Inductees

In 1976, his dreams of becoming a big-league baseball umpire were pulled away, as a pro umpire evaluator questioned his commitment to the profession.

Call it a tough day for David Sturm.

After all, years before, his doctor said he would have been legally blind if not for a pair of thick eyeglasses. And, if not for the advent of contact lenses, there would have been no way to even pursue a career in professional baseball. He also had declined a job offer for a highly lucrative tax firm to chase the dream.

“I, not very respectfully, disagreed but to no avail,” Sturm said. “Fifty years later, it is satisfying that (the pro umpire evaluator’s) interpretation of my commitment to umpiring was not a correct one.”

Sturm soldiered on regardless, finding his passion in umpiring and refereeing high school and college sports for 50 years. And that’s why the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame is proud to induct Sturm with the Class of 2022.

A native of Salisbury in norther-central Missouri and a 1969 graduate of St. Joseph Catholic High School, Sturm officiated nearly 15,000 games before calling it a career in 2021.

He umpired high school baseball for 50 years, basketball and softball for 45 years and football for 39 years. That covered numerous leagues in Missouri high schools and colleges, with Sturm having worked 30 Final Fours in various MSHSAA sports. His coverage area included nearly 80 schools.

One year was spent in the professional baseball Gulf States League. He also officiated games for Central Methodist University, Culver-Stockton University, Washington University in St. Louis and leagues included the Heart of America Athletic Conference and the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. Sturm also umpired in the Ban Johnson League in central Missouri.

For years, he lived by this motto:

“Each game that you work, whether it be a state championship or a junior high ‘B’ game, is the most important game to those players on that day and an official should treat it accordingly and call the game as if it was the most important game that he will ever work in his life,” Sturm said.

This is a ref who, because he wasn’t athletically gifted, was a spot umpire a few times as a teenager and then found his way to the Greater St. Louis Umpires Association.

In essence, his passion for umpiring only grew. After graduating from Saint Louis University in 1972, he eventually walked away from the accounting firm Arthur Andersen & Company.

Despite the company being one of the largest accounting firms in the world – and hiring him right after college – Sturm in 1975 walked away from a promotion and a pricey Chicago training session.

At the time, he was already lined up to attend the Somers-Wendelstedt Umpiring School in Florida.

“My parents, who had lived through the Great Depression and got married towards the end of it and started a family before the outbreak of World War II, were puzzled by my decision to turn down the money and the position for a pie-in-the-sky chance of becoming a major league umpire,” Sturm said.

Sturm finished 13^th out of 120 students. But it wasn’t meant to be.

Ultimately, he returned to Missouri, started his own accounting practice and dove more into umpiring and refereeing. He eventually joined Mitch Cochran and Jim Luetjen on their varsity football officiating crew and later joined the Columbia Football Officials Association.

The Columbia organization opened up a wider group of schools, and his career took off. Dale Pleimann, Dennie Pendergrass, Greg Reynolds, Rusty Weir and Gary Hinton shepherded him through.

So did Larry Littrell, the coach and athletic director of Glasgow High School who hired him to work basketball games for one of the most successful programs in the state. That included working the elite Glasgow Tournament, including its championship game. (Glasgow Boys Basketball was inducted into the MSHOF in 2020).

And that’s the mark of Sturm. He earned respect. And he hasn’t forgotten those who helped along the way.

In the Gulf Coast League, it was Jon Bible. In central Missouri, it was Stan Switzer and John Hoover. In St. Louis, it was John Coburn, Ray Perez, Bud Miller and others, as well as Columbia’s Al Flischel.

Sturm received MSHSAA’s “Distinguished Service Award” in the 1999-2000 school year, and the Columbia Football Officials Association’s Red Weir Award in 1996.

“You cannot fool the ‘man in the mirror,’ he always knows whether you gave your best effort or not,” Sturm said.