NSIC
NIC & NSIC Basketball Official (1975-1995)
NSIC Coordinator of Basketball Officiating (1996-Present)
NIC Football Official
Roy G. Ward was born on June 3, 1937 in Osceola, Wis. Ward attended Saint Croix Falls (Wis.) High School and, upon graduation in 1955, furthered his education at Hamline University in Saint Paul, Minn. While at Hamline he earned three letters in baseball and starred all four years in basketball, leading the Pipers into the NAIA national basketball tournament twice. Individually, Ward received All-MIAC honors for the Piper baseball squad in 1959 and 1960. He earned a B.A. in Health and Physical Education with a minor in English in May of 1960. He then went on to teach health and physical education in Saint Paul School District 622 for 28 years. He also served as District 622 Athletic Director for both North Saint Paul High School and Tartan High School for seven years (1988-93), earning Region 4AA Athletic Director of the Year. Ward ended his 38 years of service in the Saint Paul School District retiring in 1998 as the Tartan athletic director. During Ward’s coaching career, he served as the John Glen Junior High (Maplewood, Minn.) football and basketball coach. He later coached baseball and assisted with the football team at North High. Ward is a lifetime member of the Minnesota State High School Coaches Association and is a recipient of the Coaches Association’s Distinguished Service Award. In 1971, Ward began a 30-year love affair with officiating at the collegiate and high school levels. He worked as a college basketball official for 28 years in the North Central Conference (NCC) and the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC). He also officiated basketball for 20 years in the Northern Intercollegiate Conference (NIC), NSIC and Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) from 1975-95. During that 20-year span, he worked many NAIA national championship tournaments, including the NAIA District 13 Championship Game for 14 consecutive years. In the 1983-84 and 1984-85 seasons, he represented the NIC as one of the league’s top officials at the NAIA national basketball tournament in Kansas City, Mo. Additionally, Ward officiated in the Minnesota Community College (MCC) basketball tournament for 21 years, working the final game 17 times. He recently retired from gridiron officiating, as the longest tenured NCC football official, a career that lasted 30 years. Ward’s association with the Minnesota State High School League (MSHSL) has spanned more than two decades. He has officiated basketball and football, supervised and evaluated state basketball and football officials, and served as site manager for several section and state tournaments. Ward has hosted annual rules interpretation meetings, practiced his superb art of officiating at the state hockey tournament as a goal judge, a basketball rules clinician and as a member of the selection committee for the tournament officials. Currently, Ward is the senior member of the NSIC coordinator of officiating staff. The 2003-04 season will be his ninth year as NSIC coordinator of men’s basketball officiating and sixth year as coordinator of women’s basketball officiating. In addition, he remains actively involved in assigning MCC basketball officials. Along with his induction into the NSIC Hall of Fame, Ward is a member of the Minnesota Amateur Softball Association (1993) and MSHSL (2001) hall of fames. To this day, many of his men’s amateur softball teams have been nationally-ranked and competed in numerous prominent slow pitch national tournaments. Roy and his wife, Catherine, reside in North Saint Paul. They have two children, Keri and Troy, and six grandchildren (all boys).