In Memoriam: Gino D’Ippolito
Thank you to Gino’s son Dominic D’Ippolito and to Michael Machado for their help in memorializing Gino
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Gino started refereeing in 1963 in Eastern New York, he was playing in a game and was unhappy with the referee’s performance. After the game, he told the referee how he {Gino} felt about his {the referee’s} officiating. The referee’s response was, “If you think you could have done a better job, why don’t you become a referee yourself?” So Gino did just that…
Three months later, in November 1963, Gino was assigned as a linesman for a local game. The referee and the other AR did not show up, so he became the referee. Gino’s father and brother were there at that game and he tells his son Dominic that he remembered being afraid and his father telling him the spectators called him all sorts of names. While that game was tough, he refereed the same two teams the following year and that time no one was complaining.
Gino quickly fell in love with being a referee, and in 1968 was invited to the pros. About a month later, Eddie Pearson called him to be in a pro game. Gino asked him which AR he would replacing, and Pearson told him “No, you are the referee.” The game was in Washington, D.C. The teams were the Atlanta Chiefs featuring Phil Woosnam versus the Washington Darts featuring Johnny Kerr and by 1971, Gino was recommended for FIFA. In order to qualify for the FIFA list at that time, you needed to successfully officiate two international matches. His first was the United States versus New Zealand and the second was the United States versus China. China was not in good standing with FIFA at that time, they were in and out of FIFA and when he refereed this game (US vs. China), they weren’t in good standing, so the match did not count. Because of this technicality, Gino did not make it onto the FIFA list, so he had to wait for the next opportunity. In 1975 it finally happened. Gino refereed two successful games in a tournament in Costa Rica and was awarded hisFIFA badge. The games were Costa Rica versus Guatemala and Costa Rica versus Ecuador.
Since then, Gino refereed in every soccer final the USA has to offer - MISL, NASL, ASL, etc. The only final off Gino’s long list of accomplishments was an NCAA final.
In 1980, he was chosen to referee in the 1980 Moscow Olympics in the USSR, but an Olympic boycott by the USA kept him from his dream of officiating in the Olympics. Gino was also an official at Pele's first and last games as a New York Cosmos player. His first game was inn Randall’s Island, New York, and was a linesman. He was also the referee for Pele’s last game in Giants Stadium and televised worldwide!
Gino’s officiating resume was quite thorough as he was an official in over 600 NASL games (middles and lines) from1968 – 1984, officiated the Copa Liberators final (about the year 1978-1980), and Boca Juniors (Argentina) versus Bangu (Brazil). Gino had the tremendous opportunity to travel to over 29 countries to referee international games, as well as 15 World Cup Qualifying matches. Domestically he was an official for over 1500 MISL/MSL/CISL games from 1978 – 2001, and a full time referee in the MISL from 1979-1986. Fun fact-in the 1980’s the MISL had several series of trading cards, and of course there was a Gino D’Ippolito trading card! Gino was also a FIFA Referee from 1975 – 1985, as well as a US Soccer National Assessor beginning in 1985 and an inspector/assessor at every level of the beautiful game.
Those closest to Papa Gino remember him as a humble man who was a legend, icon, and trailblazer in the referee community! Gino will be deeply missed and we send our condolences to his family and friends during this difficult time.
