lacrosse Convention to become certified trainers. Our three-member board had to expand, or we wouldn’t have the growth and quality officials that we have today. I knew in order to foster growth and more participation that I needed to step down from the ILOA board and give others a chance to bring new ideas and different forms of leadership. I can’t tell you how proud I am of the work that this new group of ILOA leaders has brought and in the services that are provided to both the IHSLA and the IYLA, in addition to the indoor leagues and off-season tournaments.”