Teagarden hangs up her socks
In the run-up to the World cup, and the busy round of internationals over the past ten days, one notable event that deserves highligting was the retirement of one of the world’s most experienced women’s referees, Dana Teagarden, who concluded her international career at the Czech Republic – Switzerland women’s match in Prague.
Published by Alison Donnelly, July 8th, 2014
2 minute read
Dana Teagarden finished her whistling career and left the organisers her official socks and shorts in which she refereed the Women’s World Cup as her parting gift!
Teagarden began to play rugby in 1988 while studying at the United States Air Force Academy, and began to referee there as well.
As a player, she reached the Division 1 Women’s Collegiate National Championship Team, and as a referee she got even further.
Launching her international career in 2006 by refereeing an U20 women’s match between England and Canada, later that same year, she was also a referee in women’s matches in the World Cup – the first between Kazakhstan and South Africa.
In 2007, she became the first woman to referee a men’s tournament on the Sevens World Series in San Diego. In 2009, she refereed matches at the Women’s Sevens World Cup in Dubai and in 2010, she became the first woman to serve as head referee in an international men’s match – between Hong Kong and the Netherlands.
In 2010, she was also one of the head referees at the World Cup in London, where among others, she refereed the match for third place between Australia and France. Since then, she has refereed many other international men’s and women’s matches, and was nominated to the International Rugby Board’s panel of referees.
She refereed her last international match on Sunday, 29 June 2014, in Prague at Eden – the women’s match between the Czech Republic and Switzerland for the Konektor Cup, which was also a qualifying round for the European Cup.
Congratulations to Dana on a fantastic career!