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By John Hartsock
jhartsock@altoonamirror.com
Sue Kovensky is a former high school English teacher and girls basketball coach at Bellwood-Antis. She was also awarded the Blair County Sports Hall of Fame's Community Service Award in 2010 for her devoted long-time service to the Blair Regional YMCA and its Women's Summer Basketball League.
But Kovensky maintains that her passion is officiating basketball games, an avocation that she has undertaken for the past 44 years on the high school level, and is still continuing.
Kovensky had been an official for NCAA Division II women's basketball games in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) for 33 seasons, before retiring in 2014. She made such an impact with her work for the PSAC that she was named the recipient of two NCAA Division II officiating awards, which she accepted this past Saturday at Lock Haven State University during a ceremony held at halftime of the Lock Haven-East Stroudsburg PSAC women's basketball matchup.
"Officiating became my true labor of love, and I just loved officiating in the PSAC,'' said Kovensky, a 1975 graduate of Hollidaysburg High School who still lives in Hollidaysburg and earned her Bachelor's Degree from Clarion State University in 1979. "I got into the PSAC, and I just went to town. The PSAC made me a better official for the high school games, when usually it's the other way around.''
Kovensky also said that the mentorship that she received at the PSAC games from accomplished veteran college and high school basketball official Cathy Cronin-Beam was an invaluable factor in her success.
"I am truly honored to receive both awards, but I believe in giving credit where credit is due, and without Cathy Cronin-Beam, there would be no Sue Kovensky,'' Kovensky said. "Cathy was the best of the best when it came to officiating, and I appreciate everything that she's done for me.''
Kovensky and retired PSAC men's and women's volleyball official Larry Fetterhoff were the recipients of the inaugural Division 2 Conference Commissioners Association (D2 CCA) Excellence in Officiating Award for 2024.
Kovensky was named the D2 CCA women's award recipient and Fetterhoff was named the men's award recipient for the Atlantic Region. One man and one woman from eight different regions around the country were so honored, after nominations were made from the conference's supervisor of officials, and subsequent voting took place.
Kovensky and Fetterhoff were also named the winners of the PSAC's Officiating Excellence Award, also in its first year, which involved a nomination and voting process by the PSAC's officiating committee.
"When I found out that I got that Atlantic Region award, I was really shocked, and I thought that there must have been some mistake,'' Kovensky said. "But (the PSAC) never forgot about me, which is nice.''
In Cronin-Beam, Kovensky said that she learned the officiating craft from the best of the best.
"I spent a lot of time in officiating camps and film study, and then I had somebody like Cathy Cronin-Beam mentoring me and patiently answering every question that I had,'' Kovensky said. "She's a natural teacher who showed great patience with me, broke things down for me, and made officiating look simple, when it wasn't simple.
"There is so much to call in a game, and you've got to know when to impose yourself into the game, and when to back off, and that's what Cathy could teach the best,'' Kovensky added. "It was so good to have somebody like Cathy in my corner.''
Cronin-Beam, a Philadelphia area native who lives in Altoona, had a 34-year basketball officiating career on the college and high school levels. Since retiring from officiating, Cronin-Beam has served as an evaluator of basketball officials for several major college conferences, including the Big Ten Conference, and currently, the Northeast Conference.
Cronin-Beam said that Kovensky was always eager to learn her craft in her formative years as an official.
"She was always a student of the game, and she always worked to better herself, so she went to officiating camps, and she paid money out of her own pocket to learn from people who were high up in the officiating ranks,'' Cronin-Beam said.
"She would ask for advice -- a lot of people don't do that,'' Cronin-Beam said. "She was always open to advice and she was always open to learning, and to become a really good official, that is something that you have to be able to do.''
Kovensky was also able to put everything that she learned into actual practice as an official on the court.
"She came in knowing the game of basketball because she had played it while she was in school, but through the years, she became much more aware of the game itself - how a game flows, positioning on the court, and what to look for from different defenses and things like that,'' Cronin-Beam said. "Those are all things that the average person doesn't watch.
"I'm sure that, working as hard as she has worked, these awards that she has received are well-deserved,'' Cronin-Beam said. "She took the advice of all of the people who have helped her along the way, and applied it to her own game, and she has become a very good official.''