Doc Schweitzer Award
The Robert "DOC" Schweitzer is the DLOA's Highest Honor. It is named for the Founder of the DLOA. The award embodies everything our association and lacrosse stands for; integrity, sportsmanship, brotherhood, and honor. The Doc Schweitzer Award will not necessarily be an annual award. The DLOA board of directors will determine when the award will be bestowed. When given, the award will be given to an official that has exemplified everything Doc Schweitzer believed in and stood for in the field of officiating as well as life!
Recipients of the DOC Schweitzer Award
2014 Robert Doc Schweitzer
Robert "Doc" Schweitzer is the founding father of the modern day Delaware Lacrosse Officials Association. Doc is one of the biggest influences on the majority of officals in District 3 college officiating most definitely in high school lacrosse officials in the state of Delaware. In locker rooms across PA, NJ, DE, and NY you can hear time and time again one official in a crew saying, “Doctor Schweitzer, took me to my first college game, too”. In high school and college officiating Doc loved to work the games other officials would shy away from. Doc considered himself the commissioner of a certain league. If there were two teams that were, how should I say, not very talented, he was on that game and he loved it. He joked with many of us that if you were in his college crew after your third year of officiating, you need to be careful because he had his orders to start prepping you to be his replacement as the commissioner, the RFL.
Doc’s motto as an official, can be applied to him as a professor, and a banker and they truly are words to live by no matter what your occupation or hobby, on countless long car rides to college games, short car rides to high school games, on the phone after a game, at a meeting, or just sitting around a table, discussions about officiating inevitably turned to not looking for trouble and those famous words that will continue to be uttered were simply stated, Don’t look for fly excrement in the pepper. Doc always said let the game and life come to you. Sit back and enjoy. Doc did just that, he enjoyed life, loved his family, this University, baseball, lacrosse, and football!!
2016 William "Billy" Squires
If Doc Schweitzer is considered the founding father of the Delaware Lacrosse Officials Association, then William "Billy" Squires was his Master at Arms for a very long time. Billy has officiated in more games than he cares to count, but he can remember just about every one of them. For a long time Bully was a main stay in the state play-off picture and officiated in numerous semi-final and championship games. Billy has served as the President, Vice-President, and Secretary for the DLOA and is currently serving as a senior observer, where he can continue to pass on his vast knowledge of officiating to our younger up and coming officials. For a very brief time, we did lose Billy to the dark side, yes, he was a high school coach in the state of Delaware. There was a school that was in need of a coach and if Billy had not stepped up, the team was in jeopardy of not being able to play the season. Luckily for us, we were able to persuade him back to the good side and come back to officiating as an observer to help improve the third and most important team on the field. Billy was awarded the Doc Schweitzer Award due to his impact on officials and officiating in the state of Delaware.