From Freshman Struggles to Championship Whistles

Bryan Brunette, ‘86, found his way to Seattle University for his first day as a freshman, driving his Volkswagen Bug down I-5 from Burlington, Wash., to see his dorm room and new campus for the first time—he had never visited before—but he couldn’t have been more lost.

Like many first-year college students, away from home, in a new city, surrounded by new people but often without a strong sense of self, Brunette felt alienation, not excitement.  

Fortunately, Brunette didn’t fall through the cracks. 

A few staff and faculty members took notice and that made the difference. It set him on the path to not only succeed in college, then graduate school, but to continue that trajectory that led him to spend three decades as an NCAA women’s basketball referee, now with the Atlantic Coast Conference, and officiating two championship tournaments. 

“I'm a better person than I was when I was 18,” he says. “I see the world in a completely different way and I am eternally grateful to lots and lots and lots of people who got me there.” 

Every weekend for that first quarter at SU Brunette drove his Bug back home to see high school friends, never connecting with peers on campus. His grades reflected the disconnect. At the end of his first quarter he had a 1.9 GPA. 

What changed for Brunette was connecting with Phyllis Brazier and Judy Sharpe, staff in Student Housing, who took a gamble, elevating him to a leadership position as a Resident Assistant (RA). He was one of the first, if not the first, to serve in this role as a second-year student, as usually RAs must be at least juniors. 

“I believe those two women saw something,” Brunette says during a phone interview from his home in North Carolina, which he shares with his husband, Russell. “I don't know what they saw, but they saw something and they said, ‘This is somebody that we need to take under our wing.’” 

His turnaround was extraordinary. His grades shot up. His schedule, which before consisted only of classes was suddenly crammed with activities and meetings and gatherings. Four years later, he graduated from the Albers School of Business and Economics with a 3.5 GPA and a degree in general business.

“I'm a better person than I was when I was 18. I see the world in a completely different way and I am eternally grateful to lots and lots and lots of people who got me there.” 
—Bryan Brunette

Erin Swezey, who now holds several titles within the College of Education, including associate teaching professor, was working in Campus Ministry at the time and got to know Brunette as a student. When she thinks back on what he was like as an undergrad, she saw in him the Jesuit value of cura personalis, or care for the whole person. 

“It wasn't just, ‘here are the people I like or here are the people that believe what I believe,’ but Bryan would really try to bring everybody together,” Swezey says. “Because of those experiences, not only did Bryan lead in that way and give in that way, but I believe he was impacted.” 

She points not just to his work today as a college basketball ref, serving young people through sports, but his continuing commitment to Seattle University students. Brunette and Russell are a major force in establishing the Housing & Residence Life Student Leadership Fund, which pays for additional training and resources, as well as stress-relieving activities for current and future resident assistants. 

Deciding to pursue a career in student affairs, Brunette took a job first at Western Washington University then went to graduate school at Miami University in Ohio, earning a perfect 4.0 and a master’s degree in college student personnel. 

While at Miami, he saw a blurb in a newsletter asking for referees for intramural basketball games. Brunette had long been involved in basketball, either as a scorekeeper or even driving a van full of students to Redhawks games. 

“Basketball has been a part of my life forever and ever and ever,” he says. “I loved it. I just wasn’t good enough to play it as a competitive athlete.” 

He took up the offer to ref, putting a little extra money in his pockets, but Brunette admits he was a raw recruit. 

“I wasn’t any good,” he says of his humble beginnings in refereeing. “I had no idea what I was doing. I wasn’t trained. I was just thrown out there with a whistle and a shirt.” 

He kept at it and when he landed his first job out of grad school at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, he saw a want ad for a referee association that officiated recreational league games. From 1990 to 1995, every weekend, Brunette would spend a day working six or seven games. It put a little extra money in his pocket, but it also helped him sharpen his skills. 

“And the rest is history,” Brunette says. 

That led to a summer tryout for the next level, college ball, where he was hired in 1996 on his first try to ref games for the Southern Conference, a Division I athletic conference then based in North and South Carolina. 

There were ups and downs and plateaus, but Brunette kept working and adding more and more games with prominent conferences until most of his games were with the Atlantic Coast Conference. It’s one of the country’s premier college athletic conferences and put him on the court with the elite women of college basketball. 

Swezey says that she was initially surprised to hear that Brunette became a professional college referee, because as a sports fan she has long been astounded by the stamina required of basketball refs.  

“How can someone run the floor like that constantly?” she says. “But I think it's really in line with his Jesuit education because you have to have really strong ethical leadership and decision making and you have to be able to see it as you see it and call it as you call it.”  

By his own account, the pinnacle of a college basketball ref’s career is working the NCAA championship, the Final Four. And every single ref has their eye on achieving that goal. 

“Anybody who tells you that they don’t is lying or they don’t have the competitive spirit that you need,” he says. “I've said this to anybody who listens. There are plenty of people who are better than me that have never made the Final Four. And there are plenty of people who I think I'm as good as those who have worked multiple finals.” 

But in 2014 Brunette landed at his first Final Four as an alternate. The next year he made it to the floor in Tampa, Florida, working the tense, one-point semifinals game between Notre Dame and South Carolina. 

“It's like the Academy Awards,” Brunette says. “Once you’re a Final Four official in our game, they can’t take it away.” 

Though Brunette loves basketball, and especially the women’s game, where diversity and sporting attitudes are prized, what keeps him passionate about his work is the people, his colleagues, a value system instilled in him as a lost and lonely freshman at SU. 

“I still love the competition,” he says. “I love going out there and I love still, even at my age, running up and down the court. I love trying to make sure that I get as many plays right as I can possibly get. But even that is more about the camaraderie with the two people that I'm working with. It's the crew that I’m with that night.”