DeGagne earns prestigious officiating honour

Whether the Healthy Living Centre is packed with fans on Friday night or empty on a Tuesday morning, Rick DeGagne will be there, racing up and down the floor.

Sixty-seven years young, he’s not only training the next generation of basketball referees by coaching camps across the country, he’s also leading by example.

DeGagne is gearing up for his 50th season as a referee, and the Canadian Basketball Officials Commission recognized him with its highest honour on Tuesday, the Ted Earley Memorial Award.

“I was surprised,” DeGagne said of learning the news. “Obviously an honour, but you don’t live in the past. You live for today, you plan for tomorrow, and every now and then you take a look at the journey over the years. Before you know it, it’s decade after decade, and the numbers get a little overwhelming, to be honest.”

Those numbers are astounding.

According to the Manitoba Association of Basketball Officials, they include more than 1,000 university games with more than 100 playoff contests. He earned invites to 16 national championships and worked four gold-medal games.

DeGagne also worked 37 games as a FIBA international referee, most notably at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia, where he called the United States and Russia’s men’s quarterfinal.

Meanwhile, DeGagne has also served as the lead referee coach at numerous camps, such as the annual Canada West camp in British Columbia, where promising young referees head each summer in hopes of taking the massive step to the U Sports level.

MABO president Reid Kenyon nominated DeGagne for the Ted Earley award — which recognizes officials who worked their way to high levels of the game and also give back through education — knowing how few Manitobans have received it in the past, with high hopes he’d be selected.

Kenyon got the call back confirming it within a week.

“It shows the impact Rick has, how deep and wide this has gone across the country,” Kenyon said. “He was a no-brainer.

“There’s a reason why he’s a sought-after speaker across the country, why he’s one of our lead referee coaches at the national level, never mind at the local level.

“His track record as a high school coach, a baseball coach, to take a sport and his ability to be a leader within that community is something we all can’t do.”

• • •

DeGagne didn’t get into it for the money.

The Kenora, Ont., product, who moved to Brandon to join the Brandon University men’s basketball team in 1977, first worked senior men’s games while playing for the Bobcats.

His first reffing cheque was $22.

It was for two games.

And he had to split it with his officiating partner, so that’s $5.50 per game.

But he stuck with it, jumping into high school games the following year and suddenly, due to low numbers in the area, he was pushed into university games, refereeing one of the top teams in Canada and his former teammates shortly after helping them win the program’s first-ever national medal, a silver in 1980.

DeGagne’s university debut may not have come so soon in an ideal world, but it wasn’t the only time opportunity knocked early and he answered anyway.

The big one was in May 1999 when an official from Hamilton had to hand back an assignment for the Olympic qualifier in Havana, Cuba. DeGagne was the backup plan, but Brandon School Division superintendent Bob Swayze allowed him to take a week off, and it proved massive for his career.

A strange schedule change led to him working a game on his scheduled off day, then running into Roberto Garcia, who invited him to a friend’s place for dinner.

“I’m on the balcony on this gorgeous Havana night having a cigar and drinking with the decision-maker of the Americas,” DeGagne recalled.

Garcia had DeGagne added to the officials crew for the Pan Am Games in Winnipeg a few months later.

Fast-forward to Feb. 17, 2000, his late wife Colleen’s birthday, and he received the call inviting him to the Olympics.

Knowing he’d stand on the same court as NBA superstars, it was impossible to feel 100 per cent prepared. But DeGagne was comfortable being uncomfortable.

“I’m out of my element; I’m prepared to take risks,” he said.

“I tell people you have to have a lot of courage if you want to referee … you’re going to upset half the group all the time. To put yourself in that, it takes a lot of courage.”

• • •

While DeGagne could stick to just refereeing and still be a massive contributor to basketball in Manitoba, that’s not in his nature.

Though game fees have increased from $5.50, they aren’t nearly enough to replace full-time employment.

DeGagne was an educator, and says with it came a “built-in commitment” to helping other referees.

Sometimes it’s in a formal setting, like when DeGagne and fellow Brandon official Tim Warren were referee coaches for the most recent AAAA varsity provincial championships.

They’d watch games and dissect them afterwards with the crews before assigning the top-performing ones to the finals, but more importantly, help each one grow little by little.

“When we sit in a room with him, people listen to him. He’s non-judgemental … he’s a great listener,” Kenyon said.

“When he presents it, everybody will listen based on the way he speaks because he is such a student of the game.”

Other times, it’s heading out to a small town to work with a first-year ref at a junior varsity tournament.

“He has time for anyone and everyone involved in the game,” Kenyon said. “He wants to leave the game better than he found it.”

For DeGagne, it’s about paying it forward like the mentors he had, including Rod Peppler, Dave Morphy, Wes Crumble, Russ Roney and Bob Nevill.

And he’s quick to point out that his family made it possible, from Colleen to children Brock, Matt and Danielle, the latter two of whom he brought into the officiating game and was able to call a university game with as a crew.

“You don’t do something like this for as long as I have and have the opportunities to travel like I had without a lot of support and sacrifice from home,” DeGagne said.

“Obviously, my wife Colleen was a big part of me being able to travel, to officiate, to be part of a lot of these international events and build a lot of great memories. There’s a sacrifice that comes with that and ultimately, it’s your family that misses you. It goes both ways; I miss them when I’m on the road.

“She never said no, once. Just amazing.”

» tfriesen@brandonsun.com