First woman to call WPIAL title matchup
Sortino officiated boys Class 4A championship
As a woman officiating high school boys basketball, Kristin Sortino sometimes senses an awkwardness among boys who don’t exactly know how to address her. Sortino chuckles while telling a story from a game earlier this season.
“A player came up to me,” Sortino said, “and nicely called me, ‘Miss ma’am referee.’ He just didn’t know what to call me.”
After last Thursday night, just call Sortino a history maker.
The WPIAL Class 4A boys championship was played at Petersen Events Center on Feb. 29, and the woman in stripes was breaking new ground. The first WPIAL basketball championship games were played in 1913. It only took 111 years for the first woman to officiate a WPIAL boys championship.
Sortino made history when she worked the Lincoln Park vs. Hampton game. About two weeks earlier, Sortino was the first woman to officiate a boys playoff game and she’ll work the Warwick at Franklin Regional PIAA first-round boys game Friday.
The woman who broke new ground last week is a wife, mother of five and grandmother of eight. But she didn’t really want to make a big deal of last week’s game.
“I didn’t think anything of it. I just was excited because I looked at it as a challenge and I was glad to have the opportunity,” Sortino said. “I didn’t think anything of it until people started talking about it. I was just out to work my game.”
Sortino is an interesting story of a woman who didn’t start officiating until she was 35. So what if she was the mother of five school-age children at the time?
“They were old enough to just sit in the stands, but with all the negative chatter in the stands, I stopped bringing them,” Sortino said. “They were upset that people were yelling at their mom. I told them those people weren’t yelling at me. They just were yelling at officials.”
Sortino was a basketball player in her days at Keystone Oaks in the WPIAL and grew up with three older brothers and a younger sister.
“I was the tomboy. I used to play football with my brothers with a dress on,” Sortino said with a laugh.
So what exactly made her want to start officiating?
“I would go to my daughters’ or sons’ games and, like everyone else, I thought I could do a better job than the officials,” Sortino said. “Someone said, ‘Here’s a whistle.’ I learned it’s not as easy as you think. It’s definitely easier from the stands than on the court.”
Sortino passed the PIAA officials test more than two decades ago and began working youth girls games. She obviously was good because she worked her way up to girls junior varsity games and then girls varsity games. She became a top high school girls official in the WPIAL, worked four WPIAL girls title games and also a girls state championship game. She also became a womens college official in the TriState area and worked NCAA Division III playoff games.
Then, a few years ago, in just casual conversations, she was asked by Nick Morea and Becky DeGregorio — male and female officials representatives on the league’s board of directors — if she wanted to start officiating boys high school games. She wouldn’t be the first woman to officiate WPIAL boys games, but a switch to the boys would mean Sortino would have to give up working girls games.
Sortino said she discussed the idea with male officials whom she considered her mentors, including Ron Tyburski, a former WPIAL official who has been working major-college men’s games for two decades.
“I thought, ‘If I have a choice, then I’m in [with the boys]. I’m willing to come over,’ ” Sortino said. “I knew I had the ability and the speed and the knowledge to do it. But you just never know. You just have to do it, but I was excited.”
Sortino worked only boys games the past two years. When not officiating or babysitting grandchildren, she works part time as a personal trainer and specialist in speed development, as well as being the boys and girls cross country coach at Peters Township.
Sortino’s husband, Vince, is the chief operating officer of the WPIAL, and the couple lives in Dormont. But Vince had nothing to do with Kristin working playoff games or the championship. Many of the officials who work playoff games are graded by evaluators. Those with higher grades move on in playoff rounds.
“The speed of the game was not a problem for her, and the athleticism was not a problem,” said Lincoln Park coach Mike Bariski, whose team won the WPIAL Class 4A title last Thursday. “I never saw her out of position. I thought she was excellent. The key to it is you’ve got to be able to get up and down with the speed of the game. Sometimes, some girls games, you can get away with just jogging or walking at times.
“But she was great. If she wasn’t, I would tell you. I’m not that guy who says there’s no room for women to work men’s basketball. She broke that barrier. It’s just a shame it’s 2024 and it only now happened.”
Sortino said she sometimes hears snide comments from the stands, but it doesn’t bother her.
“If you have stripes on, as soon as you step on the court, somebody doesn’t like you,” Sortino said. “Being a female with stripes on, it’s even more so. But I have a lot of support. If you don’t have a support system, the negative chatter can hurt you.”
It has been well documented how there is a shortage of officials across the country for high school and youth sports. Sortino hopes more women get the opportunity to work high school boys games in the future.
“When I first got certified, I was never given the choice of boys or girls,” Sortino said. “I’m hoping that women are now given a choice when they start and don’t just assume that a woman wants to work the womens games.”
OK, Miss ma’am referee.