For Kristopher Loving, officiating wasn’t part of a grand plan. In 2014, newly married and looking for a way to stay active while earning some extra income, he woke up one morning and decided to give officiating a try.
He reached out to a longtime friend and mentor who had been an official for years. That friend did more than just share resources—he mailed Kristopher a referee shirt and shoes to help him get started. “That generosity gave me confidence,” Loving recalls. “He invested in me, and that made me take this path more seriously than I ever intended.”
What began as a way to make ends meet quickly became a calling. Loving experimented with multiple sports—even a short-lived one-hour stint as a baseball umpire—but basketball felt like home. Soon after, football found him too.
Loving originally resisted football officiating. “I didn’t want to be out in the cold,” he admits. But a chance experience at the NFL’s Football Officiating Academy changed everything. After just one day of training, he was hooked.
That pivot opened the door to opportunities that came far quicker than expected. Within a few years, Loving was working Division I games—leaping over JUCO and Division III levels altogether. While most careers take decades to reach that stage, his skyrocketed almost overnight.
For Loving, the acceleration wasn’t coincidence. He points to a vivid dream as the turning point—a dream in which he was baptizing someone in a locker room. “From that moment, it was clear to me that officiating was more than a job. It was a ministry.”
Loving’s officiating career has been defined by rare and rapid achievements:
“None of this happened because of who I knew or what I’d done before,” Loving says. “I never played football, had no connections, no nepotism. My story only makes sense when you see it as God’s plan.”
While Loving thrives on the field, his passion is also off it—transforming the culture of officiating. Too often, he says, officials are treated as “numbers on a spreadsheet” rather than people with lives and commitments.
“The culture needs more compassion, more support, more humanity,” he explains. “Officials should be able to say no to a game without fear it ends their career. We need boundaries and healthier expectations.”
Loving envisions a system where coordinators and assignors prioritize respect, flexibility, and personal well-being. He sees it as a generational shift, with younger leaders beginning to challenge the “this is how we’ve always done it” mentality.
Inspired by the generosity that helped him start, Loving created a nonprofit—Save Our Sports—to remove barriers for new officials. The organization raises money to cover startup costs and provides mentorship..
“We don’t just train people to blow a whistle,” Loving says. “We help them grow as leaders, as spouses, as workers, as friends. Officiating has made me a better version of myself, and I want others to experience that.”
By emphasizing both professional and personal development, he hopes to show recruits that officiating isn’t only about filling a shortage—it’s about transformation.
Loving aspires to change the culture of officiating industry-wide. He sees hope in peers who share his perspective and are ready to lead with empathy and integrity.
“I’m not the only one,” he says. “More of us are stepping into leadership with this mindset. Together, we can reshape the culture of officiating into something healthier and more sustainable.”
Kristopher Loving’s story is about more than officiating. It’s about faith, purpose, and a vision for a better future for officials. By treating people as more than just assignments to be filled, he’s helping build an industry where officials feel valued.
