Ray Valeriano, rising star as an umpire, who recently passed the certification for Girl’s Basketball. It’s been a pleasure to share the diamond with him, and now, the hardwood. He wants to be great on his own accord, and he already is, as one of his redeeming qualities is his sponge and absorption of knowledge, and applying it afterwards. He wants to be great, and he will be.

I first ran into him, after we initially took the Baseball class, on the field, officiating a Junior Varsity game. The game was competitive, and that’s when I started was curious to see if he was interested in Basketball. Here’s our conversation with this multiple sport official - who goes to show that you can ref anything, even if you are unfamiliar with the sport, that can surely be determined if you put your mind to it.

Our conversation with Ray, on The Rant.