Jerry Gastellum

When Jerry Gastellum graduated from Pueblo High School in 1969, he was known for baseball. He was an all-city ballplayer for the Warriors and went on to be a letterman at NAU.
And then it all changed.
Over the next 20 years, Gastellum became Cholla High’s softball coach, going 156-75, finishing as high as No. 2 in the state championships, and was subsequently named Tucson’s softball coach of the year by both the Daily Star and Tucson Citizen.
He had also been Pima College’s softball coach, and, by 1988, became Cholla’s athletic director.
When Gastellum wasn’t coaching – or teaching at Cholla – he became involved in officiating. Although “involved’’ doesn’t paint an accurate portrait of Gastellum’s career.
In 1977, he became a certified AIA wrestling and football referee. A year later the AIA sanctioned Gastellum to become a baseball umpire. In whatever free time he had, Gastellum officiated football for the ACCAC, the Western States Football League and the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference.
Gastellum hit it big in 1992 when the Pac-10 hired him to be a football official, a job he worked for the next nine years.
He became so accomplished that he umpired the 1999, 2002 and 2003 state championship baseball games, as well as the 2002 and 2003 state championship football games. Along the way he officiated the East-West Shrine football game twice and Tucson’s Copper Bowl in 1997.
He became recognized as one of the finest sports officials in Tucson history, along with those previously inducted into the Pima County Sports Hall of Fame such as Bud Grainger, Bobby Rauh, Cleo Robinson, Dean Metz, Jim Fogltance, Joe Robinson, Ralph Deal, Jim Markert and Boyd Baker.
Today, almost 50 years after he officiated his first high school ballgame, Gastellum is still at it.
When he was not officiating, Gastellum became a top TUSD sports administrator. He has been the athletic director at Cholla and Catalina high schools. In 1994, he was named the AIA’s Athletic Director of the Year.
In recent years he has worked for the Pac-12 as part of the TV’s instant replay team, reversing or approving controversial and close calls from the press box.