ECAC Announces 2010 Red Hill Award Winners for Excellence in Football Officiating
CAPE COD, Mass. – The Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) announced today that football officials Bill Riccio, Jr. (West Haven, Conn.), Jerry Hughes (Kearney, N.J.) and Gary Janis (Auburn, N.Y.) have been named the 2010 recipients of the Red Hill Award for excellence in football officiating. The recipients of the Red Hill Award will be honored on February 17 at the annual Eastern College Football Awards Banquet presented by FieldTurf, an event held in the Lexus Gridiron Club at the New Meadowlands Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.
The award is named for Red Hill, who was an ECAC football
official for 29 years. Hill served as the director of the
Eastern Association of Intercollegiate Football Officials Boston
Chapter for 12 years. He served as the vice president and the
president of the EAIFO, and was responsible for instituting many of
the EAIFO policies. Over his career, Hill has made numerous
contributions to the EAIFO and to college football officiating in
general.
Riccio’s career has expanded over a multitude of positions
as both an official and rules interpreter. He has been
officiating since 1974 while enrolled as an undergraduate student
at Southern Connecticut State University. He is still a
member of the New Haven Football Officials Association, and has
been a rules interpreter since 1982. From 1981-83 he was a
member of the Eastern Association of Intercollegiate Football
Officials Metro Chapter and, then in 1983, he joined the
Connecticut Chapter where he still holds membership. Since
1987, Riccio has been a rules interpreter for the EAIFO. In
1994, he became a New Haven representative for the Connecticut
Football Officials Association. From 2001-09 he was an
Associate State Rules Interpreter, becoming a State Interpreter in
2010. Riccio was appointed as an officials’
representative to the National Federation of State High School
Associations Football Rules Committee between 2006 and 2010; for
the 2011-12 season, he has been named to the NFHS Manual
Sub-Committee for Section I (New England, New York and New
Jersey). In his 37 years in football officiating, Riccio has
received 10 NCAA playoff assignments, three collegiate league
championship games and two ECAC bowls. He has also officiated
five state high school championships and three state semifinal
games. During the spring, Riccio takes to the diamond as a
member of the Greater New Haven Baseball Umpires Association, a
tenure he’s had since 1972. In 2003, he became
Vice-president of the GNHBUA, and since 2007 has been the
Association’s President. In 2010, Riccio was inducted
into the Connecticut Football Officials Hall of Fame. Off the
field, Riccio has been a publication editor, assistant teacher, and
most notably, an organist for various parishes around
Connecticut.
Hughes has been a football official since 1972 when he started at the high school level. In 1988, he was accepted into the EAIFO, and has since been involved in many big-time matchups across all divisions. Hughes has officiated three ECAC bowl games, two NCAA playoff games and was the referee for the 1999 Lehigh-Lafayette rivalry contest. He was also the referee for the 2000 Division III All-Star game in Paterson, N.J. From 1996-98, Hughes was a Division II-III representative for the EAIFO Metro Chapter, and was on the Metro Chapter’s executive board from 1999-2002. He was the chapter’s president in 2001. Between 2003 and 2005, Hughes officiated arena football in the National Indoor Football League after being a substitution official for the league’s New Jersey Red Dogs from 1999-2002. In 2004, he was the chairman of the Division I football clinic held at Princeton University. Since 2006, he has again been a representative for the EAIFO Metro Chapter, and since 2000 Hughes has been a practice official for both Rutgers University and the New York Giants of the National Football League.
Janis has seen a long career of officiating, dating back to 1973
when he started with high school football. He stayed at the
high school level until 1985, and started officiating collegiate
games for the EAIFO Empire Chapter in 1980. In those 30 years
since, he has worked six ECAC championship bowl games, three
Cortaca Jug games (SUNY Cortland vs. Ithaca College) and three NCAA
Division III playoff matches. He also worked the
100th Harvard-Dartmouth contest, as well as the first
night game in the history of Princeton University football.
Since 1974, Janis has been a high school lacrosse official in New
York, and since 1977 he’s worked at the collegiate
level. Before becoming an official, Janis was a decorated
member of the United States Army, receiving a Bronze Star for his
service in Vietnam between 1967 and 1969. He was a member of
the U.S. Army National Guard from 1972 to 1977 while starting his
career in education in the Auburn Enlarged School District in
1973. He stayed there until 2003, and has since worked
part-time for Bass Pro. Elsewhere in the New York community,
Janis has been a commodore of the Owasco Yacht Club and is
currently on the club’s board of directors. He also
volunteers at the Matthew House, a hospice residence facility for
terminally ill cancer patients. Janis has been married to his
wife, Mary Ann, for 42 years. They have three daughters and
four grandchildren.
All-Time Red Hill Award Recipients
1999
David Carter (Boston)
2000
Jerome Miranda (Metro)
William Dixon (Southern)
2001
John Spencer (Metro)
Herb Stayton (Philadelphia)
2002
Joseph Donnelly (Philadelphia)
William Ward (Boston)
2003
Jim Dinkel (Western Pennsylvania)
Henry Finelli (Metro)
Carmine Picardo (Metro)
James Sheehan (Empire)
2004
Richard Anderson (Boston)
Thomas Wheatley (Metro)
2005
Daniel Carr (Western Pennsylvania)
William Mara (Western New England)
Edwin Shanahan (Boston)
2006
Rick Ranucci (Empire)
Larry Sciancalepore (Metro)
Tim Schmidt (Western New England)
2007
Jim Kearney (Boston)
Tom Mawhinney (Western New England)
Peter Walsh (Metro)
2008
Dennis Redding (Boston)
John Coady (Metro)
Ralph Zingarella (Connecticut)
2009
Jack Farley (Boston)
Todd Boyd (Western New England)
Steve Angelella (Metro)
2010
Bill Riccio, Jr. (Connecticut)
Jerry Hughes (Metro)
Gary Janis (Empire)
