Profile: It's official: Stritesky loves lake living

Bruce Stritesky wears a lot of hats. There’s his US Airways pilot’s cap and his NFL official’s cap. But perhaps his favorite is whatever cap is handy when he takes his 26-foot Chaparral out on Smith Mountain Lake.
    Comfortable in the wild blue yonder or making big calls in huge NFL stadiums, Bruce Stritesky has long been most at home on Smith Mountain Lake’s serene waters. The Roanoke native was a lake regular as a kid, and he bought his first property here in 1982, just three years out of high school.
    “There’s something about being on the water that’s just peaceful,” said Stritesky, echoing a feeling Lakers know well. “I like just looking at the water, having a cup of coffee. It’s so tranquil, especially in the mornings.”
    Stritesky can use that peaceful feeling. For a good portion of the year, Sundays have a whole different aura, when he works around the country calling football games in front of screaming fans.
    “You get chill bumps on the back of your neck when the crowd gets into it,” he said. “Some of these stadiums get pretty loud, and it’s a lot of fun.”
    Beyond working his way to the top of the officiating profession, the soft-spoken Stritesky has certainly earned those tranquil mornings on the lake. While he may seem, and certainly considers himself, a fortunate man, like many so blessed, success didn’t find Stritesky: he actively pursued it.
    Just two weeks out of Northside High School, Stitesky cleared himself for take-off out of Roanoke, heading to Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla., to train as a pilot. He had been flying since he was 13 and fondly remembers heading out to Roanoke’s old Woodrum Field on Sundays after church to watch planes come and go.
    “I just knew that’s what I wanted to do, and it’s amazing what you can do if you want something,” he said with a laugh.
    In 1981, Stritesky accepted a job with Piedmont Airlines back home in Roanoke and soon teamed up with a fellow pilot to buy a townhome at The Waterfront, another goal achieved early. He married his longtime sweetheart at Halesford Baptist Church in Wirtz and, after he bought out his partner’s share of the townhome, he and Teresa would live at the lake for 10 years.
    When the couple adopted two children – Sawyer, now 16, and Jacob, 15 – in 1998, they moved back to Roanoke but kept their links to the lake, the boys growing up on the water much like their dad. These days, if he’s not towing his sons on inflatables, Stritesky has the boat anchored somewhere secluded, the family swimming and sunning.
Stritesky has had some moments in the sun as an official, too, particularly in 2005 when he called the Gator Bowl in January, NFL Europe’s World Bowl in June and the Conference USA championship game in December. NFL officiating supervisors have chosen him to work four playoff games in his 5 years in the league.
    Stritesky first began looking for a way to reconnect with football in the late 1980s. He had played on the offensive line for legendary Northside coach Jim Hickam, and by 1988, Stritesky wanted back into the game in some capacity.
    He thought about coaching, but the demands of the job wouldn’t fit with his airline schedule. A friend suggested officiating and it turned out his parents knew Harry Bushkar, who headed up Virginia high school officials at the time. After a brief meeting with the veteran referee, Stritesky was officiating a scrimmage the following week. He soon had a steady schedule of recreational Pee Wee games, sometimes as many as six in a row on Saturdays.
    By 1990, Stritesky had his first high school varsity assignment and went on to become a fixture on Friday nights around the region. Another Roanoker, long-time official Dan Wooldridge, took notice and hired him to call college games in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference.
    When Wooldridge moved up to supervise officials in the Big East Conference in 1996, Stritesky was hired there, too, reaching the top of amateur football.
    “I loved the challenge,” Stritesky said of officiating. “It’s kind of like golf. No matter what, you’re never going to have a perfect game but that’s what you’re striving for. You want to get better each time you’re out there.”
    Meanwhile, NFL scouts were scouting Stritesky and his cohorts on Saturdays to see if they might be successful on Sundays. Stritesky was invited to work in NFL Europe in 2000 where he got to see a good part of the world. In 2006, he got the call to join the NFL ranks, where he now works as an umpire.
    Stritesky made the call to sell his first lakefront property in 2005, upgrading to a newer condo in the same community. Now he has another piece of land on the Bedford side of the lake where he hopes to build his retirement home.
    However, that’s still a ways off. Stritesky doesn’t have a retirement hat yet.