The People’s Ref: How Frank Handley Became a Cult Hero in Women’s Lacrosse

Izzy Scane is The Scane Train. Ally Kennedy is AK30. Charlotte North is The Queen of the North. 

And John Francis Handley III? He is known as Ref Frank — the fun-loving official and cult hero of the women’s lacrosse community.

It was March 26, 2012, when a girls’ lacrosse game between Baltimore County high schools Owings Mills and Perry Hall caught Handley’s attention.

“I’m doing baseball and I’m behind the plate calling balls and strikes,” Handley said. “I start watching this lacrosse game in the background. It’s the second inning and the lacrosse game is already done. So I’m saying, ‘Man, get me over there!’” 

Originally, Handley was going to officiate men’s lacrosse. Then he learned that you needed three recommendations to do that. The path to the women’s game was more straightforward. No recommendations, no problem.

Handley had never played lacrosse, let alone watched the women's version of the sport, but he went for it anyway.

“I'm doing the draw, and I'm going backwards. I'm getting all cocky backpedaling,” Handley remembered from his first game on the job. “I think I know everything, and I fall flat on my butt. My partner starts laughing. By the time the game is over, it’s already on YouTube.”

Handley has a way of making you smile even in the heat of competition. Last year he went viral wearing a hidden microphone during the USA Lacrosse Youth Nationals at Cedar Lane Park in Bel Air, Md., jokingly calling the Long Island Yellow Jackets bumblebees, rubbing his bald head in response to a player complaining about her hair and defusing anxious parents with pop quizzes about Major League Baseball team names. When he’s not mic’d up, Handley crashes TikToks with silly dance moves.

“My first impression of Frank, to say this nicely, he was kind of a goofball,” said Tom Brush, a veteran women’s lacrosse official and assignor in Maryland. “Yet at the same time, he took his role as an official seriously.”

Brush has refereed countless games with Handley, and still, 14 years later, that goofball persona takes the turf every time. It’s why fellow officials, players, parents and coaches want him working their matchup. They know they will get a fair, fun game. One with state trivia built in and jokes galore too.

“Name all three states with four letters or I’m giving you a yellow card,” is a Ref Frank classic.

Normally players have more fans than referees do. Not Handley. In fact, maybe the only player who wasn’t a part of the Ref Frank fan club from the get-go was Maggi Hall, the former Florida attacker and current Women’s Lacrosse League pro who happens to be Handley’s favorite athlete. Hall and Handley frequently butted heads when he officiated her games at Bel Air High School.

“He gave me so many yellow cards,” Hall said. “I was an attacker, so I wasn't supposed to be getting them. But I was very aggressive and I retaliated against players that hit me. I thought he didn't like me for the longest time and then I got to Under Armour’s All-America tournament. I saw Ref Frank there and he congratulated me on committing to Florida. He's talking to me about how he's so excited to watch me play. I thought he hated me at first. Turns out that he watched me play at Florida all throughout my four years. He’s all around great.”

According to Handley, a great official is “someone you don’t even know is there.” It’s an ironic attribute coming from him, as it’s impossible to miss Ref Frank from anywhere on the field. Anywhere, period. His personality gets him all over social media. Even after the shot clock expires and the workday is done, he has photos to take and the peanut gallery to chat up.

“We were at this tournament in Delaware, and we went out to eat,” Brush said of an outing with Handley. “There were about eight of us officials sitting having dinner. Some dad and daughter walk in and walk right over to Frank and say, ‘Hey, aren't you Ref Frank?’ The father told Frank he thought he kept it fair for both sides, and fun. Of course, Frank loved it in the moment, and the rest of the refs were all shaking our heads like you're just going to make Frank’s big bald head even bigger.” 

No matter how many likes he gets online, Handley doesn’t let the fame get to him. He’s still the same guy he was when he first rang the number attached to the PressBox newspaper ad that read, “Would you like to be an official?”

The only thing that’s changed since then is women’s lacrosse is now Handley’s favorite sport.  He gets to the field hours before his partners do. If he has a game, everything else in his life works around it. For Christmas, his late mother would buy him black socks and black shirts.

“After championships, when the girls cry, I cry. On senior nights, when the parents walk out with their flowers, I’m no good,” Handley said. “It isn't all about that Duke scholarship. It isn’t all about that North Carolina scholarship. Players should be out there having fun. I can help make that happen.”