AJ Jacobs, Referee
Adriaan Jacobs, also known as AJ,has been appointed to referee the most prestigious schools match of the year – the last match of the 2015 Craven week, hosted by Paul Roos Gymnasium in Paarl.
For the 30-year-old teacher from Welkom Gimnasium, where he went to school this is another step up the ladder which he has been climbing steadily since he started refereeing in 2010.
AJ was a player till he was persuaded to start refereeing. He had been to the Under-13 Craven week as a Puma and then the Grant Khomo Week as a Griffons.After school he studied long distance through North West University & played for the Griffons at Under-20 and Under-21. He was still playing but as a teacher he refereed school matches. He was refereeing an Under-15 match when the chairman of the Griffons referees, the late Jan Pienaar saw him. Pienaar, who died of cancer a year ago, convinced Jacobs that he would have a brighter future in refereeing than as a player. And so Jacobs joined the Griffons Referees' Society in 2010.
Two years later Jacobs was in Eugene Daniels's Academic Squad and for the next two years he was in the Contenders Squad of promising referees. This year for the first time he was promoted to the National Panel, which made him one of the top 25 referees in South Africa and he has refereed Vodacom Cup rugby.
This will not be his first 'final' match as last year he refereed the final match of the Academy Week, when it was held in Worcester.
This is great progress and, as all referees know, not achieved in isolation. There is no such thing as a selfmade referee.
AJ says that his wife, Anja, is his 'solid foundation' and then he has had help from the late Jan Pienaar who had some 30 years involvement with Griffons referee, Lieb Liebenberg , Eugene Daniels and Lourens van der Merwe, a Test referee from the Free State.
Jaco Peyper is Jacobs's role model and has been of immense help to him. Even in the midst of his busy year Peyper has found time to Help Jacobs and, 'answering all my question, always just a phone call away'.
Of course, he has ambitions to go further, and further in this case means the Elite Panel – the referees who referee Super Rugby and Test matches. For this he is willing to do whatever it takes in educating himself and achieving top fitness.
