FARMINGTON – At 73-years-old, Paul “Bucky” Sproul certainly has the right to retire.
But a few minutes before being honored Thursday night by the International Association of Approved Basketball Officials for 50 years of meritorious service at Mt. Blue High School basketball games, Sproul said that this week alone he’d refereed four games.
And with his added duties as a high school custodian, athletic fields caretaker and weekend security guard, Sproul added, “There’s something every day.” Some days he works morning, noon and night.
Before retiring from teaching in SAD 9 in the 1980s, Sproul taught in Franklin County for more than 30 years. And according to Shannon Smith of Wilton, almost everyone in the Farmington area knows and loves Sproul, from being taught by him or getting to know him at games. “He’s touched a lot of people from this age (she held her hand close to the floor), that are now adults with children, and now he’s got their children and has touched their lives.”
Opening Thursday night’s ceremony, Mt. Blue High School Athletic Director Scott Walker echoed Smith’s comments. “We’re here to honor one of SAD 9’s greatest people,” he said, adding Sproul is not only a “retired teacher in the district” and a “fantastic custodian,” but that he “seems to know everyone that walks the halls, be it student, teacher, parent or administrator.”
Before he started working at SAD 9, Sproul said that he already was hooked on basketball refereeing. His first experience with it was during a four-year stint in the Air Force right out of high school. He was paid $70 a month extra for refereeing squadron games. So when he came to Franklin County as a student at UMF in the mid-1950s, he immediately began working at college and high school games.
And after half a century in the sport, Sproul is not only well-loved, he also remembers when the sport was played much differently than it is today. “The game has changed,” he said, explaining that when he started players rarely, if ever, ran up the court to steal the ball. Now that is common practice, he said, scores are much higher.
Sproul said Thursday he feels lucky to have had the opportunity to live, work and referee in Northern Franklin County. “In this area, we have the best fans in the world,” he said.
Perhaps unsurprising for a former teacher, especially one who community members say “gets on so well with kids,” Sproul is one of 11 children. When he and his wife of almost 50 years, Jeannette Sproul, first married, he said, they figured between the two of them, they had almost 60 nieces and nephews.
Jeannette said Thursday she thinks refereeing has been “good for” her husband. “It keeps him moving along, not retiring and sitting around,” she said. “And you get used to it after 50 years,” she said of his love of the game.
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