Cal Lovering’s nearly 30-year soccer officiating career has taken him across the globe and put him on the pitch for nearly 3,000 matches.

 

Originally from New Jersey and a graduate of Hofstra University, Lovering grew up playing soccer but found his way into officiating as a club linesman in Georgia in 1996. A retired Army officer, he has been a member of United States Soccer Federation since 2003, primarily officiating in Pierce and King County after stints in Georgia, Kansas, and Texas.

 

Since 2004, Lovering has been an official for Special Olympics, where he has officiated matches at the local, state, national, and even international levels. He has served as Head Soccer Referee for the past nine years and Referee Advisor for the past eight, coordinating referees for more than 2,700 Special Olympics matches. This role has taken him across the globe to conduct training sessions and supervise referees for the USA Games in New Jersey (2014), the Southwest Asian Games in India, the World Games in Los Angeles (2015), the USA Games in Seattle and the World Unified Cup in Chicago (2018).

 

Lovering shifted roles from coordinating referees to overall administration of events as Technical Delegate in 2018. That role has taken him to Abu Dhabi for the Middle Eastern North Africa Games (2018) and the World Games (2019), as well as Orlando for the USA Games and Detroit for the World Unified Cup (2022).

 

Locally, Lovering is an active member of the Pierce County Soccer Referee Association board in various positions from member at-large to vice president.