Congratulations to the Roy Gardner Award Winner: Terry Magnuson
Terry Magnuson has officiated IHSAA athletics for 37 years, including three boys’ basketball State Finals and four girls’ basketball State Finals.
A 1974 graduate of LaVille High School, Magnuson earned 10 letters in three sports for the Lancers – two in basketball, four in baseball and four in tennis. He is a member of LaVille’s all-time athletic group.
Magnuson attended Butler on an athletic scholarship, playing four seasons of baseball for the Bulldogs and earning a bachelor’s degree in education in 1978. He later earned a master’s degree from IUPUI in 1981 and an Educational Specialist degree from Indiana University in 1989.
Magnuson began officiating basketball in 1977 and remains active in the sport. He also was a baseball umpire for 14 years, 1992-2005.
In boys’ basketball, he has worked 31 sectionals, 23 regionals, 10 semistates and State Finals in 2004 (3A), 2007 (4A) and 2011 (1A). He also has called the title games in the boys’ Hall of Fame Classic in 1993, 2004 and 2011. In girls’ basketball, he has called 23 sectionals, 17 regionals, eight semistate and State Finals in 1991, 1993, 1996 and 2012 (3A). He also worked the girls’ Hall of Fame Classic in 1991 and girls’ Indiana-Kentucky All-Star Game in 2004.
Magnuson also has called women’s college basketball games at the NCAA Division I, Division II, Division III and NAIA levels for 23 seasons. Highlights include working three NCAA Division II regionals, one NCAA Division III regional, three Great Lakes Valley Conference Tournament championship games, the Mid-Central Conference Tournament five times, the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference Tournament three times and the North Coast Athletic Conference Tournament two times.
In baseball, Magnuson called 13 sectionals, eight regionals, two semistates and the 2000 IHSAA State Finals (3A).
Magnuson has been active within the Indiana Officials Association. He served as the group’s president in 1997-98, its recording secretary/treasurer from 1998-2001 and has been its webmaster from 2001-present. He also was a speaker at the National Association of Sport Officials National Convention in 1998. He currently is an Associate Director for the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame and sits on some of its committees.
Magnuson has received numerous awards as a basketball official. Those include the Outstanding Girls’ Basketball official from the IHSAA in 1997, the Outstanding Girls’ Basketball official from the Indiana Officials Association in 1997 and 2011, the Outstanding Boys’ Basketball official from the IOA in 2010 and the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame “Center Circle Award” in 2011.
Magnuson, 58, currently works as the principal of Pleasant Crossing Elementary School in Whiteland. He began his career in education as a math teacher at Clay Junior High in Carmel from 1978-91. While in Carmel, he coached cross-country, football and tennis at the junior high level and was the high school varsity assistant in baseball.
He was an assistant principal at Center Grove Middle School from 1991-99. He became a principal at Clark-Pleasant Middle School in Whiteland from 1999-2001. He second principal’s job was at Break-O-Day Elementary in New Whiteland from 2001-07 and has served at Pleasant Crossing Elementary from 2007 to the present.
As a principal, Magnuson received the Cummins Partners in Progress Award in 2002, the Above & Beyond Award from Clark-Pleasant Community Schools in 2007 and was chosen the 2012 District 9 Elementary Principal of the Year by the Indiana Association of School Principals. He currently serves on the IASP Board of Directors for District 9 and is a past president, past vice president and current treasurer for the District 9 group.
He also is a member and ruling elder of the 2nd Reformed Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis.
Magnuson and his wife, Debbie, have four adult children – Greg, Beth, Brad and Nathan – and one grandchild.
