Brooke Shoulders
High school athletics intertwining among families is a tale as old as time across the state of Tennessee.
It’s perhaps on a vastly different – and deeper – level for the Shoulders family.
Synonymous with Macon County High School athletics, the Shoulders family has seen parents Beverly and Rick Shoulders both honored as TSSAA Distinguished Service Award winners within the past decade.
Kyle Shoulders was named the 2024 Tennessee Titans High School Football Coach of the Year.
Add another Shoulders to the list of honorees: Brooke Shoulders is the record-setting third member of the Shoulders family to be honored as a 2026-27 TSSAA Distinguished Service Award winner.
She’s recognized for her long-running service as a TSSAA official in both girls’ basketball and volleyball.
And Brooke Shoulders keeps working at the high school level despite being an accomplished women’s college basketball official who works with seven different NCAA Division I conferences.
“I grew up on ball fields and courts; my mom was my fifth- and sixth-grade basketball coach, my dad coached our seventh and eighth grade AAU basketball team and then mom was my high school volleyball coach all four years,” said Brooke Shoulders, who noted her mother now serves as Macon County High School’s athletics director. “It’s very important to me to be able to give back. I’ve had such wonderful mentors and supervisors myself that have played such an important role in what I do to help me get to the level I’ve gotten to.
“Being able to pour that into younger officials that have that same love and desire for sports that I do. That just means a lot. It’s important. It’s very important to me to be able to mentor and also recruit officials to keep these sports going.”
Between her on-court responsibilities, Shoulders officiates hundreds of basketball and volleyball games each competitive cycle.
Still, the former three-sport standout – basketball, softball, volleyball – and University of Tennessee graduate also has carved out time to help develop and mentor the younger generation of officials – something she sees as vital in an era of increasing scrutiny on those who legislate the sports and a national trend of declining participation at the high school levels and below.
“I love it, and you have to,” said Shoulders, mindful also to want to set a strong example for her 8-year-old daughter, Remi, who’s now venturing into athletics. “Officiating is not for the weak, I will say, so to speak. You have to love it. And I do. You have to want to get better, because the competition for officiating gets younger, faster and smarter every year.
“A lot of people, officials have gotten out of the high school scene, just because once they get to a certain level in officiating, especially at D-1 level, they stop doing high school to save their legs and because rules are different, so it’s hard. I still love going to these small-town gyms that are packed, every seat taken on a big district match game night. I loved playing and I loved to see the stands full when I played. So it’s important for me now to give back to those high school athletes that deserve good officials, too.. It’s important to me to continue to officiate high school as long as I’m able to do so and give back to the student-athletes. That’s where everything started for me.”
Launching her officiating career during intramurals on Rocky Top, Shoulders is closing in on a decade of service as a TSSAA volleyball official, working the 2025 State Championship; she’s also officiated a trio of TSSAA Girls’ Basketball State Championships.
On the collegiate level, she works with the A-Sun, Conference-USA, Missouri Valley, Ohio Valley, Southern, Sun Belt and United Athletic conferences for D-1 games; she also continues to work with the South Atlantic Conference in D-II women’s basketball, as well as officiating some NAIA contests and occasionally being called into duty for high school competitions in the state of Kentucky.
TSSAA proudly salutes Brooke Shoulders for her dedication and years of service as a high school official in Tennessee.
