Smithsburg’s Donnie Souders named NCAA D3 national leader of women's basketball officials

As a longtime basketball referee, Donnie Souders is passionate about his craft.

“It’s a love of sport, and we all in officiating have some sort of ego,” he said. “For me, it’s always been about being the best official on the court.”

His drive for excellence hasn’t gone unnoticed.

In July, Souders, 50, of Smithsburg, received the William Lightner Official of the Year Award during the annual Washington County Sports Hall of Fame induction banquet.

Last month, he earned a significantly greater honor, and it’s a new part-time job.

Covered: 2023 Washington County high school fall sports central

After a national search, Souders was named the NCAA Division III women's basketball national coordinator of officials, succeeding Mary Toberman, who stepped down in April.

In that role, according to the NCAA, Souders “will provide national leadership in the areas of selecting officials for the NCAA Division III Women's Basketball Championship, education, training, recruitment, and the retention of Division III women's basketball officials.”

“I’m excited to start,” he said. “I’m really looking forward to it. This is my opportunity to continue to give back to something that I love to do.”

Souders, who graduated from South Hagerstown High School in 1991 and Hagerstown Community College in 1993, is bringing more than three decades of officiating experience to his new position.

He’s refereed at the high school level since 1991 and is the longtime president of the Washington County Basketball Officials Association. Since 2001, he’s officiated NCAA Division II and III women’s basketball, including the D3 Final Four last season.

"Donnie's longevity serving as a women's college basketball official, as well as his extensive background in assigning and mentoring officials, make him an ideal candidate for this position," Bethany Dannelly, chair of the Division III Women's Basketball Committee, said in an NCAA news release. "Donnie has a vision for the recruitment and retention of officials, which will be supported and enhanced by his contagious energy and drive for excellence."

Souders started reffing as a teenager

Souders grew up playing football, basketball and baseball, but gravitated toward hoops.

Although he was cut from the South Hagerstown basketball team as a sophomore, that didn’t curb his enthusiasm for the sport.

When Souders was 16, he worked as a scorekeeper for the Hagerstown Junior Basketball League. The next year, he started reffing games for the league.

He began officiating high school games when he was 18. He's been part of the Washington County Basketball Officials Association since then, serving in nearly every possible role in the organization, including the primary assigner for the past decade.

Souders once had major aspirations.

“My original goal was that I wanted to either be an NBA referee or a top Division I official,” he said. “But during the course of life, things come up. I got married, I had kids. The time commitment when you’re younger and you’ve got kids and a wife, it didn’t work into the cards.”

Ready for a new challenge

During the basketball season, Souders is a busy man.

Last year, he traveled as far north as Connecticut and as far south as Virginia Beach to officiate games.

“Between high school and college, I was doing anywhere from five to six games a week,” he said.

Although he plans to continue officiating at the high school level, he’s done reffing college games for now.

“In order for me to take this position, I had to come off the court,” he said.

He said it will give his body some much-needed rest.

“A lot of it was born out of necessity,” he said of his new position with the NCAA. “The body starts to break down. I didn’t think I was going to be able to get through a full college and full high school schedule, so when this job became available, I was like, ‘I’ve been doing women’s college for 22 seasons. I was selected to do the championship rounds in 2020, but those were canceled due to COVID. In 2023, I did the Final Four for Division III women.’

“I thought, ‘You know what? I’ll probably never achieve anything more than that. I’m pretty much a D2-D3 lifer, so this is probably the time to look at accepting a new challenge.’”

His new position is right in his wheelhouse.

“I love to teach,” he said. “I love when we get new officials to come in. This is an opportunity to observe and educate and work with new officials.

“The first year is basically just being a sponge,” he added. “I’ll take what my predecessor has done, build off what she was able to accomplish and then learn how to watch and evaluate the talent that we have on the court now, as well as start to implement the plan of how to recruit and retain officials.”

More officials needed ASAP

The shortage of officials currently plaguing high school sports is an epidemic at the next level too.

Recruiting and retaining officials might be Souder’s biggest challenge.

“Probably at least half of the officials who work Division III sports in the country are also doing high school, like myself. We’re crossovers,” he said. “And we’re having that same problem with trying to build that pipeline. The average age for a basketball official across the country is 58. So you can kind of see where the rubber is starting to meet the road. We don’t have a huge pipeline, and we have an aging demographic.”

'It's dire': Officiating shortage remains a major concern, locally and nationally

He said one major issue is that referees have “lost that sense of authority.”

“When I played, if I snapped at a referee, if my coach wasn’t getting on me, I can assure you my parents were,” Souders said. “And now, it’s, ‘You’re wrong, my child couldn’t have done that.’ The dynamic has shifted. A lot of people don’t want to deal with the adversarial look upon officials.

“And then the other thing is pay. Minimum wage is creeping up to where if you wanted to go get a part-time job without the aggravation of being yelled at by parents and coaches, you’d rather go do that. Nobody is going to get rich doing this. You’re going to have to be committed to wanting to do this and wanting to do it well."

He added, “I tell officials all the time that if you go out trying to be the best official, you usually don’t hear a lot of gruff. It’s the ones that either come across like they don’t care or they don’t work hard at the craft, those seem to be the ones who either find trouble or trouble finds them.”

Souders, who works as a safety specialist for Dejure-Windstein LLC, also has been heavily involved with Smithsburg town government since 2008 and was elected mayor in 2022.

“I’m used to ticking off 50 percent of the crowd 100 percent of the time, whether it’s sports or politics,” he said with a laugh.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Souders named NCAA D3 women’s basketball national officials coordinator