A goodbye to Ben Legere

If you played a CYO game in the last 50 years, odds are that the great Ben Legere officiated one of your games.

Benny passed away last Wednesday on his way home from umping a baseball game. He was 77 years old.

About a month ago, I was working at Ch. 5 on a Monday and we needed to find a story. It was a holiday so most of the colleges and pro teams were off, so it was back to the drawing board. In the back of my mind, I always thought it would be fascinating to do a story on Benny. After all, he has been a referee for more than 50+ years and is just such a character.

From the glasses, to his fake out calls on the court, he was someone who could be at your game once and you would remember him for the rest of your life.

It just so happened that Benny was reffing Monday night at 5 p.m. I went out and interviewed him. (The story is below if you haven't seen it) While he spoke, I couldn't help but feel the enthusiasm and passion he had for kids and youth sports. The story aired and was one of the most watched videos on CBS5.com, because simply, everybody knew Benny.

When he entered a gym, everyone's eyes were always glued to him because he had that type of presence. But if you asked him, he would never want the spotlight at all. He once said that the best game you can officiate is a game where nobody notices you at all.

If he wasn't reffing, he'd simply go to a game and enjoy it. One of the last games he got to enjoy was the 7th grade playoff game at Epiphany. After the game, I don't remember exactly what his words were, but it was something to the effect that he had never seen a game like that, or rarely had he seen a game like that. And you know he's seen a lot of games.

He was a professional, never late for games and he did his best to be fair. There were probably calls that none of us agreed with, but I'd much rather have him reffing a St. Mary's game than most referees.

One part of Benny's life nobody really knew too much about was his willingness to help other officials become better. He ran baseball umpire meetings for years, typing up pages of scenarios and talking for nearly 3 hours, making sure that the right call would be made come game time. Even this year when he watched me ref a game, he offered me a suggestion. His heart was always in the right place.

When we started baseball here at St. Mary's, Benny was one of the first people that I talked to, and he offered suggestions on how to grow the game in our school. He was very impressed that we finally got a baseball program going after all these years.

I will also remember him as one of the referees who reffed my first championship as a coach and one of the refs who officiated the 7th grade championship victory. And on Saturday morning, February 27, little did any of us know that Benny reffed the final St. Mary's game of his life, a win by the 8th grade girls.

Benny gave his life to youth sports and will be remembered for years and years to come. Whenever I was at a gym, he would always say hi to me, always gracious and always had a smile on his face. Nothing made him happier than to see a fair game.

We lost a great official, but heaven gained an even better human being.