It didn’t take long for Benitha Isingizwe to get a full experience — both extremes, for better or worse — of being a soccer referee in American youth soccer.
She recalls refereeing the first recreational game by herself — an experience that ended with her in tears, wondering if she wanted to continue. But, on the opposite end of the spectrum, there’s the time she refereed her first real tournament and experienced the support of the tight-knit referee community that is present across the country.
During that cold 2019 tournament in Greensboro, N.C., Isingizwe — who was still a relatively new referee — shared hot chocolate with a veteran soccer referee who talked to Isingizwe and her friends, and offered them some advice about being female referees in the sport.
Fast forward to 2026, and Isingizwe is an award-winning referee who is officiating her first season in college soccer. And this summer, she watched the person with whom she shared hot chocolate years earlier — Tori Penso — become the first American female referee to officiate in the FIFA Men’s World Cup.
Born in Rwanda, Isingizwe grew up there and later in Kenya before moving to the United States with her family around the time she was 12 years old. After they settled in North Carolina in 2016, Isingizwe began playing soccer after her older sister picked up the sport.
Sari Rose, now a Senior Manager for the U.S. Soccer Federation, met Isingizwe and her sister, Ange, when they were playing on a rec team through a local school that serves recently arrived immigrant and refugee students. Rose’s outreach program at a local Greensboro club — now NC Fusion — offered Saturday pick-up play, which Benitha and her siblings began attending.
That NC Fusion Foundation introduced kids to different pathways within soccer. But Rose began to see a challenging pattern.
“We started to find a lot of kids — when they got to high school — they dropped out of those programs because they’d start working jobs at fast food restaurants and things like that,” Rose said. “They’d work after school and couldn’t do our programming. We were like, ‘We got to figure out a way to keep these kids in the program.’”
A referee pathway emerged as a possible solution, as Rose and her team aimed to address the ever-present referee shortage while also giving kids a chance to earn some income and stay connected to the sport. Isingizwe and her friends were some of the first to participate in the initiative.
“Some way, somehow, we ended up at training for reffing,” Isingizwe recalled. “Sari connected us with [referee mentor and advisor] Roger Morton and others, and they started giving us the right games and small-sided games and mentoring us from the sidelines and things like that.”
Rose said the program in Greensboro was an initiative in conjunction with the NC State Referee Association (NCSRA) to help referees who were eligible for assistance with their club or on assistance with their school. The young referees were able to get a free first-year certification and a free referee uniform.
In addition to the material support, they gained valuable experience that contributed to developing as referees, but also as young people.
“What kids learn from reffing applies to what they need to do to be successful in schools and the workplace,” Rose said. “To have an opportunity at 14 years old to earn an income and learn all these amazing life skills that will benefit them in other aspects of their life is incredible. I think we need to lean more into seeing refereeing as a viable opportunity for young kids in terms of workforce development.”
Morton, an experienced veteran referee, said the mentoring went beyond teaching kids how to referee a soccer game. They wanted the young participants to develop confidence, responsibility, leadership and life skills.
Isingizwe continued to gain refereeing experience and officiated many of the youth soccer competitions that came through the complexes in Greensboro.
In May 2025, she was announced as the recipient of the North Carolina Youth Soccer Association/NCSRA Young Female Referee of the Year Award. A few weeks later, Isingizwe embarked on her most significant trip for refereeing, as she officiated at the US Youth Soccer Southern Regional Championships in Dallas, Texas.
“I had a lot of fun reffing and got some great feedback,” Isingizwe said of Regionals. “I didn’t realize they took care of refs like that. From hotel to dinners to things to do, it was really fun and definitely a good experience.”
Another benefit of officiating in Dallas was that — despite being the furthest Isingizwe had traveled for refereeing — she had a familiar face watching. Her sister, Ange Tumukunde, lived locally while pursuing her master’s degree at UT Dallas, and she came to support Isingizwe during the games.
It was fitting to have Ange there to watch her newly-award-winning sister in action, because Isingizwe may not had been there if not for Ange’s support during her early days of refereeing.
One of Isingizwe’s earliest memories of reffing — the one that left her in tears — featured a spectator “screaming and being rude and disrespectful” for no reason that she could identify. As a teenager officiating her first recreational game by herself, Isingizwe walked away set to see her first game also be her last.
“So, I just called my sister crying,” Isingizwe recalled. “I was like, ‘I can’t do this anymore. I’m tired of this. This parent is screaming at me on the sideline. I don’t know what I did wrong.’”
Ange talked Isingizwe through the incident and encouraged her to keep going if she enjoyed refereeing — using some colorful language when telling her sister not to let spectators discourage her.
“She basically just cussed him out,” Isingizwe said of her talk with her sister. “And she was like, ‘Keep going. You’re doing good. You know what you’re doing.’”
Isingizwe kept refereeing, and the support she received continue to grow. Calls to Ange after games turned into conversations with mentors like U.S. Soccer referee Patrick Mulhern, Morton and others who would give feedback that Isingizwe could note for future games.
“When I think back to the young Benitha I first met, she was quiet and somewhat shy, just beginning to find her way,” Morton said. “Today, I see a confident young woman who has become a strong leader, someone who carries herself with professionalism, makes difficult decisions, and has earned the respect of those around her. That transformation has been incredible to watch.”
It’s through the connections of the referee community around her that led Isingizwe and her friends in the Greensboro program, Nashwa and Myasir, to spend time chatting with Penso back in 2019. For the three girls who were new to refereeing, hearing from someone at the top of the profession provided inspiration and a look into what can be achieved within the world of refereeing.
In addition to some typical feedback, such as advice for adjusting their position during play in their games, Penso gave the trio some words of wisdom that Isingizwe still remembers seven years later.
“She touched on being a woman in the field and stuff like that,” Isingizwe remembered of the conversation with Penso. “And she was like, ‘If you blow that whistle, be confident in it.’ Basically, to always like stand up for yourself, point blank, period.”
Isingizwe kept up with Penso and the two followed each other on social media. She said it was surreal to see Penso officiating at the Men’s World Cup this summer, three years after she had the whistle for the final at the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia.
When she would tell others she knew the referee running around World Cup fields with the best players in the world, Isingizwe said they don’t believe her. Even though she knows it to be true, Isingizwe has some of the same feelings.
“When I saw her at World Cup, I still couldn’t believe that’s the person that saw me the very first time I was blowing my whistle,” Isingizwe said. “I’m seeing her on TV, and she’s crushing it in all the games she has done. It’s very inspiring.”
Isingizwe took her own step toward climbing her way to higher levels of soccer refereeing when she worked her first college soccer game on Sept. 7, and she’s worked several more since.
While continuing to advance and work her way to the professional ranks as a referee is an opportunity that would certainly interest Isingizwe, it’s not her primary focus as she looks to her future. She graduated from North Carolina A&T in the spring 2026 after studying information technology and would like to apply her degree to a job in the sports industry.
Whether that sees her give back to the soccer referee community through developing software that assists in an administrative capacity remains to be seen. But, as long as she enjoys it and finds time in her schedule, Isingizwe said she’ll continue to build her referee career alongside her professional career.
“If opportunity presents itself for me to go pro and do high-level games, I am more than open to do that because I love the game,” Isingizwe said. “I love the sport. I love everything about it. I just don’t want to put it on a pedestal of focusing solely on reffing… I’m just taking it one day at a time.”
No matter the direction Isingizwe’s future takes her, Morton said her progress to this point shows that she’s willing to put in the work. Her progression within the world of refereeing is evidence of that. Whether or refereeing or a different professional career, he thinks her story is an example of what can happen when investing in young people and providing them support and belief in their potential.
“What makes me most proud, though, isn’t the level of games she is officiating,” Morton said. “It’s seeing the person she has become. The quiet young girl we met years ago has grown into a confident, capable young woman with a tremendous future ahead of her.”
