| Overall UK Wins: 25 | Overall UK Losses: 15 | Win % 62.5 |
Date of Birth: January 7, 1895
Date of Death: December 28, 1971
Hometown: Louisville, KY

For a generalized listing of officials, please consult this page.

Obituary - Louisville Courier-Journal (December 31, 1971)

HEAD, John W.

Tues. Dec. 28th, 1971, at the Jewish Hospital. Husband of Genevieve Walts Head. Brother of Ray Head, Lancaster, Penn. Service Fri. Dec. 31st 1971, at 2 p.m. at the Highland Funeral Home, 3331 Taylorsville Rd., (enter parking area from Dutchman's Lane). Interment in Resthaven Cemetery.

Biography - Silenced Whistle by Clarence Royalty (Kentucky High School Athlete, December 1950)



John Head's whistle has been silenced. The veteran Louisville football official has retired after thirty-five years of whistle-tooting.

Head officiated his first football game back in 1916. And, strange as it seems, it was in the Western Conference. So, you might say, he started from the top; and, you might add, he's been there ever since.

Head got his start as a football official while he served as sports editor of the Indianapolis Star. One day he returned from lunch and found on his desk a telegram. It read: "Will you officiate in our game with Franklin Saturday?" It was signed by Jumbo Stiehm, Indiana University athletic director and football coach.

Surprised but elated, Head accepted the assignment in a jiffy. True, he had never worked a football game, but he did know the rules from A to Z, as his job as a sport writer required.

You might think that Stiehm was something of a goof to make such an offer to a man who had never officiated a football game. He wasn't though. It was just that he had confidence in Head's ability. He held Head in high esteem as a basketball official (he had been serving as such in the Western Conference), and figured that he could do just as good a job as a football official.

According to developments, Stiehm was right. Head did a good job in the Indiana-Franklin game, won by Indiana, incidentally, and thereafter was given regular assignment in the Western Conference.

Head estimate's he's worked a thousand football games in thirty-five years, often as many as five on a week-end. In thirty years as a basketball official he's worked about three thousand games. His last game was the Indiana-Kentucky High School All-Star game at Indianapolis in 1942. Indiana won, 43-42, he recalls. Head's work both as a football and basketball arbiter, naturally, has taken him on the road many times. He's worked in at least a dozen states.

Head's interest in football and basketball hasn't been confined to his own officiating. He has done a lot of work toward making things rosier for officials and also the coaches and athletic directors who hire them.

He was instrumental in the organization of the Western Kentucky Official's Association in 1926, now being efficiently run by J.O. Lewis, superintendent of schools at Mayfield. Although they are now independent of each other, the Louisville basketball and football officials were organized by Head into a single group in 1923. These groups, naturally, make the job easier for the guy looking for a capable official. All he has to do is contact a group's secretary and, pronto, he has a man. As for the official himself, the organization makes it possible for him to get more work.

Yes, the strenuous job of football officiating is over for John Head. He seems content to do his most strenuous work in his swivel chair at Sutcliffe & Co. in Louisville, where he is sales director of high school and college athletic equipment.

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