Biography
Al Benson has stuffed so many lives into one. He's been athlete, seaman, educator, administrator and, of course, a football official; the part of his very busy and accomplished professional life that this year brings him the National Football Foundation Outstanding Officials Award.
Football has been a key element in Benson's life for over 40 years. He played the sport as a school kid and as an end for Wesleyan University. Football wasn't his only sport. Benson was also a first baseman and basketball center. But it was a road with many curves and many, many football fields, that brought him to this year's Officials Award.
A native of Hamden, CT, Benson went from high school to prep school and then in 1944, he was drafted by the Navy. His tour of duty took him to the Pacific theater as a signalman third class. He said goodbye to the sea at the end of World War II and in 1947 enrolled at Wesleyan. Thoughts of a career were interrupted when, just one week after his graduation in 1951, the Navy called Benson back into the service and sent him to the Mediterranean. This time his signalman duties ultimately did lead to a career. Among his duties aboard ship was teaching fellow sailors the intricacies of ship to ship and to shore signaling. "The teaching was something I really liked," he recalls and after his 22 month stint, Benson returned to Wesleyan. By 1955 he had earned his master's degree; arts in education.
He put that degree and knowledge to work teaching 8th and 9th grade English in Middletown, CT. Benson spent five years there and it was during that time his interest in officiating football began. Several of Benson's teaching colleague/friends officiated junior high school games and for their $3.00 a game fee they had to supply the chain crew. Three of his friends who reffed games asked him to come along and pull chains. He did and he enjoyed it.
Benson's friends, at his urging, also taught him officiating. He turned out to be as accomplished a student when it came to running a football game as he was a teacher in the classroom. Over time, Benson found himself climbing the ladder of football officiating. High school games led to junior college, then college and then even more.
But, there were parallel professional paths developing simultaneously. As Benson's game experience was expanding, so was his teaching career. After five years at Middletown, Benson went back to school. He enrolled in a two year educational supervision and leadership doctoral program at Harvard. His graduation brought him a four year junior high school principal's job in Darien, CT.
That led him to West Reading and then Framingham, MA, where he was superintendent of schools. He ran the school system in Framingham for 12 good and satisfying years until he retired in 1982. And all that time, he was still running up and down all of the major college football fields in the east as well as working such post season premiere games as the Tangerine and Gator Bowls, establishing and then embellishing a reputation as one the finest officials, in college football.
When he left Framingham, Benson thought he was putting his nameplate in storage, but another system called and he went there for a year before he got another call; one that would change and occupy the next 14 years of his life. It was from the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Association and it was not only fortunate, it was timely. In those days, in the east, once you reached 57 you were pulled off field. Benson had just turned 57.
And that's when Scotty Whitelaw, ECAA commissioner, called and invited him to take over the just opened job of assistant commissioner and supervisor of officials for the conference. So, after 25 years in public education and 19 years as a Division I-A football official, Benson began a new professional journey.
It was a perfect melding. Benson's extraordinary abilities as en administrator and a football official meshed into the one job. And for the first time, in a long time, he didn't have to hear and bear the complaints of coaches, which led to one thing that abruptly changed Benson's Monday morning routine.
Over the years, Benson worked many games of one particular coach, one of the East's most famous names. Benson declined to identify the coach, but every Monday morning (after he had worked one of the coaches' games) the phone would ring at 8 o'clock and for next 15 to 30 minutes the coach would go through the list of rulings he thought went against his team. Said Benson, "The coach did not yell. He wasn't whining. He didn't badger me. He just wanted me to hear him out, just to get it off his chest. Then he would end the call by saying 'okay, Al that's it. Call you next Monday:
Benson does not miss that Monday 8 AM ritual.
At the ECAA, in addition to his football supervising and assigning duties, Benson was also the head supervisor for basketball and coordinated the Division III football championships. He regularly conducted officiating and rules clinics throughout the east and served as a member of the national NCAA Football Rules Committee, working on the updating and language of football rules manuals.
After 14 years, Benson retired from the ECAA. During his tenure, Benson's contributions to the art of officiating were recognized with such honors as the Butch Lambert Award, the George C. Carens Award, the George Shiebler Award and the NFF's Northern Connecticut Chapter Distinguished American Award.
But this man, who had retired from two distinct and successful careers. was not yet done. Benson still spends his Saturdays involved with football; now on behalf of the National Football League. Just as teams scout players, the NFL scouts officials. Benson's Saturday job is to go to college games in the east and evaluate officials who have job applications pending with the NFL. And he throws in observations about other officials who tweak his attention and might possibly be of interest to the league. He should know.
Always an Easterner, and always an avid golfer, Benson and his wife Sally live in West Barnstable, Mass.
