Sunday, June 29, 2014

CIAA Referee Charles R. Nicholson Sr. (WVSU) remembered for being ‘a model of decorum’

The family will receive friends on Sunday, June 29, 2014, from 4 to 5 p.m. at Scott's Funeral Home, 115 E. Brookland Park Blvd., where the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc. Omega Service will follow at 5 p.m.

Mr. Nicholson's funeral service will be held on Monday, June 30, 2014, 12 noon at First African Baptist Church, 2700 Hanes Ave., Richmond, VA.

RICHMOND, Virginia  -- High school basketball coach George Lancaster said he knew and admired referee Charles R. Nicholson Sr. for more than 40 years. He remembers during one of his first basketball games as a coach, he confronted Mr. Nicholson about a call he made.

“I probably wanted everything my way,” said Lancaster, who coaches basketball at Highland Springs High School in Henrico County. “I said to him, ‘I can’t believe you called that,’ and he asked me, ‘Do you want me to make any other call?’ ” And Lancaster said that stopped him in his tracks. He realized he wanted the right call, not just the favorable one. “No one wants something to be that it wasn’t,” he said.

Mr. Nicholson, 89, a lifelong Richmond resident and brother in-law of former Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, died Monday. He was a physical education teacher in Richmond public schools and later served as an assistant principal and assistant director of finance. He also was a basketball and football referee for the Virginia High School League and the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA), the oldest African-American athletic conference in the nation.

In 2001, he was inducted into the CIAA Officials Hall of Fame.

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