The man was as inconspicuous as a tall, broad-shouldered fellow wearing a zebra-striped shirt and black short pants could be walking across the Valle Field parking lot. He had the earnest look of a Boy Scout troop leader preparing to take youngsters on a long hike, but he was on his way to the football field complex’s east gridiron to referee Sunday afternoon Vigo County Youth Football League third- and fourth-grade games.

Even after the big fellow took the field with his refereeing partner and began tossing his yellow flag and blowing his whistle for the Woodrow Wilson vs. Sarah Scott game, he remained generally anonymous as a sizable stadium crowd of parents and players’ friends cheered on their young heroes.

Then, he approached the north sideline to observe a play in motion, and a woman asked the person sitting beside her, “Isn’t he the mayor?”

Indeed!

Duke Bennett spends most of his waking hours managing Terre Haute’s city services while grappling with its numerous financial challenges during national and local economic crisis. But when he has free time, he is a certifiable ESPN-loving sports junkie and such an ardent Indiana State basketball fan that he has only missed five home games since the Larry Bird era.

Bennett first obtained a referee’s license when he was 20 and began his career officiating middle school and freshman basketball. By the time he was 25, he had passed the written test for a football referee’s license. In the 24 years since, he has officiated hoops, women’s college and high school softball, youth league football, and Indiana high school football as part of a five-man crew. Bennett’s officiating group is booked through the next five football seasons to cover large school high school games in venues such as Indianapolis, Evansville, Bloomington and Columbus.

“I love being near competition,” Bennett said.

He is his football crew’s line judge, using his eagle eyes to make encroachment calls, false starts and holding on wide-outs, and to check the number of players on field. He thrives on the self-discipline his role requires: he can’t let his attention stray or he could make a bad call; if he should make a wrong call, he can’t make it up by flagging the other team.

“I’m always on the side of the stadium right in front of the home team’s cheering section,” said Bennett. “I don’t pay attention to the noise, but it can get loud — like when our crew did a Columbus East/Columbus North game in front of 8,000 screaming fans.”

During the Wilson-Sarah Scott game, Bennett did not seek to curry favor with fans or coaches. Simultaneous with his partner, he tossed the day’s most important yellow flag — holding — on a Wilson fourth grader who hit the Sarah Scott defender from behind instead of properly blocking him out of the play. The call negated a 40-yard touchdown run by a Wilson player that could have provided his team’s margin of victory. Later, a coach complained loudly that the referees were not calling enough penalties on the opposing team; Bennett snapped back: “There’s only 22 players and two officials out here. We will get what we can!”

In the opinion of Youth League Executive Vice-President Scooter Grim, “Duke’s a really good official. Excellent.”

The mayor grew up in a home steeped in sports heritage. His father, Arnold “BoBo” Bennett, had been a legendary fast pitch softball pitcher. During World War II, while serving in the U.S. Marine Corps, BoBo’s Marine generals flew him and another softball superstar, Eddie Feigner — later known for his barnstorming “King and His Court” softball team — to the Pacific islands, where there was no fighting, so they could put on pitching displays with their blazing fastballs, “drop pitches,” “risers,” and a wild array of unusual slingshot flings for the troops between island battles with the Japanese.

Pages: 1 2 3