Terry Vaughn, former FIFA and MLS referee from Eastern Iowa, dies after Huntington’s Disease battle

Terry Vaughn, an Iowa City West and Coe College graduate who became one of the nation’s top soccer referees, died Thursday. He was 50.

Vaughn battled Huntington’s Disease, an inherited disorder that causes brain nerve cells to gradually die. His death comes at the start of Huntington’s Disease Awareness Month, when for many years Professional Referee Organization officials have worn blue wristbands to support Vaughn and the Huntington’s Disease Society of America.

“Terry was a true ambassador for the referee community,” PRO general manager Mark Geiger said in a statement. “He worked every game with the utmost professionalism and integrity. He was a mentor to many referees in Iowa, the United States, North America and around the world for the way he conducted himself on and off the field.

“On a personal note, I learned so much from Terry on how to be a professional and an international referee. I worked hard to put into practice what I observed him doing and how he went about managing a match. He will surely be missed but his legacy and his influence on younger officials will continue to live on through those who learned so much from him.”

Vaughn, a native of Mount Vernon, was an All-Mississippi Valley Conference soccer player and a state wrestling finalist at West, where he graduated in 1992. That was before the Iowa High School Athletic Association even sponsored soccer. He then went to Coe, where, he told The Gazette in 2000, “I said, heck, I can go further as a ref than as a player.”

Vaughn became a FIFA referee, which included officiating international matches in the 2007 and 2009 CONCACAF Gold Cups and 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup. He was named the 2003 Women’s United Soccer Association Referee of the Year. He worked Major League Soccer games from 1997 to 2012 before Huntington’s symptoms forced him off the field.

“He just really enjoyed refereeing soccer and being around soccer people,” his wife Kim told MLSsoccer.com in 2017. “Terry would do a major-league game and come home and volunteer to referee our daughter’s (Kyla) Under-8 game, and he had just as much fun in that U-8 game as he did the night before in the middle of an MLS game. That was Terry.”

In 2002, Vaughn founded the Iowa Referee Academy, which was later renamed the Terry Vaughn Referee Academy in his honor. He was inducted into the Iowa High School Soccer Coaches Hall of Fame in 2017.