Find your passion. We say it often.
For Steve Ganson ’73, the roundabout path to his passion started with a class he didn’t want to take.
“When I started back in 1969, there was still a physical education requirement, and I did not want to take it,” Ganson said. “The only way around it was to be a manager, so I signed up for basketball even though I didn’t know a lot about the game.”
He started under Rusty Nicholls doing the things managers usually do. Halfway through that 1969-70 campaign, he was promoted when the two senior managers quit. For the next three seasons he went to practices, kept statistics at games and hosted officials.
In his senior year, Snowy Simpson took over, and during a Saturday morning practice the new head coach instructed Ganson to go downstairs and get a striped shirt and a whistle. He was going to referee the scrimmage.
“What are you talking about,” Ganson asked? “I’ve never done that before.”
“Well, in an hour you are never going to be able to make that statement again,” Simpson replied.
That first scrimmage must have been a player’s dream, as Ganson claims to have only called three-second violations. No fouls. No traveling. Nothing else.
Three days later another scrimmage was scheduled. Go get your whistle. “And I was hooked,” he said.
Ganson started refereeing intramurals that spring and upon moving to Arizona after graduation became involved in city league basketball and softball.
Eventually, he found his way to Tucson where he got involved in high school officiating and completed his 38th season as a high school basketball referee on Feb. 4.
Along the way, he added volleyball to his duties, and for the past 13 years has served as the Arizona Interscholastic Association commissioner of officials for Southern Arizona. All told, he supervises 66 schools and a total of 400 officials for the school year in volleyball, basketball and baseball.
“It happened because I was lazy and I didn’t want to take P.E.,” Ganson said. “That’s what got me in and I’m still active today.”
Fellow Wabash man Pat Weber ’76, the athletic director at Tucson’s Flowing Wells High School, says that the job can be demanding. Not only is Ganson responsible for assigning officials for every single athletic activity in Southern Arizona, he’s also the go-to guy for rules interpretations for those three sports.
Needless to say, it can become time consuming with weekly meetings, clarifications, even the weather.
“He’s excellent in terms of organization and communication,” said Weber. “Very effective in both areas. It’s quite demanding and he’s done an absolutely great job in that role.”
After enjoying his place in the game for the last 42 seasons, Ganson retired from basketball officiating with his final game this season. Though he still loves the game, the experience gained over the last four decades told him it was time to hang up the whistle.
“I figured out that each year I get older, but the players stay the same age, and I can’t quite keep up with them as I would like,” Ganson said. “Plus, I get to go out on my own terms.
“You’re never sure how retirement will feel until it’s really over, and that probably will hit next season,” he continued. “But I can’t give thanks enough to that Wabash P.E. requirement in 1969.”
For some time, Ganson has described his life as one with three part-time jobs: the scheduling and administrative duties, which he will continue to oversee post-retirement, officiating, and his business. When he isn’t dealing in officiating, Ganson is the owner of Arizona Imprintables, a promotional product company – “we do stuff with your name on it,” he says – with more than 800,000 items on its web site.
Sure, supply, demand and the whims of the economy can make things tough on the Cincinnati native who majored in economics, but there is a lot of creativity that goes into making a lasting impression for clients.
“There is quite a bit of creativity in my business,” Ganson said. “That’s one of the things I tell prospective clients. Just give us an idea of what you might be looking for and let us try to find something unique for your business. We take pride in coming up with something memorable.”
Wabash certainly gave him something memorable in exchange for his education. Not only was he involved in athletics as a manager, but he is also a proud alumnus of the Glee Club.
“My Wabash experience exceeded my expectations,” explained Ganson. “I got involved in so many different things at the college that it grew my horizons.”
One of the memories from that time was a legendary Glee Club excursion to Europe that lasted six weeks, covered nine countries, including England, Italy, Switzerland and France, and featured 15 performances.
He tells a story of returning to Europe on a cruise about 10 years ago with his wife, revisiting several of those stops. While in Rome, he couldn’t help but think back to an impromptu concert at the Coliseum, where the glee club did a handful of Italian songs right on the spot.
“I was listening the tour guide, and running through my mind, I was picturing our trip from 40-something years ago singing in the Coliseum,” Ganson said. “This was running through my mind while on the cruise. I kept telling my wife, ‘here is what we did while we were here.’
“When I went back, I appreciated the (Glee Club) trip so much more. It was great to reconnect with those memories.”
Ganson’s ties to the Glee Club run deep. It brings him back for reunions and keeps him connected. Many in Tucson, a city less than an hour north of the Mexico border, also have heard Ganson and the Wabash Glee Club, although few probably are aware of it.
On the occasions that Flowing Wells High doesn’t have a person to sing the national anthem before an athletic event, Weber uses a version recorded in Pioneer Chapel during a Wabash Glee Club reunion. A version that includes Ganson’s voice.
“I know the Glee Club is still a strong memory of his,” Weber said. “I was able to get a copy of the reunion performance, so if you attend a Flowing Wells sporting event, you hear the Wabash Glee Club. And Steve’s voice is a part of it.”
— Richard Paige
