The Rochester Referee Unit Scholarship Fund was authorized by the Rochester Referee Unit in 2007 to honor two of our members who are no longer with us.
The first is Joseph Martuscello, who worked as a Soccer Referee in the Rochester Area for 5 years and worked faithfully with so many new referees in the Unit that his name and contributions will never be forgotten.
The second is Lois Brondon, who was a member of the Rochester district for ten years.
The purpose of the Rochester Referee Unit Scholarship Fund is to encourage the high school and college age members of the Rochester Referee Unit to further their education at a college level. There will be at least two scholarships awarded per year. The deadline for applying is July 1, 2008.
The Scholarship is supported by the Unit and its members through contributions. The treasury of the Unit will have a distinct account for managing the funds under the Unit's General Fund.
Joe was born December 21, 1959, the fifth child of 7, the first son, to Camille and Joseph Martuscello in Amsterdam, NY. Joe attended Little Falls Central Schools and graduated from Dolgeville Central School in June, 1978. He was an active athlete participating in Varsity football, basketball and baseball. Joe was the senior class president and performed in school musicals. He was an avid boy scout throughout his life, and during his high school and college summers worked at Camp Russell in the Adirondack mountains teaching shooting and archery to young scouts.
Joe attended SUNY Oswego where he studied Technology, with an end goal of becoming a technology (shop) teacher. He spent a semester doing student teaching at Herkimer central schools and graduated in August, 1983.
He moved to Rochester, NY after college and began working at Schlegel Corporation on the assembly line and was married in April, 1983. He quickly moved up the ranks and finished his career at Schlegel Corporation as a Product Manager for their Urethane product. He left Schlegel when it was bought out by BTR and worked at various companies in the Rochester area (Nalge, Bausch and Lomb, Winross) and ended his career at Caldwell Manufacturing in Spencerport, NY. He rose to the position of Plant Manager in January 2005.
Joe continued to love sports and played volleyball, basketball and racquetball with friends. Joe was the pack master of Boy Scouts pack 165 for 4 years and an advocate for scouting. He began his coaching career with his daughter Regina in T-ball in 1991 and continued to coach softball and soccer for a number of years. He dabbled in coaching CYO basketball for his son Thomas and ended his coaching career in 2000. At that time he began to referee soccer. Reffing soccer was extremely important to Joe as it gave him the opportunity to work with young athletes to strive for the things that Joe found most important - teamwork, loyalty and fair play. His love of reffing soccer spilled over into his children, who today continue to referee for NYSW. Joe worked his way up to reffing high school games and was very excited, before his diagnosis, to move into varsity and college level reffing. He mentored young referees the art of soccer and strived to pass his passion on to a younger generation. Joe was an avid wood-worker and made furniture and clocks in his spare time. Joe had a wonderful tenor singing voice and played the string bass. He used these talents as a member of Papa Joe's Crawfish Stew Dixieland band. This unique group of folks were all past cub scout leaders who created their band to raise money to send cub scouts to camp who could not afford to go. The band evolved and a friendship forged amidst their differing backgrounds.
Joe was diagnosed with Renal Cell Carcinoma in January, 2006. He had a 6" malignant tumor in his left kidney which had metastasized to his lymph system as well as his bones. He underwent surgery to remove the malignancy in February, 2006 and began treatment for his cancer in Rochester, NY. When options were exhausted in Rochester, we traveled to the Methodist hospital in Houston, Texas for treatment by an expert oncologist. His battle ended on November 24, 2006 at the age of 46 in his home in Spencerport. Joe is survived by his wife of 24 years, Vicki, children Regina Teresa and Thomas Joseph, his parents and parents-in-law, 5 sisters, 1 brother, 1 sister and brother-in-law, 12 nephews, 5 nieces, 5 great nephews and 4 great nieces. 4 of his nephews are currently serving our country in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Renal cell carcinoma strikes over 200,000 people per year with deaths of 135,000 annually. Treatment for this type of cancer is limited and the mean life span is 6 months. Joe survived for 11 months, and underwent clinical trials in Houston, Texas. Throughout his journey with cancer Joe approached every day with a positive attitude and a smile on his face. His passing has left a huge void in not only his family but in our community as well.
Lois Brondon was born October 20, 1957 in Jamaica, NY. After graduating from Liverpool HS in 1975, where she excelled in the classroom as well as on the softball field, she went on to continue her education at SUNY Brockport. She graduated from SUNY Brockport in 1978 with a Bachelors degree in English, followed soon thereafter with a Masters in Education. In 2007, she finished completing her Administrative Certification degree from Canisius College in Buffalo, NY.
While studying for her Masters degree she began teaching elementary school in the Greece Central School District. She had an immense passion for teaching and found great satisfaction in educating children. For the next 28 years, she continued to teach in Greece, ranging from Kindergarten to 12th grade, and was highly regarded among her peers and her students for her tireless work ethic, her willingness to involve herself in school and district functions, and her unique ability to maximize her students' potential. In the classroom she ran a no-nonsense environment, and demanded the utmost respect from her students. She carried a similar philosophy into her soccer officiating, and regardless of the setting, she managed to help young children in the Rochester area become better people.
Lois was a member of the Rochester Referee Unit since 1997, and always looked forward to officiating in the summers. Not only was it a chance to work with children, but it was also an opportunity to be with her own children. She always made it a priority to be an integral part of their lives, and involved herself whenever possible. All 3 of her children followed in her footsteps and tried their hand at officiating, and it was a great way to bond with them and continue to be an active role model in their lives.
For those of you who had the chance to know and work with Lois, you are well aware that she had a great deal of energy, and was always involving herself in some activity. In addition to being a mom, school teacher, and soccer official, she was a big fan of the arts. She loved to dance, played drums/percussion, and choreographed musicals for high schools and middle schools. She was a woman of various interests, yet somehow never managed to overwhelm herself with too many activities at a given time (although she had the energy to do all of them and still have some left to spare).
On May 18, 2007, Lois was officiating a soccer match at the Greece Buccaneers Tournament with her daughter Nicole when she suddenly collapsed on the field and subsequently passed away en route to the hospital. She is survived by her husband Chris, her children Michael, Nicole, and Christian, 5 siblings, and 10 nieces and nephews. Her contributions to the community were significant, and her one-of-a-kind personality will be sorely missed by all.
The RDSL names their Amateur Cup in honor of Reinhold Spath
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We are proud to announce that the Rochester and District Soccer League has extended a great honor to one of our members. Effective in 2008, the league's annual tournament will be named the Reinhold Spath Amateur Cup Tournament.
Reinhold started playing soccer in Germany at the age of six and was playing organized soccer by the time he was ten. He played in the German amateur leagues until 1958, and emigrated to the United States in January of 1959. During his playing career in Germany he took up refereeing and had been officiating for ten years by the time he arrived in the U.S. He played for the German-American Sports Club in Rochester until 1961. He resumed refereeing in the U.S. in 1961 and earned a position as an official in the North American Soccer League. One of his most memorable moments was serving as the referee when the Rochester Lancers played the U. S. National Team. He also had the opportunity to officiate a game between the Rochester Lancers and Santos Brazil, a game featured Pele.
In his years as a referee, Reinhold officiated over 5000 games. He became an assessor in 1976, and has assessed thousands of games. In 1986 he suffered a severe stroke, spending four weeks in the hospital and another five weeks in a rehabilitation facility. He resumed his duties as SRA within two weeks of his release. Although the stroke prevented him from continuing as a referee, he remains a certified assessor and instructor, and is a Lifetime Member of USSF. He served as State Referee Administrator for 22 years (1980-2002) and State Youth Referee Administrator for 19 years (1980-1999), retiring as Emeritus Referee. He received the 1991 William Scofield Memorial Award by the USSF National Referee Committee and, in 1997, he was inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame.
Reinhold says: "It has been a long time since I have kicked a soccer ball and blown a whistle. If I had it to do all over again, I would enjoy nothing more than being out there on the field that I have enjoyed for 67 years as a player, coach, referee, assessor, assignor and instructor."
The Rochester Referee Unit is proud to maintain Reinhold as an active member, and we extend our congratulations to him on his most recent recognition.