Noel Lilly

Volleyball has been a part of Noel’s life since the spring of 1967 when he and his Bishops College teammates won the Provincial High School Championships. After high school, he attended Memorial University and played volleyball for 5 years under the mentorship of MUN coach Keith Taylor. Following graduation from MUN, he went on to play Senior A volleyball for 13 years. The most successful team on which he played was Venice Pizzeria, which won several Provincial and St. John’s Molson Senior League Championships. He finished his playing career with Razorbacks in the Senior B division in 1990.

Noel began officiating in 1969. In the mid 1980s, he was part of a group of senior referees who formed an executive committee, on which he still serves, to re-establish a failing Newfoundland and Labrador Volleyball Board of Officials, later to be known more appropriately as the Newfoundland and Labrador Volleyball Officials Association. In 1995, he took over the position of Regional Officials Chair, which he held until 2003. He then served as NLVA Registrar from 2003 to 2007. In 2007, he once again assumed the position of ROC until he resigned from it in 2010. And so ended Noel’s 15 year term on the NLVA executive.

Noel attained his National Official’s Certification in 1999. In 2003, he acquired his National Supervisor and Evaluator Certification. Over the last 15 years, he has refereed or been a Referee Supervisor/Evaluator at several Canadian Championships. His highlights as a referee are many, but his major achievements have been:

Selected to be First Referee for the Male Championship Match at the Juvenile National Championships in 1999 in St. John’s
Selected to be First Referee for the Female Championship Match, Division 1, Tier 1 at 18U National Championships in 2001 Saskatoon, SK
Selected to referee at the Canadian College Athletic Association Female Championships in 2000 in Grand Prairie, AB
Selected to referee at Canada Summer Games in 2001 in London, ON and in 20099 in Charlottetown, PEI
Refereed AUS Female Championships in 2013 in St. John’s

He has also refereed at countless NL Championships including NL Winter Games in 2002 and 2010. Throughout all his national refereeing, Noel has officiated in every province in Canada.

Noel has also been very busty as an official’s clinician, conducting Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3 clinics around the Province for about the last 20 years. As evidence of his dedication to volleyball officiating in NL, Noel has conducted clinics in Labrador City, Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Hopedale and Port Hope Simpson, on the Northern Peninsula in Englee and Roddickton, along the west coast in Corner Brook, Stephenville and Port aux Basques, in central at Grand Falls-Windsor, Botwood and New-Wes-Valley, and in eastern at Clarenville and St. John’s.

Noel’s passion for volleyball has resulted in his being awarded the Paul Augot Memorial Award for Work and Dedication in Officiating in 1994 and 999 and the Reg Soper Memorial Award for Outstanding Contribution to Volleyball in 2010.

For his work ethic, dedication, and invaluable contribution to officiating and the NLVA, and for his true love of the game, Noel Lilly is elected to the Newfoundland and Labrador Volleyball Association Hall of Fame.