John’s Journal: Female Football Official Looks To The Future

The beginning of Leah Berard’s career as a football official could never have been predicted. If things go the way she wants, that career will take her to the National Football League, which would be sort of a full-circle route from how she started.

Berard, a native of Stevens Point, Wisconsin, who lives in St. Paul, is in her sixth year as an MSHSL football official. She also works college games in the Missouri Valley Conference. The first sport she officiated was rugby, which took her around the world as one of the top rugby officials on the planet.

Oddly, weirdly, unbelievably, it was a well-known NFL officiating fixture who helped set her on the path of working football games.

Berard played rugby while a student at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and went on to become a rugby official. Mike Pereira -- a longtime NFL official, vice president of NFL officiating and since 2010 an NFL rules analyst for Fox Sports – happened to be watching a televised rugby match that Leah was working and something caught his eye.

In the fall of 2016 Berard received an email from Referee magazine, a national publication for officials. The email said Pereira had contacted the magazine staff and recommended that they write a story about Leah. For Berard, this couldn’t have been more out of the blue.

“They said he liked what he saw and he wanted Referee to interview me,” Leah recounted. “I said, ‘THE Mike Pereira?’ That’s why I ended up choosing football.”

She’s been trying for years to reach Pereira and thank him but has not received a response.

“To be honest, I knew I wanted to do something after rugby, a new challenge,” she said.

Leah has always liked physical challenges. When a friend suggested she try playing rugby in college, she said, “The first time I stepped on the field I knew, ‘Yep, this is the sport I’ve been looking for.’ I can hit people legally, this is great.”

After college she became certified to officiate rugby in 2006.

“It just turned out that I had the skill set for it,” she said. “I realized I loved officiating and I was good at it.”

When she decided to try officiating football, she reached out to people she thought could help her. The first to reply was Dan Pelletier, a veteran referee from St. Paul. He became one of her mentors and this year is Leah’s fourth season as a member of Pelletier’s officiating crew.

“With her background in officiating rugby, she started in a little bit of a different place than a lot of new officials do,” Dan said. “She already had some good experience and just needed to learn the game. She’s worked really hard at it and picked it up quickly.

“She spends a lot of time studying film and going to camps and she’s doing all the right things. We’re happy to have her. She’s an asset and she helps us be a better crew. I’m proud of her and happy for her.”

Berard is a back judge on her high school crew and a side judge in college games. She said she enjoys the atmosphere at the games; she was so busy during her own high school days that attending football games wasn’t something she did on a regular basis.

“Because I played other sports in high school I didn’t go to a lot of football games,” she said. “It just wasn’t a regular thing and I wasn’t really paying attention. … It’s cool now to see the kids get excited, the cheerleaders, the bands, all that. And the camaraderie of our officiating crew is great.”

The NFL currently employs three female officials. Sarah Thomas was the first, hired in 2015, followed by Maia Chaka in 2021 and Robin DeLorenzo in 2022.

“I want to go to the NFL, for sure,” Leah said. “That’s definitely the end goal. I know how to officiate, I just need to see more snaps. You can’t really rush experience.

“With football it’s hard. In rugby I was traveling year-round and doing it every weekend. It’s played all around the world all year round. It’s hard in football to get that experience. I look at my calendar and see only three games left. That’s the biggest bummer in football.”

No matter what the future holds, Leah has a firm foothold in football, saying “My life is set up to be a referee now.”

--If you are interested in becoming an MSHSL sports official or fine arts judge, go to this link for more information: https://www.mshsl.org/who-are-you/officiating

--MSHSL media specialist John Millea has been the leading voice of Minnesota high school activities for decades. Follow him on Twitter @MSHSLjohn and listen to "Preps Today with John Millea” wherever you get podcasts. Contact John at [email protected]