On March 14, Dan Jourdain made his first MSHSL state basketball tournament appearance in over two decades.
Back in 2003, he made it to state while playing for Red Lake High School. But this time around, Jourdain donned the black and grey uniform of an MSHSL referee to officiate his first-ever state tournament.
Jourdain didn’t just make personal history with his appearance, though. Joining Jonathan White and Phillip Johnson, Jourdain became a member of the first all-Indigenous three-man referee crew to officiate a Minnesota basketball state tournament game. The trio officiated Caledonia’s 69-63 win over Sauk Centre in the Class AA girls basketball state tournament consolation bracket semifinals.
Jourdain is a member of the Red Lake Band of Ojibwe, while Johnson and White are members of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe.
“Now you’re in a different role, you’re in a different position representing your community,” Jourdain said. “It feels surreal because there’s not many native officials out there and there is not many people from my community that do that, and to be that one out there representing and supporting my nation – it’s kind of hard to explain in one word because there’s so many emotions that go into it, so much pride that goes into it.”
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Getting to the state tournament as an official isn’t an easy task. The MSHSL selects around 100 referees for its basketball state tournaments out of all who are registered across Minnesota.
Officials must be evaluated, go through background checks, have the proper certification and, of course, have proof of experience.
“You basically have to work your butt off to get to this position,” Jourdain said. “Do really good at the regular season games, and hopefully, by chance, you can get selected. … (It’s) kind of a tough pool, a really small, narrow pool.”
Jourdain has eight years of experience at the prep level, but before that, he was refereeing plenty of youth and adult tournaments around the region, adding another roughly six years to his total experience.
White and Johnson also each put in extensive work to reach the state tournament level of officiating. White had been officiating junior high and mid-level basketball since high school and began certification for the high school level around 2020. Likewise, Johnson was reffing youth basketball before he was certified to officiate high school hoops in 2017.
Johnson called his first state tournament last year, while White and Jourdain each made their first appearances at the event this season.
“The overall sense of the feeling of making it by merit and not by virtue was absolutely phenomenal,” White said. “And that is hard work. You’re usually trying to go four, five times a week to continuously work on your craft – and obviously, it’s needed because the officials have the games – but just to continuously work night in and night out and get awarded like that felt good.”
This year, the “stars aligned” to get the three on the same officiating crew. However, Michael Thomas, an Indigenous referee who has years of experience officiating the state tournament, had been advocating for more representation for years.
“Michael Thomas has been putting a bug to the coordinators for years at the state level, some of the main section, main coordinators down in Minneapolis,” Jourdain said. “We just kept pushing for it and advocating and trying to get more exposure to our assignors, the ones who evaluate us.”
Rising numbers and representation
Johnson likes to “fly below the radar.” He was certainly proud to make it back to his second state tournament this year, but like most officials, Johnson understood that the best official typically goes unnoticed.
However, Johnson and the other members of the three-man officiating crew knew there was an opportunity to spread the news about the history-making event. Giving Indigenous players, referees and the community at large representation at such a high level of officiating was important for the trio.
“I always remember how I felt when I walked into my game, whether I was on the road somewhere, whether it’s football, or baseball or basketball, and then to see somebody like an official that looks like you, and then you’re just like ‘Oh, that’s pretty cool,’” Johnson said. “That’s kind of what I compared it to for myself, at least for me personally.”
On Facebook, news of the all-Indigenous officiating crew reached tribes as far as Arizona and California, offering proof of just how much the story resonated in their communities.
“A story like this really impacts not only our communities, but we hope that it changes somewhere down the road that we see something great out of all of us or we see a benefit to someone or somebody or something,” Jourdain said.
“We’re not looking for the credit but we want to make a great story, not only for the communities, (but) for kids that are coming up too. We just hope that it’s inspiring to them and it just helps out in some way.”
There’s a referee recruitment problem across the country, and it’s been no different in Minnesota. Along with offering representation, Johnson, Jourdain and White hope their story of hard work and dedication offers an inspiration of sorts for those considering officiating, regardless of their background.
“Usually they say when you referee a basketball game, if they notice there’s no refs, you did your job,” Johnson said. “For me, I like to stay under the radar and get out there and do my job. But the message that we know was just to encourage people to come out and do it. … It’s anybody, the more people that come do it, more men, more women, anything, we need numbers and I just encourage people to come out and try it one time.”
“We would hope to see a lot more numbers come up,” Jourdain said. “Just that exposure of seeing this in the press. Just hope that it sheds light to something bigger down the road, to say that these officials paved the way, these officials went through the hard sacrifice of whatever it may be.”
