In the daytime, David Heupel is the Greene County High School Choir Director, but by night in the fall, he officiates volleyball. The nine-year veteran wasn’t all that interested in the sport until his oldest of four daughters started playing and with each passing year, he grew to really enjoy it. So much so that Heupel started volunteering as a line judge and then eventually got his certification to be an official.

Being both a fan and an official of volleyball, he sees both sides of the sport and in watching one of his daughter’s matches, recalls one play of a missed call.

“Sometimes an official here or there and there’s a time or two where one of my daughters would do something on her side of the net that she knew was not legal, and it wouldn’t get called, and she would look over at me, catch my eye, and I would be just nodding my head and said, ‘Yeah, yeah you just did that and got away with it.’”    

Huepel likes volleyball because of the team mentality and the fast play, where momentum can be a huge factor. He describes one of his favorite matches between two highly ranked teams. 

“I was the R1, which is the up ref, and I was a little nervous going in. And it was probably the most fun match I’d done because technically they were both so good, it just made it really easy to officiate. And I had the best view of a really great match between two ranked teams and it turned out to be a lot of fun.”

Heupel is gearing up for the postseason, as the rankings were just released and someday he hopes to officiate a state tournament match.