MANAGEMENT TEAM
Greg Evers – Director
Greg has been officiating in NSW since 2001 and is a rare breed of an official, where he is still actively playing the game as well as being an official. Greg’s preferred officiating positions are the Umpire and Centre Judge positions, with the vast majority of his experience being split between those positions and the Referee position.
As an official, Greg has been fortunate to participate in various international events, and it’s through these experiences that Greg is passionate about increasing the opportunities
for AGOA officials to participate in these events.
Paul Mercer - Director and Rules and Mechanics Coordinator
Co-founder of the VGOA in 1986 and a founding member of AGOA in 1993, Paul has officiated over 1,000 games at local, state, interstate and international level including the 2011 IFAF Senior World Championships in Austria, the 2014 IFAF Junior World Championships in Kuwait and the 2015 IFAF Senior World Championships in Canton Ohio where he was the Back Judge for the final.
Over the years, Paul has served in all of the positions on the VGOA Committee of
Management and in many roles with AGOA. He was involved in the formation of Gridiron Victoria in 1996 and served as Chief Commissioner from 1996 to 1999. Since 2014 Paul has been a member of the IFAF Officiating Mechanics Committee contributing to the development of the IFAF Manual of Football Officiating (MOFO). From 1998 to 2000 Paul was also the Chief Commissioner for Gridiron Australia and was Team Manager of the Australian team at the inaugural Gridiron World Cup in Italy in 1999.
Awarded Life Membership of Gridiron Victoria in 2005, Paul has been recognised as the Gridiron Victoria 'Official of the Year' on eight occasions and was inducted into the Australian Gridiron Officials Association ‘Officiating Hall of Fame’ in 2010.
Still active as an on-field official, with Referee and Back Judge being his preferred positions, Paul is passionate about rules and mechanics and passing on his knowledge and experience through game reviews and feedback to help develop the 'next generation' of Australian officials.
Miles Newman – Director, National Training Director and National Selection Committee Chair
Miles Newman has been officiating American Football since 1988, originally in Sydney and then for the last 7 years in Canberra. Miles’ focus is on the training and development of officials at all levels. He designed and built our national online training system AGO Academy. With the assistance of the training team he continues the development and management of those systems. Miles objective is to ensure that our training system provides the best opportunities for individuals to succeed officiating in the sport.
Miles was one of the inaugural AGOA Hall of Fame members in 2004.
In addition, Miles is the IFAF Oceania Officiating Chair, Officiating Consultant to the NZ American Football Federation and a member of the IFAF Officiating Mechanics Committee.
Shane Oset – Director
Shane has been officiating American Football since 2014 and has previously served on the AGOA Executive Committee in 2016.
Despite spending a majority of his officiating career "stranded" in the Northern Territory, Shane has remained an active official in the QGOA community through his online engagement and contributions to policy development. Shane enjoys officiating in the Shallow Wing and Center Judge positions. He re-joins the committee in 2020 with the aim of continuing the efforts in the recruitment, training and retention of officials.
Mathew Peterson - Director and Treasurer
Mathew has been officiating in South Australia since 2010, primarily working the Referee and Shallow Wing positions. With a work history strongly focused on accounts and administration, he joined the AGOA Executive in 2016, where he served two years as the Association Secretary, before switching to the Treasurer role in 2018.
Pamela Tuft - Director
Pam has been an active official in WA since 2017 and in 2019 became the first female official wear the white hat and Referee a game in WA. Pam is a second generation Gridiron official, her father Gordon Tuft is an AGOA Hall of Fame inductee and has been working within SA for the last 25 years.
Pam is a participant in the Women Leaders in Sport Programs with Sport Australia. Pam is driven to increase the quality of officials nationally and on increasing the number of
female officials that represent AGOA both locally and internationally.
Paul Taylor - CEO
As the CEO, Paul is responsible for implementing the Board's vision for AGOA. Paul has been in the CEO/President role since late 2017. His focus for this term is to improve the organisational governance and documentation as well as the visibility and transparency to the members.Paul has been officiating since 1998 and has been a full time official from 2012. He is based in the ACT and regularly works in NSW. He enjoys working the Referee and deep wing positions.
