MABO History Documents


The following is brief history on the formation of MABO.  MABO would like to thank Rick Lambert for his following recollection on the events leading to the creation of MABO...

There are two major pieces regarding the various referees’ associations/groups in Manitoba "getting their acts together" in the mid to late 1970's.  The first initiative happened in the early 1970's (possibly 1972-73) when 4 of the 5 independent high officials associations, except for the Winnipeg School Division Referees Assn. (WSD-BOA), came together with the former 'Winnipeg college board' (which was a chapter of IAABO - the International Association of Approved Basketball Officials) to form the MBOA - the Metropolitan Basketball Officials Association.

MBOA's initial Executive included Bill Moore (pictured to the left) as the 1st President and Rod Peppler (pictured to the below right) as the 1st Assigner.  Around the same time, MBOA began to form a working relationship with the Brandon Referees Assn. - BBOA, who were lead by Russ Rooney.  This relationship began to solidify when both organizations cooperated in providing officials for the MHSAA's out of Winnipeg - Provincial "B" (now AA - AAA) and "C" (now A - AA) Championships.

I believe that MABO was formed in the mid 1970's (possibly around 1974 or 1975) with the MBOA being the charter member.  MABO's initial Executive included Bill Moore as President, Rod Peppler as Assigner and myself (Rick Lambert) as the Secretary. One of the reasons behind forming MABO was the need to have a representative body from Manitoba as a member of the newly created Canadian Association of Basketball Officials CABO).  As I recall the BBOA, the WSD - BOA and a couple of loosely organized groups out of the Morden-Winkler and Selkirk-Gimli areas, joined MABO a number of years later in the late 1970's to early 1980's.

One of MABO's first and lasting initiatives was/is the holding of Annual Basketball Officials Clinics in the fall, initially in Winnipeg... then in Gimli at the Leadership Development Camp... and then in Brandon at the Agricultural Training Centre.  At first we brought in clinicians from IABBO including NCAA officials Dr. Phil Fox and Charles Bloodworth; later on we relied on CABO for our clinicians including Ron Foxcroft, John Weiland, Bill Ritchie, Don Cline and Fred Horgan (a number of times).

Ironically, another offshoot of the formation of MABO, occurred when the MBOA went back to its initial roots of servicing only 'adult' basketball in Winnipeg including university, community college and junior-senior men's and women's leagues.  This happened concurrently with the former high school officials associations reforming to serve the suburban conference leagues in Cloverleaf, Kildonan, St James and Assiniboine. This effectively dissolved one of the traditional 'sticking' points.  As the MBOA serviced all basketball in Winnipeg, except for the Winnipeg School Division league, there was an ongoing reluctance/difficulty of the WSD-BOA's individual members having to join the MBOA in order to be eligible to make the 'Winnipeg college board'.

Submitted by Rick Lambert, October 2009