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Flora enters IHSAA Officials Hall of Fame

FILE PHOTO/DAILY FREEMAN-JOURNAL - Marshalltown resident Jay Flora works behind the plate at a Webster City baseball game in June of 2018. A longtime official in three sports, Flora was inducted into the Iowa High School Athletic Association Officials Hall of Fame in March.

Baseball, basketball, football; take your pick — around the state and, heck, even parts of the Midwest, Jay Flora has long been renowned as an official in each. He’s spent decades working all three beats at the prep and collegiate levels with the type of success that only the best of the best achieve.

In March, Flora received the the ultimate honor when he was inducted into the Iowa High School Athletic Association Officials Hall of Fame. It wasn’t something he ever sought or even envisioned, but he wouldn’t be human if he didn’t admit it was a call he was all too happy to take.

“It is cool, but it also makes you look back and realize how old you are,” said Flora, who lives in Marshalltown with his wife, Tammy. “It’s a hobby that you do and there aren’t a lot of places where you get recognized for a hobby.”

Flora began his officiating hobby in the summer of 1981. Baseball was always his first love, closely followed by basketball. He moved inside to the hardwood that same winter, and then added football to his arsenal in the fall of 1982.

And nearly 40 years later, Flora still puts on the uniform from time to time, although a car wreck nearly two years ago sent him to the sideline for a year. It’s never been about the money earned — a common theme from those officials that are just starting out to the most seasoned of veterans — but the relationships built over the miles traveled and games worked.

“If somebody said to me ‘there’s a hundred dollar bill under a rock in Algona, you should drive up there and pick it up,’ I’d say ‘there’s no way I’m doing that.’ So it’s about the relationships you make with fellow officials and coaches, and even the kids,” said Flora. “I have 40 to 50 good official friends and a lot of coaches, and there are even the kids that you get to know and really like.”

Flora estimates he’s worked 17 or 18 state baseball tournaments in Iowa, and somewhere around 10 or 11 state championship games on the diamond. That the exact numbers don’t quickly rattle off his tongue tell you that, one, he’s long been considered one of the best umpires in the state and, two, it’s never been about ego for him.

Flora worked plenty of football and basketball games at the collegiate level, too. He spent five years on a football crew that worked Missouri Valley Football Conference games, but he voluntarily walked away from that prestigious gig.

“I really didn’t enjoy that as much because it was such a time suck,” he said. “I’d leave on Friday, get a Saturday game and then either get home Saturday night or Sunday morning. And the Missouri Valley was a feeder league for the Big Ten and I felt like I was taking a spot from some younger guys that wanted to move on, so I got out of that. It was one of the harder decisions, but one of the better decisions too.”

Flora has also worked five NCAA Division III tournament basketball games around the Midwest.

Now, admittedly in the twilight of his officiating career, Flora says he still works occasionally. He stepped onto the football field a few times last fall, and this past winter he took on 15 junior college basketball games and a handful of prep contests.

When will he hang up his whistle and chest protector for good? Soon, he said.

“I’m going to work some high school baseball this summer, but this might be the last year,” he said. “Somebody said to me once that you’ve got to go and throw all of your equipment away or you’ll never get out of it, and I think that’s true.”

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