Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Faith in the Zone on Fox Sports nine
twenty in your iHeartRadio app. This is Mike mcgiven flying
solo this week Pastor Ken Keltner from Brookside Baptist Church.
Hopefully we'll be back in studio with me next week.
Coming from the Donovan and Jorgenson Heating and Cooling Studios.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Any issues you.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Have with your furnace, your HVAC system, your air conditioner,
go to Donovan Jorgenson dot com, the largest employee owned
h FAC company in the state of Wisconsin. So guys,
if you listen to my stuff, my high school sports show,
I do a little bit on the Home Improvement show
I do. It comes up every once in a while,
and certainly on Faith in the Zone. I talk about
(00:41):
my years as a high school basketball coach here in
the Milwaukee area. And I coached for a long time,
and I have a lot of friends that are basketball
officials that maybe back in the day when I was coaching,
I don't know if they would say they were my
friend because I used to raise my voice a little
bit at these boys and girls, by the UH and
women for that matter. And I'm going to have a
(01:03):
number of officials coming up to me after they hear
who are special guest is today. She is Debbie Williamson.
She is the twenty twenty five Golden Whistle Award winner,
which is a really big deal for basketball and officials
of every sport around the country. Debbie coordinates women's basketball
officials and a number of conferences throughout throughout the country,
(01:27):
and we are just so lucky to be able to
spend some time with her. Debbie, it's so good to
talk to you. Thank you so much for a few
minutes of your time.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
You're welcome. I really appreciate the opportunity. Thanks for having me.
And I coach too. And my referees didn't like me
when I was a coach either, so we're I get it.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Well, I'm looking at It's funny. I've done a lot
of background on you and everything that I read. I
have to tell you, I am such a big fan
of what you do in the servant leadership heart that
you have. Uh but boy, you are a big time athlete,
won a national championship, you were a captain, and and
I love the fact that when a four year player
(02:11):
at Louisiana Tech and from there went on to coach
for a while, and and certainly the things that you're
doing now and and you were an official for a
while as well, and the things that you're doing now
for a number of a number of conferences throughout the
country is really impressive to me. And Debbie, I have
to tell you when I read about some of the
things you do, I could not do what you do.
(02:33):
I'm not organized enough for what you do. And so
if you're ever looking for an assistant, do not call me.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Not there you go. Hey, tell me about the days.
First of all, where are you living now?
Speaker 1 (02:48):
And and talk to us a little bit about on
a day to day basis what you do.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Okay, Wow, that's loaded. Well. I tell people my husband
and my house living Houston and I live in a
Marriotte someplace. But my husband is the deputy athletic director
at Houston Christian University formerly Houston Baptist. So we actually
live in Paarland, Texas, and he is still in college athletics.
(03:17):
We've been married, we're on year thirty nine and he's
been in college athletics for thirty eight years. And we
do this together fully supportive in every way of how
God where God placed us, the assignment that he's given
us in college athletics, albeit in different places. But I
(03:38):
do also live part time and we have an apartment
in North Carolina because I'm an employee of the ACC.
And for example, tomorrow we have our monthly staff meeting
at the ACC where the entire staff gets together in
one boardroom, and tomorrow we're celebrating Thanksgiving and giving thanks there.
And then I'm contracted out by seven other conferences. This
(04:03):
is my I think you're seven with the accuh. And
along with it came the CIA UH and the Big South.
But it's your thirteen with the American and the Big East.
When the Biggest split and formed the American Athletic, I
was brought on as the supervisor officials for both of
(04:23):
those leagues. UH. And that's and then along the way
picked up the Atlantic Ten, the Big South, the Well,
I said, the Big South, CA, the IVY, and the
Metro Atlantic, the MAC. So it's been it's been a
fun ride. I UH. Being on the road a lot
(04:45):
with all of these leagues obviously is a lot. And
stand my husband is busy with UH with his piece.
But yeah, that's where we live and that's what I'm
doing today. Hey, Debbie, I don't remember the rest of
the question.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
No, that's okay. I have a follow up question.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
I do a high school sports show every Saturday from
nine to eleven here on Fox Sports nine twenty and
the iHeartRadio app. And I have to tell you a
number of officials throughout this area who I've known a
long time will either send me a text, or I'll
see him on the sidelines, or I'll seem up at
a game and they'll say, Hey, we need to come
(05:26):
on your show. And we have to figure out how
to get younger, young people, young both boys and girls,
interested in becoming a basketball official, or a football official,
or a softball umpire. And they said, look, we know
some of us old boys don't want to keep doing
this a lot longer, but there's nobody who's coming to
take our place. And I have a grandson, Keegan Bonner,
(05:50):
who is a sophomore in high school, and I picked
him up from school yesterday and he said, Pop, I
was looking to get a part time job, but I
think I'm going to take a class to become a
basket official. And I said that's awesome. I said, you can.
You know, you can make a lot of money if
you're willing to put the time in and become a
good official. Jebbie, do you find that all over the
(06:11):
country that that that we're starting to struggle to get
younger people to get involved in what is your business?
Speaker 3 (06:19):
I personally and being a part of the National Association
with Sport Officials, an organization right down the road from
you and Racine, they being having been on their board
and having been in close relationship with these guys. I
hear about the struggles at the lower levels, and I
say lower, I mean just in sense of age of participation,
(06:44):
rec league, high school, middle school, those numbers. And I
have always been appalled at what I'm hearing when I'm
in the NASO circle, and because those guys are doing
an amazing job reporting us in every sport, every level
across the world, and so when they are bringing these
(07:05):
things up and telling real life stories of all kinds,
I'm just like, it's jaw dropping. But I also think
that the work that Dana Pappus is doing at the
National Federation, that NCA Division three commissioners have started in
recruiting new officials, and they actually took a program that
(07:27):
I started in twenty sixteen called player to ref and
they made it way better than what I was doing.
So I see the recruiting efforts, but I personally haven't
experienced the shortage at Division one obviously because in fact
it's very competitive. I have way more people coming out
than what I can actually take or give games to,
(07:50):
and a lot of times games and assignments are driven
by how many games are stacked on a particular day location,
whether you know all the other things, but I personally
only know it from listening to other stories. So in
my world, I don't have a shortage now I had
(08:12):
do have a shortage, or we do have a shortage
at the NCAA Division IE level of people that have
a wealth of experience who are still as mobile as
our game is requiring of us right now with the athleticism,
even on the women's side, ramping up. So I've got
(08:35):
a shortage of what I see my top tier people doing,
but that's going to take time, like they've been doing
it for twenty five thirty years, and obviously, you know
I can't do what they do. I can't get up
and down the floor like they do. And there are
people my age doing it and doing it well, So
(08:55):
not a shortage in numbers, a shortage in experience and
in what our coaches or maybe even in the call accuracy,
because we chart call accuracy, just in what we would
term as the people we see at the top and
doing the higher games and getting plays a lot of
plays right. Why shortage is a different issue than numbers.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
We are talking with w Williamson again, the twenty twenty
five Golden Whistle Award winner, which is the highest honor
awarded by the National Association of Sports Officials, and I
tay congratulations to her for that. You know, Debbie, as
a coach, I used to if a referee was in
the correct position, blew the whistle and sold the call.
(09:42):
I don't think I ever said a work because even
if I disagree with the call, I thought, well, you know,
he or she was in the right position and they
saw something maybe I didn't see. What would drive me
crazy is if an official is not the right position,
blows the whistle and that hesitates for a couple seconds
and then and says like block, wait what wait, I
(10:03):
what do you mean, Block? You were in the right position.
Why do you hesitate after you blew the whistle for
that long? So that is as an old grandfather, a
sixth former retired basketball coach, that part of it used
to just like drive me nuts and and and again.
If they're if if they were in the right position
and they sold the call.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
What I like that.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
What they're trying to do in this area now, especially
at the high school level, is with some of the
younger guys, they team them up. So high school basketball
here it's it's three personal official crew and they try
to team up a younger, newer guy with a couple
of veterans, and then the veteran would come over h
before the game and say, hey, just see you know,
this guy's he this kid's gut, but he's you know,
(10:48):
he's still he's still learning and we're working with him.
So if you have any questions for him, you know,
come to me, or if you're going to light one
of us up, light me up. Don't worry about him.
Let's keep him, you know, active, and keep him. And
it was I think it was really good. And I'm
seeing some of those younger guys that I saw five, six, seven,
eight years ago now being one of the two veteran officials,
(11:12):
and I always say to them, I can't believe you're
still in this thing you were horrible six years ago.
And they're like, but give her you leave me alone.
I can't tee you up from where you're sitting now.
And you know, we would laugh a little bit. Hey,
before we get to a break. When you got the
this year, when you got the call saying listen, you're
gonna be the twenty twenty five Golden Whistle Award winner
(11:32):
that Can you just walk me through what that phone
call was.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Like for you?
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Well, it started out really frustrating because I have been
advocating for someone else to get the award, and I
had jumped through all the hoops, like I had never
really nominated anybody for this award. I did everything, so
I had to call and ask how to do it.
I did it. I advocated for this person. I was
really praying that God would allow that to happen for
(11:59):
this other person. I felt like they were very deserving.
I wanted them to get the recognition that I felt
like they had earned over the last fifty years. And
so the call was, hey, listen, thank you so much,
and uh and Bill top is a personal friend of mine,
so is Barry Manno, and uh and when Bill called
to say, hey, you know, thank you for all the
(12:22):
things you've done. We've had these discussions at the board meeting. Uh,
but your nominee is not going to be the recipient
this year. And I actually kind of went at him
he knows to expect from me, because I'm like, come
on now, like you guy, you better get out a
really good reason, because you know, and I you know,
(12:43):
I kind of can be a bulldog about some things
once abdigma teeth in, and but I also understand, like God,
nothing's going to happen that doesn't have God's approval period,
you know. So I'm like trying to back up not
be selfish, and he goes, well, actually we're looking at
a different date for this other person, but also need
(13:04):
to tell you. And then I felt a little better
about that, Like I didn't like that it wasn't happening
right now, but you know, I've been on my face
enough to understand what patience looks like. And he said,
but the board did unanimously vote for you, and I
could not talk. My first words was what, And I
(13:29):
don't I'm not surprised. Decently, I was blown away, and
I said, I'm going to have to call you back.
The only words I could get back was I have
to call you back. And I hit my knees right
there at my desk and cried for at least ten minutes,
which is a long time.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
To cry, yes.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
And just just face my face down to the Lord,
going what have you done? Like? What have you done? Lord? Like?
And all the you know here, I am telling God
that I don't deserve it, you know. And then I
had to call him and tell him I didn't deserve it.
And my husband's like dead stop. Like these people get
(14:08):
paid for their judgment, you know, they've made a lot
of money off their judgment because they're all like retired referee, yeah,
pro referees and NFL and all these other you know,
all National Hockey League like big time referee people. So
I think the short story is just completely just overwhelming unworthiness.
(14:35):
I guess it's kind of what. I hate to say
that because and in fact that the awards ceremony, Taraffini,
one of the board members who's a big time soccer,
she actually did brain mapping in the for the surgeons
at Duke. Like the woman's brilliant. She said, your job
tonight is to take a compliment and you're horrible at that.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Yeah, well I can hear that I and I agree
with your I agree with Stan your husband, like, hey, listen,
these guys, you know, they get paid to make good decisions.
They've made a really good decision here of our special guest,
the twenty twenty five Golden Whistle Award winner, and I
can tell you what that means. They honor an individual
(15:18):
organization that has gone above and beyond in overall integrity
and has made significant contributions to the betterment of officiating
at Debbie Williamson, the twenty twenty five Golden Whistle Award winners,
our special guest here on Faith in the Zone for
the entire hour, We're going to get to a break
other side of the break segment two, which is a
(15:39):
lot of people's favorite We're going to ask Debbie to
share her testimony. This is Faith in the Zone on
Fox Sports nine twenty and your iHeart Radio app. Welcome
back to Faith in the Zone on Fox Sports nine
twenty and your iHeartRadio App.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Again.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Mike mcgiffern here flying solo. Pastor Ken Keltner from Brookside
Baptist Church asked me to certainly let people know he's
going to be be back in studio soon. It will
Once he comes back, we'll explain his absence and let
people know why he has not been in studio with
me for a while, coming from the Donovan to Jorgans
(16:14):
and Heating and Cooling studios. Our special guest she is
Debbie Williamson. She is the twenty twenty five Golden Whistle
Award winner as just the biggest award you can get
as an official in the country. And when I read
what the definition of it beyond in overall integrity and
(16:35):
made significant contributions to the betterment of officiating And the
fact that Debbie was like nominating someone else and saying
to her husband, what are they doing?
Speaker 2 (16:44):
I'm not worthy for this.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
I love it that Stan said knock it off and
her friend said take a compliment one time.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
I really like that. Hey, Debbie.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
On Faith in the Zone, our second segment is by
far the one that I get the most reaction on,
and it's when we ask our guests to share their
testimony and if you would be so kind.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
Yeah, thank you so much. You're just being super gracious
in every way, and I really appreciate the opportunity to
share what Jesus has done in my life and hopefully
through my life, because I believe that's why I sit
in this chairs, because He gave me a platform for
(17:29):
me to be light, and that light can only be Him.
I have to tell you I grew up in a
very small town in Hayes, Louisiana. I know the article
in Referee says Homa was born in Homa, which is
about an hour and a half south of New Orleans,
but grew up in a small community called Hayes. I
(17:50):
had the largest graduating class of thirty four people. Wow,
and one of them was my sister. But she was
an amazing athlete. She was being recruited to play basketball.
We both played fast. We had to play whatever was
in season. I'm the oldest of five. That was what
child care looked like in this town. Hard working parents.
(18:10):
My mom was a postmaster at the local post office
in the Cajun culture. She was one of the few
people who could translate for the French speaking people who
could not speak English. Still, and my dad was a farmer,
a welder, just very hard working people. But they could
(18:31):
not get along. And at about fourteen, as I was
helping raise my siblings. My mom was working full time,
my dad was somewhere else working. We really just our
hope fell in sports because that was an outlet where
you could just run and get it all out, and
(18:51):
it was an opportunity to win, and we hated losing.
My senior year, we were I think forty six and
two or forty yeah, forty six and two, So we
played a lot of basketball because there was nothing else there.
And then as soon as we finished our last game,
we put our cleats on and we played softball. So
when it got time, I heard people got scholarships to
(19:14):
play athletics in college, and I had never seen a
college game. I didn't I have never seen, even on
TV what that looked like because my mom and dad
would watch only the Boston Celtics. But they loved basketball
and we had a love for it as well, and
it was a community thing. My grandmother in the meantime
(19:36):
would was the believer in our family, and she would
take us to church. And at about the time my
parents separated, there was evangelist that came through and while
we heard the gospel on the Sundays we were in church,
this guy, on a particular day was just was bringing it,
and I was so convicted, and I did not want
(19:59):
to leave the building that day without knowing Jesus as
my favors. So I just found out this year at
age sixty three, that apparently my three siblings followed me
up to the isle and they all accepted Jesus on
the same day. I don't even remember, probably because I
again was face down, but that's the day I got saved.
But I honestly did not really walk with the Lord.
(20:23):
Didn't even know what that looked like till I got
involved in Bible study. When I was in college and
I joined, I walked on. I was a softball scholarship
athlete at Louisiana Tech. I was a fast pitch pitcher,
and they allowed me to walk on the basketball team,
and I did both of those sports for two years.
But on the basketball team, there were some strong believers
at Louisiana Tech and they got me involved in Bible study,
(20:45):
and oh my goodness, and then I ended up at
Cannicut Camps in Missouri, where I met Jimmy Dykes, who
I just was with him on his program recently, and
that was the only reason I met Jimmy Dykes. So
that I could then forty years later come on and
testify to what Guy had done in the last forty years.
That's how strategic God is in our world. But I
(21:11):
started and understanding what it meant to actually walk and
how the freedom that God allowed. And I really continued
to struggle with what I understood from my culture, what
I understood from my pride and my sick heart. And
in the middle of all that, I met Stan. And
Stan came from a really good family, two parents, Bible
(21:35):
believing people that his mom played the piano, that were
in church all time, and he wanted to meet with
me every Wednesday morning outside my dorm room so we
could pray together and had nothing to do with dating.
And I thought he was so weird. I also does this,
you know, like this guy is weird. But I better
not say no because this is something I'm supposed to
(21:57):
be doing. And I saw yesday and the illustration of
a triangle where I'm at the right corner, He's at
the left corner, God's at the pinnacle. And the closer
we get to God, the closer we get to each other.
And needless to say, it took us. It took me
some time, he claimed that he under he knew that
we would be married all along, but through basketball he
(22:20):
played on the men's basketball team. God just used us
and worked us and worked our athletic careers together. But
more importantly, this man was more worried about what God
thought than what I thought. And that's what I knew
I needed for our marriage and.
Speaker 4 (22:35):
For us because I was clueless.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
And honestly, you know, here we are thirty nine married years,
not counting the four years I couldn't figure out what
to do with him and us working all the things.
But I can honestly say that I could have never
planned any of the things that happened to me, and
(22:58):
that in God's and He's not done. I have no
idea where I'll be sitting a year from now, because
every year I just go Lord. In fact, my alarm
is a song that says, I'll go wherever you want
me to go. I'll do whatever you want me to do,
because I need that reminder that I am committed to
doing this and that looks like a lot of different things,
(23:19):
and generally speaking, it looks nothing like anything easy. Nothing
I say, and I believe embrace the heart. I'm not
going to go look for hard things because they're hard.
But I am praying that God would give me the
courage to do the hard things so that I can
show who he is. And I'm not always really good
(23:42):
at that. But all I can do is what I
could do today.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Well that's kind of it's a beautiful testimony. I've got
some follow up questions. Your grandmother's first name, what was her?
What is or was her first name?
Speaker 3 (23:58):
Her name was Evelyn? Whoitmen?
Speaker 1 (24:02):
I have to I think Evelyn Whitman when you said, look,
my grandma's the one that took us into church, and
and and and I thank her and and I just say,
do you know. Look, I'm a grandparent of six grandkids now,
one granddaughter who's two and she's in charge, by the way,
and then five grandsons. And I can tell you that
(24:26):
that both my son and his wife and my daughter
and her husband and all these kids go to a
church called Spring Creek, and it's a really good church
for them. It's it's a great church for them. And
I love the fact that your grandmother would take your
take her grandkids to church because she believed that that
was really important. And I got to give Stan a
(24:47):
bunch of credit, because do you know how difficult it
is for a college basketball player to say, listen, I'm
gonna we're gonna pray together every morning, to think that
the girly he's praying with thinks he's weird, but he's
still doing it because he thinks it's really important and
he didn't care what you're.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Thinking about it. He wants to He wants you to
to get closer to God.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
And look, you know, I was a guy at that
age at one point too, and I'm sure Stan was thinking, hey, man,
this gives me a chance to see this girl and
hang out with her every day. So maybe then we
can go get a cup of coffee, and who knows,
one day, maybe we're holding hands together. So I understand that,
you know, Stan did it the right way, and I
(25:32):
appreciate the fact that he continued to do that. I
think that's really missing in our communities a lot right now,
because as men, I don't think we do a great
job of doing what Stan did, which was, hey, listen,
I'll be here every day in the hallway and you
and I are going to get in our Bible and
pray together.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Yeah. Yeah, oh, I still at your spot on both
of those people who said yes. And we when I'm
in North Carolina, we go to the Summit RDU with J. D.
Greer and and and there, and the Summit's one of
their mottos is put your yes on the table. And
that's exactly what he did. It's exactly what my grandmother did,
(26:13):
and and and it had nothing to do with them,
and it didn't have to do with some big impact plan.
It was just a step of obedience toward one person.
And do you know today already he called me and
he prayed. He sent me scripture. When I wake up,
their scripture in my phone, no matter where I am,
(26:34):
and he's going to call me, and he's going to
pray over me. And when I see him on Friday,
as soon as he wakes up, he's going to pray
over me. But then he's going to say what can
I do for you today? And and that's how it's been.
And we fight, I mean, you know, we're trying to
hold it all together. Like I think the enemy is
(26:55):
out to destroy marriages and families, and he's he is.
He has done it and is doing it to us
in every direction. But to your point, he puts his
yes on the table every day, and I'm still continuing
to learn from him about how to serve a spouse
because this guy will literally fix my little spark drink
(27:15):
in the morning, put a banana by it, put a
vitamin which don't take vitamins, and you still have that
sitting on the counter when I get up, and he
knows I don't really want to talk in the morning.
So yes, I'm very grateful for all the little things
and the fact that he is choosing to be a
servant continually.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
You let Stan know that that I'm coming after him
next to be a guest on Faith in the Zone,
and I'm going to send him an email, a text
or something.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Hey, last thing before we get to the break. In
your testimony, you talked about the college Bible study and
what that meant through this journey. You know, again, Deran,
when you talk about kids that are seventeen, eighteen, nineteen
years old and they're getting some freedom for the first
time and they're getting out of college campus, there's a
(28:07):
lot of temptation. There's a lot of different different avenues
you can go down. But when you went into the
college Bible study, look that now sets your part a
little bit. Now you're starting to kind of kind of
hang out with other people with similar beliefs that had
a big part of your journey and becoming a really
(28:28):
strong Christian.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
I would believe, yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Well, but I think also as a Division one college athlete,
especially in the time the error in which I played
basketball at Louisiana Tech, because that program was the Yukon
of the day back then. In fact, it was our
wind streak at fifty something for maybe that Yukon broke
twice actually, but we were Our schedules were consumed with
(28:57):
and that's before they had a bunch of rules about
when you couldn't couldn't like we were practicing after games
we won by thirty because he didn't like our defense.
So you know, my schedule was consumed with what the
college schedule required of my team and I and you know,
I would like to think that that's why we only
lost six games in four years and went to four
(29:18):
final fours. Now, albeit I was at the end of
the bench because God had a different assignment for me
than being the star on the floor. My assignment was
to guard Kim Monkey every day, and my coaches said,
if you don't do it if you don't. How didn't say, oh,
if you take a day off, we're sending you home.
I wasn't going home. There was nothing at home that
(29:40):
offered me any hope except I needed to get a
degree and be able to get a job to provide
for my family. So when we look at those small
windows of time where we could actually have Bible study
and I could get the word, it was like squeezing
it in in this one little deal. Now, granted, I
had teamates who would rather to go to parties, but
(30:01):
we also played for a coaching staff who said, if
I catch you drinking, snow skiing, a riding motorcycle, you're
going home. And again, I wasn't going home. So I
wasn't necessarily motivated by all the right things. But God
us that to make me ripe for his words. And
I really am grateful for the leadership on college campuses
who are making available Bible studies and for teammates who
(30:24):
invited me.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
You know, sometimes fear is a really good factor, right,
Sometimes fear and God puts fear in us, And the
fear of them sending.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
You home certainly was a great motivator. We're going to
get you a break. The other side of the break,
our special guest. She is Debbie Williamson, twenty twenty five
Golden Whistle Award winner. She has been really involved with
college athletics for a long time and doing a really
good job. On the other side of the break, we'll
(30:56):
talk a little bit more about her family. I've got
a couple questions regarding Stann and Courtney and Mark and
Nathan and her family. Will do that on the other
side of the break. This is Faith in the Zone
on Fox Sports nine twenty and your iHeart Radio App.
Welcome back to Faith in the Zone on Fox Sports
nine twenty and your iHeartRadio App. We're coming from the
(31:18):
Donovan and Jorgensen Heating and Cooling studios again. Any issues
you have with your HVAC system, contact somebody at Donovan
Jorgensen Heating and Cooling. Go to Donovan Jorgenson dot com.
Our special guest. This has been a really fun show
for me. This is as nice as I can be
to a basketball official or somebody who handles basketball officials.
(31:39):
I can tell you that she is w Williamson again,
twenty twenty five Golden Whistle Award winner, which is a
huge award, and I congratulate her on that. If I
can Debbie your kids, Doctor Courtney, you have a daughter
that's a doctor, and well done.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
What kind of doctor is she?
Speaker 3 (32:01):
She is a doctor of physical therapy and you know
I she's the firstborn and I actually got out of
coaching to raise her, and she kicked my butt for
her entire life because she and her will was so strong,
and I kept saying, Lord, I believe this will is
gonna strong. Will is going to serve her well if
(32:22):
we can both survive this. Uh. And it did? It did?
She has? She earned her doctor to physical therapy from
Duke and practices at a Duke clinic part time while
she raises. She and her husband Trent, raised their three
boys and she homeschools them the week. So yeah, which
I homeschooled my kids for eight years. So it's fun
(32:45):
to see her killing it and doing a way better
job than I ever did at everything.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
How about Mark, Mark and Nathan where do they live
and what are they doing?
Speaker 3 (32:57):
Well, it's it's really funny you ask. And the timing
of all this because Nathan and his wife Sabrina live
in right outside of Orlando Florida. He's a project manager
for an office supply company, well not office supply, but
a furniture company, and does all kinds of things with
his hands, and things they need and if they don't
need it, he can actually build it. So and he
(33:20):
is a godly woman. And they are serving the Lord
down in Saint Cloud, Florida. And I'm very proud that
they happen to actually be in my house this week,
or in our apartment. And I share my apartment with Mark,
who had this great idea, Hey, mom, you're never there.
Why don't you you know, why don't we share this space?
And I'm like, yeah, you know what, that's actually a
(33:40):
good idea. And so I don't know. He doesn't want
to live with his mom. He's our middle child. I'm
doing an awesome job at his job, and every day
managing in the pest control business, which in the South
we got a lot of that going on. Is using
him to teach and to He's like, I manage phobias.
(34:06):
I'm like, yes, you're very good at it. And it
is funny how God uses even people in fields we
never would have thought of to reduce fear. And I
see God sending him into people's homes, their yards, their
families here in North Carolina to bring light and to
(34:26):
bring peace through the business of pest control. But you know,
I just thank God stand managed our finances. We didn't
have a lot to be able to put these kids
through school after we actually put them in school, after
they were homeschooled for a years. Courty went in as
a freshman in high school. Mark is an eighth grader,
(34:46):
Nathan is a second grader. And really good schools, really
good private Christian schools, because we wanted them to get
get the word through school, which is why a homeschool.
I never planned to do that, but just use that
in a powerful way in my life and in their life,
and I'm just really over the top appreciative of that.
(35:11):
They've gone on and finished their college degrees. Nathan was
an agriculture business major at Louisiantech, Marx sports management at
University of West Alabama. Courtney I can't remember her undergraduate
degree at Campbell University, where Stan was ad for eleven years.
So you know, God moved us around, and we see
now the fruit of those moves, albeit not our choices
(35:33):
all the time, of what he did in our family
and through our family by moving us to all these
places we didn't even know existed.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Debbie, can you imagine when you walked down the aisle
when your grandmother had taken your kids, the grandkids to church,
and you walk down the aisle to accept Jesus Christ
of your personal savior. If I had met that Debbie
ten minutes after that and said, look, number of years
from now, you're gonna be on a radio show talking
(36:03):
about your faith, and you're gonna make a comment that
says I wanted the homeschool my kids so that they
would hear the words so I could I could control
that part. I think that Debbie a while ago would
have said, yeah, I don't see that happening.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
No, I said, you're nuts, like you're nuts like the
guy I met in college that stood out. Yeah. I
absolutely think that's hysterical. I really do.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
And I love the fact that these three kids are
doing great.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
My wife and I have two and six grandkids. How
many grandkids do you have?
Speaker 3 (36:39):
We have three?
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Three boys.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
Well, my daughter has four boys, and she's got a
software in high school, a freshman in high school, a
sixth grader, and a three year old, and the three
year old is mini me, Debbie, She's many. He is
mini me. He's a stocky, little dark haired kid that
will come up and hug me and say pop, I
love you, and then punch me in a bad spot
(37:03):
and I'm like what.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Well, his older brothers, you know, they mess with him.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
And then my son Matthew, who played college basketball at
Marinatha Baptist Bible College here in Wisconsin. Him and his wife,
had Leah Michael is six years old and we finally
had our first granddaughter two years ago, Hadley Grace. And
Hadley Grace is a little peanut. She's just this tiny
little thing, and she is in charge.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Debbie.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
I'm telling you, I think you know she's going to
be a perfect basketball official when she gets older because
she believes that she is in charge. Whether she has
the whistle and the striped shirt on, she believes that
she is in charge. And she lets me know it
as often as possible. For sure, Hey, when you would
stand when you guys have Thanksgiving or when you have
(37:51):
a family dinner, can you get away from talking about
college athletics a little bit?
Speaker 3 (37:57):
Well, you know it's funny because Corney played volleyball at
Campbell University when she was there. Mark played soccer at
West Alabama. Nathan was the baseball manager at Louisiana Tech
and and took care of the team in that way
while he was working a job at the Barnes taking
(38:19):
care of animals. But it's funny because none of them
chose the path of college athletics. And they point blank said,
we don't want to work twenty four to seven like
you all do. Y'all are never off. We want to balance,
we want we want family time, we want to see
each other more. And so outside of UH and they
(38:41):
chose sports that I didn't know anything about, so I
couldn't tell them what to do, which is awesome, But
outside of European soccer, we.
Speaker 4 (38:53):
Don't talk much about it that Stan will talk football
with them and they'll ask me aboutall and they know
the rules because they've heard me talk about the rules
all these years, and.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
So our conversations are like, there's no way that person
was legal, But then we'll go on to something else.
And in fact, our kids I can remember with them
running into the living room to the tattle on somebody
and Courtney's saying, you guys have to wait for a
media time out, and they'd run out and they'd come
back in during the media. So I love that's an understanding,
(39:25):
but it's it's so embedded in the fabric that we
don't spend a lot of time on it. But none
of us can get away from the fact that it's
who we are, and neither one of our kids. They
just chose a different path. And it's so refreshing, honestly
to listen to their conversations and listen to them talk
about the kinds of books they read, the kind of
(39:47):
programs they watch, the learning that's taking place where they're
learning the word, and what God's doing. It just blows
me away. And I look at Stan and I go, well,
I tell the Lord, like I married a really smart guy.
Like that all makes sense because I never even heard
of the half the things they talk about. And I
homeschooled these kids because they didn't get it for me.
(40:10):
But God just has a way of you know, it's
almost and I've never said this before, but it's like
you want to put on your your on my tombstone,
like I never could have planned this. And in fact,
in the Referee magazine article, I can't remember what that
line was, but it was something that I didn't even
(40:31):
remember it. So I went back and read it, and
then when I went back on YouTube and watched the
acceptance speech, I kept saying it again. But it was
something to the fact, like it has to be God
because I never could have done this or planned this,
Like it just doesn't make sense. That's the line. It
just doesn't make logical sense. But if it did, it
(40:52):
wouldn't be God's.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
It would not be I agree, Debbie. We got to
get to a break. We've got a very short segment
on the other side of the break, and we're going
to ask Step the same question we ask all of
our guests at the end of our show. This is
Faith in the Zone on Fox I'm sorry, she's Debbie Williamson.
I really should tell people who our guest is. De
Wie Williamson, twenty twenty five Golden Whistle Award winner and
(41:15):
doing great work with referees all over the country. I
can tell you that this is Faith in the Zone
on Fox Sports nine twenty in your iHeart Radio app.
Welcome back to Faith in the Zone on Fox Sports
nine twenty in your iHeartRadio app. Our special guest she
is Debbie Williamson twenty twenty five Golden Whistle Award winner
and Debbie, I love this question. Not all of our
(41:37):
guests love it because sometimes it's a hard decision. But
all the uniforms you've ever put out of your big
time student athlete, college, high school, big time student athlete,
if we put all those uniforms in a closet and
you get to pick one uniform out to get one
more game with that team, what you uniform do you pick?
Speaker 2 (41:56):
Who do you play against? And why?
Speaker 3 (42:00):
Man? I have really you know, a month ago, when
you told me I was going to get this question,
I was just my mind blown at what my answer
could be. And here I'm sitting a month later, and
I still don't know how to answer it. You know,
I think in part I would like to put on
that Louisiana Tech uniform and be able to play International
(42:21):
Championship because I sat the bench all the time and
actually get to play. And I'm so grateful for the
high school uniforms I had because they were my tickets
to college the way God designed it. But when I
think back on I played overseas, I played in Europe
for two summers. I played in Brazil and Puerto Rico
(42:42):
for a different summer with athletes and action in Europe
with a team called News Release. I honestly think it
would be my mus Release uniform as a player, because
we went into Army days prisons, we went, We did
so much ministry through the game of basketball. We shared
(43:05):
Christ every halftime and people came to know him. I
think it would be my athletes in action or my
usual Lease basketball jerseys because we did we saw the world,
we shared Jesus and we played basketball. That's who That's
the uniform. I would be my player uniform. But honestly,
(43:26):
it's hard to be an officiating jersey.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
Yes, go well, I would disagree with that.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
I like the first answer, the second one for an
overtired coach. Let's leave the referee, let's leave the whistle
in the closet. I love that answer. I really do. Hey, Debbie,
we are we're just about it out of time. I
can't thank you enough. I know how busy you are,
and we've talked a number of times, and for us
(43:53):
to be able to get forty five minutes with you,
it's very difficult for an hour and and I just
really think, thank you so much for your time. Wish
you and your family certainly Merry Christmas, Happy New Year,
thanksgivings around the corner. I wish you guys nothing but
love and safety during that time. And you let stand
(44:15):
know that he's going to be hearing from me here
in the next few weeks, and I'm going to see
if I can't get him to be to join us
and be a guest on Faith in His Zone again.
She's Debbie Williamson, the twenty twenty five Golden Whistle Award
winner and just a great guest for Faith in His Zone. Debbie,
thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
No, thank you very much, and I want to leave
you all with esther full fourteen where he says, if
you don't speak up now, I'm gonna get somebody else.
So let's all be faithful to testify what God's done
in our lives. And Mike, thank you for providing the
platform for me to be able to do that.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
Yes, ma'am, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
This is Faith in the Zone on Fox Sports nineteen
twenty and your iHeart Radio app.
Welcome to Faith in the Zone on Fox Sports nine
twenty in your iHeartRadio app. This is Mike mcgiven flying
solo this week Pastor Ken Keltner from Brookside Baptist Church.
Hopefully we'll be back in studio with me next week.
Coming from the Donovan and Jorgenson Heating and Cooling Studios.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Any issues you.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Have with your furnace, your HVAC system, your air conditioner,
go to Donovan Jorgenson dot com, the largest employee owned
h FAC company in the state of Wisconsin. So guys,
if you listen to my stuff, my high school sports show,
I do a little bit on the Home Improvement show
I do. It comes up every once in a while,
and certainly on Faith in the Zone. I talk about
(00:41):
my years as a high school basketball coach here in
the Milwaukee area. And I coached for a long time,
and I have a lot of friends that are basketball
officials that maybe back in the day when I was coaching,
I don't know if they would say they were my
friend because I used to raise my voice a little
bit at these boys and girls, by the UH and
women for that matter. And I'm going to have a
(01:03):
number of officials coming up to me after they hear
who are special guest is today. She is Debbie Williamson.
She is the twenty twenty five Golden Whistle Award winner,
which is a really big deal for basketball and officials
of every sport around the country. Debbie coordinates women's basketball
officials and a number of conferences throughout throughout the country,
(01:27):
and we are just so lucky to be able to
spend some time with her. Debbie, it's so good to
talk to you. Thank you so much for a few
minutes of your time.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
You're welcome. I really appreciate the opportunity. Thanks for having me.
And I coach too. And my referees didn't like me
when I was a coach either, so we're I get it.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Well, I'm looking at It's funny. I've done a lot
of background on you and everything that I read. I
have to tell you, I am such a big fan
of what you do in the servant leadership heart that
you have. Uh but boy, you are a big time athlete,
won a national championship, you were a captain, and and
I love the fact that when a four year player
(02:11):
at Louisiana Tech and from there went on to coach
for a while, and and certainly the things that you're
doing now and and you were an official for a
while as well, and the things that you're doing now
for a number of a number of conferences throughout the
country is really impressive to me. And Debbie, I have
to tell you when I read about some of the
things you do, I could not do what you do.
(02:33):
I'm not organized enough for what you do. And so
if you're ever looking for an assistant, do not call me.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Not there you go. Hey, tell me about the days.
First of all, where are you living now?
Speaker 1 (02:48):
And and talk to us a little bit about on
a day to day basis what you do.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Okay, Wow, that's loaded. Well. I tell people my husband
and my house living Houston and I live in a
Marriotte someplace. But my husband is the deputy athletic director
at Houston Christian University formerly Houston Baptist. So we actually
live in Paarland, Texas, and he is still in college athletics.
(03:17):
We've been married, we're on year thirty nine and he's
been in college athletics for thirty eight years. And we
do this together fully supportive in every way of how
God where God placed us, the assignment that he's given
us in college athletics, albeit in different places. But I
(03:38):
do also live part time and we have an apartment
in North Carolina because I'm an employee of the ACC.
And for example, tomorrow we have our monthly staff meeting
at the ACC where the entire staff gets together in
one boardroom, and tomorrow we're celebrating Thanksgiving and giving thanks there.
And then I'm contracted out by seven other conferences. This
(04:03):
is my I think you're seven with the accuh. And
along with it came the CIA UH and the Big South.
But it's your thirteen with the American and the Big East.
When the Biggest split and formed the American Athletic, I
was brought on as the supervisor officials for both of
(04:23):
those leagues. UH. And that's and then along the way
picked up the Atlantic Ten, the Big South, the Well,
I said, the Big South, CA, the IVY, and the
Metro Atlantic, the MAC. So it's been it's been a
fun ride. I UH. Being on the road a lot
(04:45):
with all of these leagues obviously is a lot. And
stand my husband is busy with UH with his piece.
But yeah, that's where we live and that's what I'm
doing today. Hey, Debbie, I don't remember the rest of
the question.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
No, that's okay. I have a follow up question.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
I do a high school sports show every Saturday from
nine to eleven here on Fox Sports nine twenty and
the iHeartRadio app. And I have to tell you a
number of officials throughout this area who I've known a
long time will either send me a text, or I'll
see him on the sidelines, or I'll seem up at
a game and they'll say, Hey, we need to come
(05:26):
on your show. And we have to figure out how
to get younger, young people, young both boys and girls,
interested in becoming a basketball official, or a football official,
or a softball umpire. And they said, look, we know
some of us old boys don't want to keep doing
this a lot longer, but there's nobody who's coming to
take our place. And I have a grandson, Keegan Bonner,
(05:50):
who is a sophomore in high school, and I picked
him up from school yesterday and he said, Pop, I
was looking to get a part time job, but I
think I'm going to take a class to become a
basket official. And I said that's awesome. I said, you can.
You know, you can make a lot of money if
you're willing to put the time in and become a
good official. Jebbie, do you find that all over the
(06:11):
country that that that we're starting to struggle to get
younger people to get involved in what is your business?
Speaker 3 (06:19):
I personally and being a part of the National Association
with Sport Officials, an organization right down the road from
you and Racine, they being having been on their board
and having been in close relationship with these guys. I
hear about the struggles at the lower levels, and I
say lower, I mean just in sense of age of participation,
(06:44):
rec league, high school, middle school, those numbers. And I
have always been appalled at what I'm hearing when I'm
in the NASO circle, and because those guys are doing
an amazing job reporting us in every sport, every level
across the world, and so when they are bringing these
(07:05):
things up and telling real life stories of all kinds,
I'm just like, it's jaw dropping. But I also think
that the work that Dana Pappus is doing at the
National Federation, that NCA Division three commissioners have started in
recruiting new officials, and they actually took a program that
(07:27):
I started in twenty sixteen called player to ref and
they made it way better than what I was doing.
So I see the recruiting efforts, but I personally haven't
experienced the shortage at Division one obviously because in fact
it's very competitive. I have way more people coming out
than what I can actually take or give games to,
(07:50):
and a lot of times games and assignments are driven
by how many games are stacked on a particular day location,
whether you know all the other things, but I personally
only know it from listening to other stories. So in
my world, I don't have a shortage now I had
(08:12):
do have a shortage, or we do have a shortage
at the NCAA Division IE level of people that have
a wealth of experience who are still as mobile as
our game is requiring of us right now with the athleticism,
even on the women's side, ramping up. So I've got
(08:35):
a shortage of what I see my top tier people doing,
but that's going to take time, like they've been doing
it for twenty five thirty years, and obviously, you know
I can't do what they do. I can't get up
and down the floor like they do. And there are
people my age doing it and doing it well, So
(08:55):
not a shortage in numbers, a shortage in experience and
in what our coaches or maybe even in the call accuracy,
because we chart call accuracy, just in what we would
term as the people we see at the top and
doing the higher games and getting plays a lot of
plays right. Why shortage is a different issue than numbers.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
We are talking with w Williamson again, the twenty twenty
five Golden Whistle Award winner, which is the highest honor
awarded by the National Association of Sports Officials, and I
tay congratulations to her for that. You know, Debbie, as
a coach, I used to if a referee was in
the correct position, blew the whistle and sold the call.
(09:42):
I don't think I ever said a work because even
if I disagree with the call, I thought, well, you know,
he or she was in the right position and they
saw something maybe I didn't see. What would drive me
crazy is if an official is not the right position,
blows the whistle and that hesitates for a couple seconds
and then and says like block, wait what wait, I
(10:03):
what do you mean, Block? You were in the right position.
Why do you hesitate after you blew the whistle for
that long? So that is as an old grandfather, a
sixth former retired basketball coach, that part of it used
to just like drive me nuts and and and again.
If they're if if they were in the right position
and they sold the call.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
What I like that.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
What they're trying to do in this area now, especially
at the high school level, is with some of the
younger guys, they team them up. So high school basketball
here it's it's three personal official crew and they try
to team up a younger, newer guy with a couple
of veterans, and then the veteran would come over h
before the game and say, hey, just see you know,
this guy's he this kid's gut, but he's you know,
(10:48):
he's still he's still learning and we're working with him.
So if you have any questions for him, you know,
come to me, or if you're going to light one
of us up, light me up. Don't worry about him.
Let's keep him, you know, active, and keep him. And
it was I think it was really good. And I'm
seeing some of those younger guys that I saw five, six, seven,
eight years ago now being one of the two veteran officials,
(11:12):
and I always say to them, I can't believe you're
still in this thing you were horrible six years ago.
And they're like, but give her you leave me alone.
I can't tee you up from where you're sitting now.
And you know, we would laugh a little bit. Hey,
before we get to a break. When you got the
this year, when you got the call saying listen, you're
gonna be the twenty twenty five Golden Whistle Award winner
(11:32):
that Can you just walk me through what that phone
call was.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Like for you?
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Well, it started out really frustrating because I have been
advocating for someone else to get the award, and I
had jumped through all the hoops, like I had never
really nominated anybody for this award. I did everything, so
I had to call and ask how to do it.
I did it. I advocated for this person. I was
really praying that God would allow that to happen for
(11:59):
this other person. I felt like they were very deserving.
I wanted them to get the recognition that I felt
like they had earned over the last fifty years. And
so the call was, hey, listen, thank you so much,
and uh and Bill top is a personal friend of mine,
so is Barry Manno, and uh and when Bill called
to say, hey, you know, thank you for all the
(12:22):
things you've done. We've had these discussions at the board meeting. Uh,
but your nominee is not going to be the recipient
this year. And I actually kind of went at him
he knows to expect from me, because I'm like, come
on now, like you guy, you better get out a
really good reason, because you know, and I you know,
(12:43):
I kind of can be a bulldog about some things
once abdigma teeth in, and but I also understand, like God,
nothing's going to happen that doesn't have God's approval period,
you know. So I'm like trying to back up not
be selfish, and he goes, well, actually we're looking at
a different date for this other person, but also need
(13:04):
to tell you. And then I felt a little better
about that, Like I didn't like that it wasn't happening
right now, but you know, I've been on my face
enough to understand what patience looks like. And he said,
but the board did unanimously vote for you, and I
could not talk. My first words was what, And I
(13:29):
don't I'm not surprised. Decently, I was blown away, and
I said, I'm going to have to call you back.
The only words I could get back was I have
to call you back. And I hit my knees right
there at my desk and cried for at least ten minutes,
which is a long time.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
To cry, yes.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
And just just face my face down to the Lord,
going what have you done? Like? What have you done? Lord? Like?
And all the you know here, I am telling God
that I don't deserve it, you know. And then I
had to call him and tell him I didn't deserve it.
And my husband's like dead stop. Like these people get
(14:08):
paid for their judgment, you know, they've made a lot
of money off their judgment because they're all like retired referee, yeah,
pro referees and NFL and all these other you know,
all National Hockey League like big time referee people. So
I think the short story is just completely just overwhelming unworthiness.
(14:35):
I guess it's kind of what. I hate to say
that because and in fact that the awards ceremony, Taraffini,
one of the board members who's a big time soccer,
she actually did brain mapping in the for the surgeons
at Duke. Like the woman's brilliant. She said, your job
tonight is to take a compliment and you're horrible at that.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Yeah, well I can hear that I and I agree
with your I agree with Stan your husband, like, hey, listen,
these guys, you know, they get paid to make good decisions.
They've made a really good decision here of our special guest,
the twenty twenty five Golden Whistle Award winner, and I
can tell you what that means. They honor an individual
(15:18):
organization that has gone above and beyond in overall integrity
and has made significant contributions to the betterment of officiating
at Debbie Williamson, the twenty twenty five Golden Whistle Award winners,
our special guest here on Faith in the Zone for
the entire hour, We're going to get to a break
other side of the break segment two, which is a
(15:39):
lot of people's favorite We're going to ask Debbie to
share her testimony. This is Faith in the Zone on
Fox Sports nine twenty and your iHeart Radio app. Welcome
back to Faith in the Zone on Fox Sports nine
twenty and your iHeartRadio App.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Again.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Mike mcgiffern here flying solo. Pastor Ken Keltner from Brookside
Baptist Church asked me to certainly let people know he's
going to be be back in studio soon. It will
Once he comes back, we'll explain his absence and let
people know why he has not been in studio with
me for a while, coming from the Donovan to Jorgans
(16:14):
and Heating and Cooling studios. Our special guest she is
Debbie Williamson. She is the twenty twenty five Golden Whistle
Award winner as just the biggest award you can get
as an official in the country. And when I read
what the definition of it beyond in overall integrity and
(16:35):
made significant contributions to the betterment of officiating And the
fact that Debbie was like nominating someone else and saying
to her husband, what are they doing?
Speaker 2 (16:44):
I'm not worthy for this.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
I love it that Stan said knock it off and
her friend said take a compliment one time.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
I really like that. Hey, Debbie.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
On Faith in the Zone, our second segment is by
far the one that I get the most reaction on,
and it's when we ask our guests to share their
testimony and if you would be so kind.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
Yeah, thank you so much. You're just being super gracious
in every way, and I really appreciate the opportunity to
share what Jesus has done in my life and hopefully
through my life, because I believe that's why I sit
in this chairs, because He gave me a platform for
(17:29):
me to be light, and that light can only be Him.
I have to tell you I grew up in a
very small town in Hayes, Louisiana. I know the article
in Referee says Homa was born in Homa, which is
about an hour and a half south of New Orleans,
but grew up in a small community called Hayes. I
(17:50):
had the largest graduating class of thirty four people. Wow,
and one of them was my sister. But she was
an amazing athlete. She was being recruited to play basketball.
We both played fast. We had to play whatever was
in season. I'm the oldest of five. That was what
child care looked like in this town. Hard working parents.
(18:10):
My mom was a postmaster at the local post office
in the Cajun culture. She was one of the few
people who could translate for the French speaking people who
could not speak English. Still, and my dad was a farmer,
a welder, just very hard working people. But they could
(18:31):
not get along. And at about fourteen, as I was
helping raise my siblings. My mom was working full time,
my dad was somewhere else working. We really just our
hope fell in sports because that was an outlet where
you could just run and get it all out, and
(18:51):
it was an opportunity to win, and we hated losing.
My senior year, we were I think forty six and
two or forty yeah, forty six and two, So we
played a lot of basketball because there was nothing else there.
And then as soon as we finished our last game,
we put our cleats on and we played softball. So
when it got time, I heard people got scholarships to
(19:14):
play athletics in college, and I had never seen a
college game. I didn't I have never seen, even on
TV what that looked like because my mom and dad
would watch only the Boston Celtics. But they loved basketball
and we had a love for it as well, and
it was a community thing. My grandmother in the meantime
(19:36):
would was the believer in our family, and she would
take us to church. And at about the time my
parents separated, there was evangelist that came through and while
we heard the gospel on the Sundays we were in church,
this guy, on a particular day was just was bringing it,
and I was so convicted, and I did not want
(19:59):
to leave the building that day without knowing Jesus as
my favors. So I just found out this year at
age sixty three, that apparently my three siblings followed me
up to the isle and they all accepted Jesus on
the same day. I don't even remember, probably because I
again was face down, but that's the day I got saved.
But I honestly did not really walk with the Lord.
(20:23):
Didn't even know what that looked like till I got
involved in Bible study. When I was in college and
I joined, I walked on. I was a softball scholarship
athlete at Louisiana Tech. I was a fast pitch pitcher,
and they allowed me to walk on the basketball team,
and I did both of those sports for two years.
But on the basketball team, there were some strong believers
at Louisiana Tech and they got me involved in Bible study,
(20:45):
and oh my goodness, and then I ended up at
Cannicut Camps in Missouri, where I met Jimmy Dykes, who
I just was with him on his program recently, and
that was the only reason I met Jimmy Dykes. So
that I could then forty years later come on and
testify to what Guy had done in the last forty years.
That's how strategic God is in our world. But I
(21:11):
started and understanding what it meant to actually walk and
how the freedom that God allowed. And I really continued
to struggle with what I understood from my culture, what
I understood from my pride and my sick heart. And
in the middle of all that, I met Stan. And
Stan came from a really good family, two parents, Bible
(21:35):
believing people that his mom played the piano, that were
in church all time, and he wanted to meet with
me every Wednesday morning outside my dorm room so we
could pray together and had nothing to do with dating.
And I thought he was so weird. I also does this,
you know, like this guy is weird. But I better
not say no because this is something I'm supposed to
(21:57):
be doing. And I saw yesday and the illustration of
a triangle where I'm at the right corner, He's at
the left corner, God's at the pinnacle. And the closer
we get to God, the closer we get to each other.
And needless to say, it took us. It took me
some time, he claimed that he under he knew that
we would be married all along, but through basketball he
(22:20):
played on the men's basketball team. God just used us
and worked us and worked our athletic careers together. But
more importantly, this man was more worried about what God
thought than what I thought. And that's what I knew
I needed for our marriage and.
Speaker 4 (22:35):
For us because I was clueless.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
And honestly, you know, here we are thirty nine married years,
not counting the four years I couldn't figure out what
to do with him and us working all the things.
But I can honestly say that I could have never
planned any of the things that happened to me, and
(22:58):
that in God's and He's not done. I have no
idea where I'll be sitting a year from now, because
every year I just go Lord. In fact, my alarm
is a song that says, I'll go wherever you want
me to go. I'll do whatever you want me to do,
because I need that reminder that I am committed to
doing this and that looks like a lot of different things,
(23:19):
and generally speaking, it looks nothing like anything easy. Nothing
I say, and I believe embrace the heart. I'm not
going to go look for hard things because they're hard.
But I am praying that God would give me the
courage to do the hard things so that I can
show who he is. And I'm not always really good
(23:42):
at that. But all I can do is what I
could do today.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Well that's kind of it's a beautiful testimony. I've got
some follow up questions. Your grandmother's first name, what was her?
What is or was her first name?
Speaker 3 (23:58):
Her name was Evelyn? Whoitmen?
Speaker 1 (24:02):
I have to I think Evelyn Whitman when you said, look,
my grandma's the one that took us into church, and
and and and I thank her and and I just say,
do you know. Look, I'm a grandparent of six grandkids now,
one granddaughter who's two and she's in charge, by the way,
and then five grandsons. And I can tell you that
(24:26):
that both my son and his wife and my daughter
and her husband and all these kids go to a
church called Spring Creek, and it's a really good church
for them. It's it's a great church for them. And
I love the fact that your grandmother would take your
take her grandkids to church because she believed that that
was really important. And I got to give Stan a
(24:47):
bunch of credit, because do you know how difficult it
is for a college basketball player to say, listen, I'm
gonna we're gonna pray together every morning, to think that
the girly he's praying with thinks he's weird, but he's
still doing it because he thinks it's really important and
he didn't care what you're.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Thinking about it. He wants to He wants you to
to get closer to God.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
And look, you know, I was a guy at that
age at one point too, and I'm sure Stan was thinking, hey, man,
this gives me a chance to see this girl and
hang out with her every day. So maybe then we
can go get a cup of coffee, and who knows,
one day, maybe we're holding hands together. So I understand that,
you know, Stan did it the right way, and I
(25:32):
appreciate the fact that he continued to do that. I
think that's really missing in our communities a lot right now,
because as men, I don't think we do a great
job of doing what Stan did, which was, hey, listen,
I'll be here every day in the hallway and you
and I are going to get in our Bible and
pray together.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Yeah. Yeah, oh, I still at your spot on both
of those people who said yes. And we when I'm
in North Carolina, we go to the Summit RDU with J. D.
Greer and and and there, and the Summit's one of
their mottos is put your yes on the table. And
that's exactly what he did. It's exactly what my grandmother did,
(26:13):
and and and it had nothing to do with them,
and it didn't have to do with some big impact plan.
It was just a step of obedience toward one person.
And do you know today already he called me and
he prayed. He sent me scripture. When I wake up,
their scripture in my phone, no matter where I am,
(26:34):
and he's going to call me, and he's going to
pray over me. And when I see him on Friday,
as soon as he wakes up, he's going to pray
over me. But then he's going to say what can
I do for you today? And and that's how it's been.
And we fight, I mean, you know, we're trying to
hold it all together. Like I think the enemy is
(26:55):
out to destroy marriages and families, and he's he is.
He has done it and is doing it to us
in every direction. But to your point, he puts his
yes on the table every day, and I'm still continuing
to learn from him about how to serve a spouse
because this guy will literally fix my little spark drink
(27:15):
in the morning, put a banana by it, put a
vitamin which don't take vitamins, and you still have that
sitting on the counter when I get up, and he
knows I don't really want to talk in the morning.
So yes, I'm very grateful for all the little things
and the fact that he is choosing to be a
servant continually.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
You let Stan know that that I'm coming after him
next to be a guest on Faith in the Zone,
and I'm going to send him an email, a text
or something.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Hey, last thing before we get to the break. In
your testimony, you talked about the college Bible study and
what that meant through this journey. You know, again, Deran,
when you talk about kids that are seventeen, eighteen, nineteen
years old and they're getting some freedom for the first
time and they're getting out of college campus, there's a
(28:07):
lot of temptation. There's a lot of different different avenues
you can go down. But when you went into the
college Bible study, look that now sets your part a
little bit. Now you're starting to kind of kind of
hang out with other people with similar beliefs that had
a big part of your journey and becoming a really
(28:28):
strong Christian.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
I would believe, yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Well, but I think also as a Division one college athlete,
especially in the time the error in which I played
basketball at Louisiana Tech, because that program was the Yukon
of the day back then. In fact, it was our
wind streak at fifty something for maybe that Yukon broke
twice actually, but we were Our schedules were consumed with
(28:57):
and that's before they had a bunch of rules about
when you couldn't couldn't like we were practicing after games
we won by thirty because he didn't like our defense.
So you know, my schedule was consumed with what the
college schedule required of my team and I and you know,
I would like to think that that's why we only
lost six games in four years and went to four
(29:18):
final fours. Now, albeit I was at the end of
the bench because God had a different assignment for me
than being the star on the floor. My assignment was
to guard Kim Monkey every day, and my coaches said,
if you don't do it if you don't. How didn't say, oh,
if you take a day off, we're sending you home.
I wasn't going home. There was nothing at home that
(29:40):
offered me any hope except I needed to get a
degree and be able to get a job to provide
for my family. So when we look at those small
windows of time where we could actually have Bible study
and I could get the word, it was like squeezing
it in in this one little deal. Now, granted, I
had teamates who would rather to go to parties, but
(30:01):
we also played for a coaching staff who said, if
I catch you drinking, snow skiing, a riding motorcycle, you're
going home. And again, I wasn't going home. So I
wasn't necessarily motivated by all the right things. But God
us that to make me ripe for his words. And
I really am grateful for the leadership on college campuses
who are making available Bible studies and for teammates who
(30:24):
invited me.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
You know, sometimes fear is a really good factor, right,
Sometimes fear and God puts fear in us, And the
fear of them sending.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
You home certainly was a great motivator. We're going to
get you a break. The other side of the break,
our special guest. She is Debbie Williamson, twenty twenty five
Golden Whistle Award winner. She has been really involved with
college athletics for a long time and doing a really
good job. On the other side of the break, we'll
(30:56):
talk a little bit more about her family. I've got
a couple questions regarding Stann and Courtney and Mark and
Nathan and her family. Will do that on the other
side of the break. This is Faith in the Zone
on Fox Sports nine twenty and your iHeart Radio App.
Welcome back to Faith in the Zone on Fox Sports
nine twenty and your iHeartRadio App. We're coming from the
(31:18):
Donovan and Jorgensen Heating and Cooling studios again. Any issues
you have with your HVAC system, contact somebody at Donovan
Jorgensen Heating and Cooling. Go to Donovan Jorgenson dot com.
Our special guest. This has been a really fun show
for me. This is as nice as I can be
to a basketball official or somebody who handles basketball officials.
(31:39):
I can tell you that she is w Williamson again,
twenty twenty five Golden Whistle Award winner, which is a
huge award, and I congratulate her on that. If I
can Debbie your kids, Doctor Courtney, you have a daughter
that's a doctor, and well done.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
What kind of doctor is she?
Speaker 3 (32:01):
She is a doctor of physical therapy and you know
I she's the firstborn and I actually got out of
coaching to raise her, and she kicked my butt for
her entire life because she and her will was so strong,
and I kept saying, Lord, I believe this will is
gonna strong. Will is going to serve her well if
(32:22):
we can both survive this. Uh. And it did? It did?
She has? She earned her doctor to physical therapy from
Duke and practices at a Duke clinic part time while
she raises. She and her husband Trent, raised their three
boys and she homeschools them the week. So yeah, which
I homeschooled my kids for eight years. So it's fun
(32:45):
to see her killing it and doing a way better
job than I ever did at everything.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
How about Mark, Mark and Nathan where do they live
and what are they doing?
Speaker 3 (32:57):
Well, it's it's really funny you ask. And the timing
of all this because Nathan and his wife Sabrina live
in right outside of Orlando Florida. He's a project manager
for an office supply company, well not office supply, but
a furniture company, and does all kinds of things with
his hands, and things they need and if they don't
need it, he can actually build it. So and he
(33:20):
is a godly woman. And they are serving the Lord
down in Saint Cloud, Florida. And I'm very proud that
they happen to actually be in my house this week,
or in our apartment. And I share my apartment with Mark,
who had this great idea, Hey, mom, you're never there.
Why don't you you know, why don't we share this space?
And I'm like, yeah, you know what, that's actually a
(33:40):
good idea. And so I don't know. He doesn't want
to live with his mom. He's our middle child. I'm
doing an awesome job at his job, and every day
managing in the pest control business, which in the South
we got a lot of that going on. Is using
him to teach and to He's like, I manage phobias.
(34:06):
I'm like, yes, you're very good at it. And it
is funny how God uses even people in fields we
never would have thought of to reduce fear. And I
see God sending him into people's homes, their yards, their
families here in North Carolina to bring light and to
(34:26):
bring peace through the business of pest control. But you know,
I just thank God stand managed our finances. We didn't
have a lot to be able to put these kids
through school after we actually put them in school, after
they were homeschooled for a years. Courty went in as
a freshman in high school. Mark is an eighth grader,
(34:46):
Nathan is a second grader. And really good schools, really
good private Christian schools, because we wanted them to get
get the word through school, which is why a homeschool.
I never planned to do that, but just use that
in a powerful way in my life and in their life,
and I'm just really over the top appreciative of that.
(35:11):
They've gone on and finished their college degrees. Nathan was
an agriculture business major at Louisiantech, Marx sports management at
University of West Alabama. Courtney I can't remember her undergraduate
degree at Campbell University, where Stan was ad for eleven years.
So you know, God moved us around, and we see
now the fruit of those moves, albeit not our choices
(35:33):
all the time, of what he did in our family
and through our family by moving us to all these
places we didn't even know existed.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Debbie, can you imagine when you walked down the aisle
when your grandmother had taken your kids, the grandkids to church,
and you walk down the aisle to accept Jesus Christ
of your personal savior. If I had met that Debbie
ten minutes after that and said, look, number of years
from now, you're gonna be on a radio show talking
(36:03):
about your faith, and you're gonna make a comment that
says I wanted the homeschool my kids so that they
would hear the words so I could I could control
that part. I think that Debbie a while ago would
have said, yeah, I don't see that happening.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
No, I said, you're nuts, like you're nuts like the
guy I met in college that stood out. Yeah. I
absolutely think that's hysterical. I really do.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
And I love the fact that these three kids are
doing great.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
My wife and I have two and six grandkids. How
many grandkids do you have?
Speaker 3 (36:39):
We have three?
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Three boys.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
Well, my daughter has four boys, and she's got a
software in high school, a freshman in high school, a
sixth grader, and a three year old, and the three
year old is mini me, Debbie, She's many. He is
mini me. He's a stocky, little dark haired kid that
will come up and hug me and say pop, I
love you, and then punch me in a bad spot
(37:03):
and I'm like what.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Well, his older brothers, you know, they mess with him.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
And then my son Matthew, who played college basketball at
Marinatha Baptist Bible College here in Wisconsin. Him and his wife,
had Leah Michael is six years old and we finally
had our first granddaughter two years ago, Hadley Grace. And
Hadley Grace is a little peanut. She's just this tiny
little thing, and she is in charge.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Debbie.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
I'm telling you, I think you know she's going to
be a perfect basketball official when she gets older because
she believes that she is in charge. Whether she has
the whistle and the striped shirt on, she believes that
she is in charge. And she lets me know it
as often as possible. For sure, Hey, when you would
stand when you guys have Thanksgiving or when you have
(37:51):
a family dinner, can you get away from talking about
college athletics a little bit?
Speaker 3 (37:57):
Well, you know it's funny because Corney played volleyball at
Campbell University when she was there. Mark played soccer at
West Alabama. Nathan was the baseball manager at Louisiana Tech
and and took care of the team in that way
while he was working a job at the Barnes taking
(38:19):
care of animals. But it's funny because none of them
chose the path of college athletics. And they point blank said,
we don't want to work twenty four to seven like
you all do. Y'all are never off. We want to balance,
we want we want family time, we want to see
each other more. And so outside of UH and they
(38:41):
chose sports that I didn't know anything about, so I
couldn't tell them what to do, which is awesome, But
outside of European soccer, we.
Speaker 4 (38:53):
Don't talk much about it that Stan will talk football
with them and they'll ask me aboutall and they know
the rules because they've heard me talk about the rules
all these years, and.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
So our conversations are like, there's no way that person
was legal, But then we'll go on to something else.
And in fact, our kids I can remember with them
running into the living room to the tattle on somebody
and Courtney's saying, you guys have to wait for a
media time out, and they'd run out and they'd come
back in during the media. So I love that's an understanding,
(39:25):
but it's it's so embedded in the fabric that we
don't spend a lot of time on it. But none
of us can get away from the fact that it's
who we are, and neither one of our kids. They
just chose a different path. And it's so refreshing, honestly
to listen to their conversations and listen to them talk
about the kinds of books they read, the kind of
(39:47):
programs they watch, the learning that's taking place where they're
learning the word, and what God's doing. It just blows
me away. And I look at Stan and I go, well,
I tell the Lord, like I married a really smart guy.
Like that all makes sense because I never even heard
of the half the things they talk about. And I
homeschooled these kids because they didn't get it for me.
(40:10):
But God just has a way of you know, it's
almost and I've never said this before, but it's like
you want to put on your your on my tombstone,
like I never could have planned this. And in fact,
in the Referee magazine article, I can't remember what that
line was, but it was something that I didn't even
(40:31):
remember it. So I went back and read it, and
then when I went back on YouTube and watched the
acceptance speech, I kept saying it again. But it was
something to the fact, like it has to be God
because I never could have done this or planned this,
Like it just doesn't make sense. That's the line. It
just doesn't make logical sense. But if it did, it
(40:52):
wouldn't be God's.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
It would not be I agree, Debbie. We got to
get to a break. We've got a very short segment
on the other side of the break, and we're going
to ask Step the same question we ask all of
our guests at the end of our show. This is
Faith in the Zone on Fox I'm sorry, she's Debbie Williamson.
I really should tell people who our guest is. De
Wie Williamson, twenty twenty five Golden Whistle Award winner and
(41:15):
doing great work with referees all over the country. I
can tell you that this is Faith in the Zone
on Fox Sports nine twenty in your iHeart Radio app.
Welcome back to Faith in the Zone on Fox Sports
nine twenty in your iHeartRadio app. Our special guest she
is Debbie Williamson twenty twenty five Golden Whistle Award winner
and Debbie, I love this question. Not all of our
(41:37):
guests love it because sometimes it's a hard decision. But
all the uniforms you've ever put out of your big
time student athlete, college, high school, big time student athlete,
if we put all those uniforms in a closet and
you get to pick one uniform out to get one
more game with that team, what you uniform do you pick?
Speaker 2 (41:56):
Who do you play against? And why?
Speaker 3 (42:00):
Man? I have really you know, a month ago, when
you told me I was going to get this question,
I was just my mind blown at what my answer
could be. And here I'm sitting a month later, and
I still don't know how to answer it. You know,
I think in part I would like to put on
that Louisiana Tech uniform and be able to play International
(42:21):
Championship because I sat the bench all the time and
actually get to play. And I'm so grateful for the
high school uniforms I had because they were my tickets
to college the way God designed it. But when I
think back on I played overseas, I played in Europe
for two summers. I played in Brazil and Puerto Rico
(42:42):
for a different summer with athletes and action in Europe
with a team called News Release. I honestly think it
would be my mus Release uniform as a player, because
we went into Army days prisons, we went, We did
so much ministry through the game of basketball. We shared
(43:05):
Christ every halftime and people came to know him. I
think it would be my athletes in action or my
usual Lease basketball jerseys because we did we saw the world,
we shared Jesus and we played basketball. That's who That's
the uniform. I would be my player uniform. But honestly,
(43:26):
it's hard to be an officiating jersey.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
Yes, go well, I would disagree with that.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
I like the first answer, the second one for an
overtired coach. Let's leave the referee, let's leave the whistle
in the closet. I love that answer. I really do. Hey, Debbie,
we are we're just about it out of time. I
can't thank you enough. I know how busy you are,
and we've talked a number of times, and for us
(43:53):
to be able to get forty five minutes with you,
it's very difficult for an hour and and I just
really think, thank you so much for your time. Wish
you and your family certainly Merry Christmas, Happy New Year,
thanksgivings around the corner. I wish you guys nothing but
love and safety during that time. And you let stand
(44:15):
know that he's going to be hearing from me here
in the next few weeks, and I'm going to see
if I can't get him to be to join us
and be a guest on Faith in His Zone again.
She's Debbie Williamson, the twenty twenty five Golden Whistle Award
winner and just a great guest for Faith in His Zone. Debbie,
thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
No, thank you very much, and I want to leave
you all with esther full fourteen where he says, if
you don't speak up now, I'm gonna get somebody else.
So let's all be faithful to testify what God's done
in our lives. And Mike, thank you for providing the
platform for me to be able to do that.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
Yes, ma'am, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
This is Faith in the Zone on Fox Sports nineteen
twenty and your iHeart Radio app.
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