Biographies
2011 ABOA WINK WILLOX AWARD WINNER
Pay Layton
During the 30 years that Pat was with the SABOA he received numerous provincial high school assignments. As mentioned his first one was in 1974. He returned many more times and was assigned to the championship game on multiple occasions. Within the SABOA Pat held every executive position including president and assignor.
As a result of his outstanding floor performance Pat received 12 national assignments including two CIAU women appointments, 6 CCAA nationals and 4 senior men’s and women’s appointments.
Pat was also committed to helping officials throughout the province. He served multiple terms on the provincial executive as well as sitting on the provincial evaluation committee for more than 10 years. As a result of his position on this committee Pat served as the assignor evaluator at numerous high school provincials and was well respected throughout the province for his ability to astutely observe and educate officials.
The ABOA is justifiably proud of Pat’s exemplary on floor performance. We are equally appreciative of the lengthy and dedicated administrative service he provided both his local board and the provincial body. We congratulate him on being the 2011 Wink Willox winner for the province of Alberta.
- Jake Steinbrenner
- Daryl Paustian
2009 ABOA BUILDERS AWARD
Jake Steinbrenner
We have one more award to give out this evening before we commence with our fireside chat. And I hope we have been able to keep this as a surprise. We’ll see.
This individual is certainly no stranger to basketball in Alberta and I would suggest he is regarded as one of Alberta’s true leaders in basketball officiating in our Province.
He began his officiating career in Lethbridge right out of high school in 1975 - l976. In 1981, he joined Keith Jorgensen, Steve Devcic, and Vlad Eshenko on a road trip to San Diego where he attended an Irv Brown Camp. It must have been quite the road trip as Vlad claims the camp was in San Jose and Keith claims the camp was in San Diego. Whatever! There he met a number of officials including Dave Libbey and Freddy Carbonne. To this day, our Award Winner and Dave Libbey remain very good friends. He joined the Basketball Alberta’s Staff in the capacity of ABOA Program Co-ordinator in the mid 80's (I believe 1985) during Don Warren’s tenure as Executive Director. There, he spent several years working to develop a Provincial Sports Organization which included officials along with players and coaches.
But this award is not about this individuals’s on floor performance. It is about his work behind the scenes as one of the ABOA’s premier builders. This individual was a lead advocate in the launch of many of Alberta’s highly successful Super Week-ends. He was often tasked with identifying, contacting and co-ordinating their travel itineraries and subject material for many of the featured clinicians that we have been fortunate to have over the years from across Canada as well as the ranks of the NCAA and the NBA. Some of the clinicians we have been privileged to have include Canada’s National Interpreter, Paul Deshaies, CABO’s current President, Don Cline, and one of FIBA’s Technical Commissioners, Fred Horgan, several NCAA officials including Irv Brown, Dave Libbey, Freddy Carbonne, Jim Bain, Ed Hightower, John Clougherty, Richie Ballesteros and Mark Reichling. And from the ranks of the WNBA and the NBA, we have had Clarke Stevens, Hugh Evans, and this year, of course, Tommy Nunez.
He served as ABOA President from 1993 - 1997.
Our ABOA Builder’s Award winner is also very active during each basketball season coordinating the highly successful provincial exchanges that we have had among ACAC member schools.
This individual is also very active every year during the ASAA High School Provincials. He tirelessly coordinates the appointments of Provincial Assignors/Evaluators to the 8 tournaments held across the province each March. This past year, 74 officials, 19 assignors/evaluators covered 166 games involving 336 assignments, quite an accomplishment, in large part due to the leadership of this individual. Forging this highly successful relationship with the ASAA, was an early vision and long term goal of our recipient and his foresight in envisioning how these two groups could work so well together is truly remarkable.
But our Award winner’s work does not end there. He carefully scrutinizes the evaluations received on all officials to assist in the identification of potential leaders from across the province. He truly has a Provincial perspective, focussed on official’s development each and every year.
On the national scene, this individual serves on the National Panel of Evaluators and I believe has been assigned to at least one national tournament in each of the years that he has been a member of that panel.
He is currently on the ABOA Executive, and holds the position of Evaluation Chair.
In my opinion, this one individual has probably done more to promote basketball officiating development than many organizations do over a 30 year time frame. It is a privilege for me to introduce to you this year’s recipient of the ABOA Builder’s Award, Jake Steinbrenner.
2009 WINK WILLOX AWARD
Daryl Paustian
Alberta’s nominee for the prestigious Wink Willox Award of Merit for 2009 is an Honorary Life Member of the Edmonton Board (EBOA).
He was active for most of his career in both able bodied and wheel chair basketball officiating. He began officiating in Edmonton in the mid 70's and became actively involved with wheelchair officiating and coaching a few years later.
This official worked at the ACAC (CCAA) level from 1977 - 2001 and at the Canada West (CIS) level from 1979 - 2000. During his 30+ year career as an active member of the ABOA, this official was a consistent high performer locally at the high school level and participated in many ASAA Provincial Championships including three 4A Boys Finals in Lethbridge, Grand Prairie and Calgary (1998). This official also participated in several national tournaments including:
1987 - Junior Men’s (U19) National Championships in Lethbridge
1989 - CCAA Women’s Nationals in Grand Prairie
1995 - Received his International Certification (Saskatoon)
1996 - America’s Qualifications Tournaments for the ParaOlympics (Argentina)
1997 - World Junior Championships (Toronto)
1998 - America’s Zone Qualifications for the World Championships (Winnipeg)
1999 - America’s Qualifications Tournament for the ParaOlympics (Mexico)
Daryl also travelled to Macao where he conducted FIBA and wheelchair clinics for Chinese officials. This educational trip was facilitated as a result of a very strong relationship between the Chinese community in Edmonton and Macao.
In addition, this official also found time to work in various Executive and volunteer capacities, both locally in Edmonton as well as with the ABOA.
He served as EBOA President from 1985 - 1987
He served as EBOA Past President from 1987 - 1989
He served as EBOA Vice President from 1998 - 2000
He also served as a Member of the ABOA Evaluation Committee for the last 12 years.
I feel that I would be remiss by not mentioning how much of a giver this year’s recipient was in all aspects of his daily life. Notably, he was actively involved with the Alberta Northern Lights Basketball Organization, serving as their President from 2004 – 2008. In addition to his presidential duties, our nominee volunteered in a number of other capacities where needed, and was a great asset in recently seeing their organization through some very difficult financial times.
This year’s Wink Willox Award Winner for the Province of Alberta is Daryl Paustian.
To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time that this award has been given to an individual posthumously. For those who are not aware, Daryl succumbed to cancer on August 15th at the age of 56 and he will be greatly missed by the countless people whose lives he touched.
