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It’s a long way from boxing to volleyball. But, for Brad Barton, it’s not that much of a stretch. Barton grew up in Jordantown, not far from the boyhood home of Sam Langford, the fighting pride of Weymouth Falls.

There weren’t many beacons in sports for anyone in the Digby County area, let alone someone from the African-Nova Scotian community.

“When we growing up, we had very few people to look to, in relationship to athletics or just success in the world,” Barton said in advance of his 2017 induction into the Nova Scotia Sport Hall of Fame.

“Any person we had that we could use as a role model, we used those people as an inspiration to move forward. He was always someone I looked up to in relation to leaving Nova Scotia and going to the U.S. and doing so well in the boxing world with all the barriers he had. People still talk about his today.”

Barton, 72, joins Langford among Nova Scotia’s sports legend after a 50-year career as a volleyball official and administrator, helping build the sport regionally, nationally and internationally.

The Order of Canada recipient participated in the 1976 Olympics in Montreal as a referee and was denied a chance four years later with the international boycott of the Moscow Games. His second chance came in 1984 in Los Angeles when he again refereed at the Olympic Games.

There were six kids in the Barton family. Older brother, Chester, proved to be motivational as a multi-sport athlete in high school in Digby.

“He was six years older and I couldn’t stand up to him,” said Barton, a career educator and administrator and community leader living in Dartmouth. “But I was involved in all the sports, too. Soccer, volleyball, basketball, and track and field. So he was an inspiration to me to have somebody there from my own family that I could look up to.”

Barton moved right into teaching after high school, working in an elementary classroom in North Preston before he had even completed the provincial certification. From there he went to the Nova Scotia Teachers College, where he was part of the first physical education class in 1964. One of the requirements of the program was to become qualified as an official in three sports. Barton played soccer and volleyball at NSTC and senior basketball for a Truro team.

When he came out of school in 1966, now working as a physical education teacher at a junior high in Bedford, he could referee all three sports.

“But I fell in love with volleyball and I gave up basketball and soccer. And then I progressed up the line.”

It went from local to provincial. Then regional. Next came national and in 1975 he became an international referee in advance of the Montreal Olympics.

He chaired the national officials committee for eight years starting in 1978 and began training officials for international events. That led to him being the assignor, and preparing all the evaluations, for referees at the FISU World University Games in Edmonton in 1983.

The 1976 Olympics will always be a highlight.

As a new referee, he didn’t know how many chances he’d get. But he’ll always remember a men’s match between Cuba and South Korea, one he got to work because the appointed referee was pulled from the assignment after he reported being offered a bribe.

“I remember around two or three in the morning at the hotel there was a knock on the door and underneath they put an envelope. It said I was going to referee tomorrow. That was probably the highlight. It was pressure unknown. But I did the match and did well.”

His reward was to be the second referee for the women’s bronze-medal match at the Montreal Forum.

He went on to work the test event for the Seoul Olympics in 1985. With Canada not involved, he got to work in matches with many of the world powers, including the United States and Soviet Union.

Some demands of his work in the school system began to conflict with the international officiating and it cost him some opportunities. He did work another World University Games in Buffalo in 1993.

He’s still plenty active, evaluating and assigning officials at the university and college level. He referees, too, at the high school and college level.

Why 50 years, and counting, in Volleyball?

“Sportsmanship was always a high priority. We had rules and regulations to maintain proper sportsmanship and behaviour and the referee had all the power in the world to intervene when necessary. The coaches were competitive, but acting professionally. The referees were professional with their refereeing. It allowed the players to be the best athletes they could be. It was a good, positive community.”

Bio Courtesy of Monty Mosher