ST. PAUL - After taking a hiatus from handing out provincial awards during the pandemic, Football Alberta has announced the 2021 coach, official, and volunteer awards - and one of the recipients happens to be a familiar face on football fields across the Lakeland.
Kim Werenka has been refereeing in St. Paul and the surrounding area for over two decades, starting in 1998. According to information in the awards package sent out to media, Werenka has obtained his Level 2 status as an official and is the lead organizer for St. Paul officials.
"He ensures we have enough referees for our games and is always recruiting new officials for us. Werenka works as our umpire - by choice - but he knows the rules well and our head referee relies on his knowledge," reads the award information from Football Alberta, as relayed by the St. Paul club.
According to Tim Enger, executive director with Football Alberta, "Our rationale for picking an official revolves around someone who does more than just officiate games." The chosen individual is someone who works on developing officiating in their area and liaises with other officials organizations to make football better, he explains.
"Kim is such a man and we're happy he won the award this year," says Enger.
Werenka says he only found out he had been nominated for the award when Football Alberta contacted him to say he had in fact won the award.
“It is a great honour,” says Werenka, when asked how he felt when he found out. Looking at some of the past winners, Werenka says he sees the names of people who taught him many of the things he knows and puts into practice.
While Werenka has been part of officiating for over 20 years, he's been involved with St. Paul Football for even longer than that. He first became involved as a player in the late 1980s.
After leaving the community and playing for a short time as a junior football player, Werenka came back to St. Paul and offered his time as a coach. But, with a young family at the time, he found the time commitments of coaching were simply too much.
“Coaching was taking a lot of my time and I still wanted to give to the team," he explains. So, he decided to contribute as an official.
When speaking to how being an official for football can be different than other sports, Werenka acknowledges there are many rules to learn and "nothing seems to be the same twice." There is a steep learning curve for those who decide to pursue being officials.
But, Werenka would no doubt encourage people to take on the challenge and become involved. While he says he has a good crew to work with every season, people eventually retire or step away, and that creates an increased need for more officials.
When speaking to why he chooses to continue to officiate, Werenka says he simply enjoys being on the field, he enjoys talking to the athletes and the coaches, and furthering education in football.
Although he also played hockey and baseball growing up, for Werenka, there is just something special about football.
“It is truly a team sport... there is no team sport like football.”
Contributions
Describing his many contributions, information provided by Football Alberta describes how Werenka works throughout the Wheatland area, refereeing games at peewee, bantam, high school and Alberta Men’s league levels, and working many championship games.
"He is often asked by other clubs to help when they are short-staffed for a game or when they need a referee for a championship game."
Werenka has also stepped up to the task of refereeing provincial games, and has worked games beyond the Wheatland Football League to help out.
"Werenka is passionate about being a referee and cares greatly about getting the rules correct. Without his dedication and commitment, it’s likely that St. Paul would not have enough officials to host games. He is an integral part of football in the Wheatland area."
The list of 2021 recipients is the first time since the end of the 2019 season that Football Alberta has been able to hand out the awards.
"The 2020 Awards were replaced by Awards of Merit recognizing many people across the province for 'keeping the lights on' during the shut downs in 2020 due to the Pandemic," according to Football Alberta. "Thankfully, we were able to run a near-normal 2021 season and the awards below reflect the best of that year."
