Vicker V. DiGravio, College Basketball Referee, 87

[DGH]

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Victer DiGravio, who in the 1950s and 1960s was considered one of the
preeminent college basketball referees in the country, and who lived in
Quincy, Massachusetts, most of his life died Tuesday, January 25, 2005,
in Weymouth [Massachusetts] Health Care Center of a neurological
disorder complicated by pneumonia, at the age of 87.

Vicker V. DiGravio Sr. was a basketball referee who could toss a player
out of a game and maintain his respect. Former presidential candidate
and senator Bill Bradley was one of them.

Bradley, who played college basketball for Princeton, inscribed the
autobiography he gave Mr. DiGravio this way: "For Vic DiGravio, the man
who took me out of the Final Four with a reach-in foul, about which I
harbor no grudges. You were a great official. Thanks for your many
years of dedication to college basketball."

An outstanding athlete, Mr. DiGravio was captain of the Quincy High
School football team and was elected to the school's football and
basketball halls of fame when he graduated in 1934.

He would have gone on to college on a full athletic scholarship, said
his grandson, Vic DiGravio III of Quincy, had it not been for the Great
Depression and Mr. DiGravio's desire to help his parents and family of
10 siblings.

"After high school, my grandfather accepted a scholarship to attend and
play football at Temple University, where Pop Warner was the coach," he
said. "Unfortunately, prior to accepting the scholarship, he had
accepted $10 to play for a semipro football team in Providence. He
played in the game to help his family because it was in the middle of
the Great Depression. Accepting the money, however, made him ineligible
to play college football."

Because his Italian immigrant parents could not afford to send him to
college, Mr. DiGravio started his apprenticeship as a draftsman at
Quincy Shipyard and coached a Quincy semipro football team called the
Manets. He worked at the shipyard for 40 years until the 1970s. In
those days, he would work days at the shipyard and nights as referee
during the basketball season.

Mr. DiGravio was born in Montreal, Canada. Arriving in Quincy,
Massachusetts, from Italy, his father then took a job in Canada working
at a munitions factory called Vickers-Armstrong during World War I. "He
considered it good luck when my grandfather was born, so he named him
Vicker," his grandson said.

When the family returned to the States, they settled in Quincy. Mr.
DiGravio's father hoped he would become a great trumpeter, according to
his daughter, Leslie Ellison of Roswell, New Mexico. "As a child, he
used to play at all the festivals in the North End," she said, "until
he knocked out his front tooth playing football."

Mr. DiGravio married his high school sweetheart, Hazel Bosworth, a
cheerleader and track runner at Quincy High. Mrs. DiGravio died in
1979. Two years later, Mr. DiGravio married Ellen Kahou, who died three
years ago.

If there was anything to which Mr. DiGravio was more dedicated than
basketball, his daughter said, it was his family. "He instilled in us
his work ethic and the belief that nothing was for nothing," his
daughter said. "Dad had a great sense of family. That was his legacy to
us."

Another daughter, Karen Townsend of Houston, Texas, said Mr. DiGravio
had many chances to referee pro basketball but turned them down because
it would have meant more time away from his family. "As it was," she
said, "he traveled a lot during the basketball season from November
through April," she said. "Sometimes, we could only get to see him on
TV."

Mr. DiGravio served as president of the College Basketball Officials
Association, comprising basketball officials from the New England and
mid-Atlantic regions. He refereed basketball tournaments such as the
National Invitational Tournament at Madison Square Garden and Army-Navy
games.

In the 1960s, Mr. DiGravio and another referee, Jimmy Lennon of Toms
River, N.J., traveled to Germany, Korea, and Japan to conduct
basketball clinics for American military there.

"Vic was a great official, but other than that, he was a great human
being and gentleman," Lennon said. "He was even-tempered and always
impartial. He called a good game and let the chips fall where they
may."

One memorable story Mr. DiGravio shared with his family: Once, in
bending over to pick up a ball at Madison Square Garden, his trousers
ripped. The crowd gave him a standing ovation. He responded with a bow.

Besides his two daughters and his grandson, Mr. DiGravio leaves two
stepdaughters, Nancy Barnes of Weymouth and Linda Davis of Brockton; 10
other grandchildren; and 26 great-grandchildren.

Boston Globe