“It’s so well-deserved”: Northampton’s Vin Lobello inducted into National Lacrosse Hall of Fame for work as chief referee
Published: 01-30-2025 5:44 PM |
Back when Dick Garber was the head coach of the UMass men’s lacrosse team (spanning 36 years from the late 1950s to 1990), the Minutemen were slated to play Harvard out in Cambridge. One of the referees scheduled to officiate that game was Northampton resident Vin LoBello, who had a great relationship with Garber over the course of their respective careers.
LoBello’s car broke down the day before the game, forcing him to call Garber to tell him he wouldn’t be able to make it and a different official would fill in for him. But Garber had something else in mind. He told LoBello that if he could hitch a ride to campus, there was a spot on the team bus for LoBello – they would take him to Harvard.
Not only did LoBello accept the offer, he brought his wife, Regina, along for the ride.
While an official arriving with a team to a game that they’re supposed to work may not go over so well today, it spoke to the massive amount of respect LoBello had garnered throughout his time as a referee.
In fact, for 30-plus years, LoBello’s influence on the sport spanned across New England. He served as the chief referee for the Northeast, coordinating game assignments for officials to work all high school and college games across the area – which he had to do on a typewriter and send out by mail, because cell phones didn’t exist. LoBello spent time recruiting and training new referees, and helped grow the game of lacrosse on a national scale as the game continued to progress.
LoBello’s legacy led him to the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame, where he was recently inducted as a member of the Class of 2024 back on Jan. 11. LoBello passed away in 1992, but his stories and spirit live on through his three children, Vinny, Chrissy and Mary, and his 94-year old wife, Regina, who lives in Whately and is as “sharp as a tack,” according to Vinny.
Vinny accepted the honor on his father’s behalf, and gave a passionate speech at the ceremony in Baltimore, Md., earlier this month.
“I said it at the end of my speech, and I’ll say it again, I wish he was up there instead of me,” Vinny LoBello told the Gazette. “He was just a great, great person to everybody, but a great dad and a great husband… And when I gave that speech in Baltimore, I just wanted people to get to know him. And I think the biggest compliment I got was from one of the other inductees, he came up to me and said, ‘Vinny, I feel like I’ve know your dad.’ And that was great to hear.”
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For the majority of LoBello’s life, lacrosse was most prominent down South. The best college programs came from outside of New England – Johns Hopkins and Maryland were two of the more dominant teams at the time (and still are) – and the sport’s college all-star game was always held somewhere in the southern part of the country.
LoBello strived to do everything he could to bring relevance to the game in the New England. So he and Garber – who built their relationship through the many UMass games LoBello officiated due to the small number of referees in the area – began driving around the Northeast. They hoped to pitch high schools to start programs, selling them on the sport of lacrosse. Along the way, LoBello proceeded with his officiating recruitment.
The two of them would drop off lacrosse gear, and were responsible for the start of the Northampton High School lacrosse team over 50 years ago. Amherst Regional and Amherst College can also credit LoBello and Garber for the start of their programs as well.
“His pictures on the wall at the Hall of Fame, he's forever in it, and it’s so well-deserved,” Vinny said. “I mean, we got so many comments and phone calls, and cards and letters. People that knew him as an official, or as my dad, or as a coach, just congratulating him. They were just so happy that he got in, because he really did deserve it.”
All of the driving that LoBello and Garber did paid off in 1967, when the Collegiate All-Star Game was finally played in New England. And the game wasn’t just in the region, it was played at UMass.
The cherry on top? LoBello got to officiate the game.
“That was my dad’s biggest game he ever did,” Vinny said. “And they had it up at UMass, which was really cool.”
There’s no question that LoBello did plenty to deserve a nod into the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame, which now completes the triangle of Hall of Fames that he is in (Western Mass., New England, and now, National). But what stands out beyond LoBello’s career work is the type of person he is.
Vin LoBello was a Hall of Fame man with a Hall of Fame career in the sport of lacrosse.
“He always talked about how important it is to develop relationships with people,” Vinny said. “He just had an outgoing – not not loud, but outgoing – personality. If he saw you, and you saw him, he’d come over, shake your hand, ask you how you were, ask you how your family was, you know, ask you questions about yourself. He was just really interested in people, and getting to know them. Dad was a great person to everybody.”