James John Santarsiero was born in New Rochelle Hospital on Oct 14th, 1953 at 4:00 am to Irene Wiess Santarsiero and Daniel Santarsiero. In 1958 Daniel Santarsiero legally changed his last name to Santa. 
Jimmy went to Rye High School where he was a three sport letterman playing football, track and basketball. He excelled in football where he was All Westchester County as both a junior and a senior as a halfback. His senior year he was the third leading scorer in Westchester County. He was also featured on the 1970 NY Daily News All Star Team and a recipient of the Con Edison Award for his excellence on the football field. 
His achievements on the gridiron in high school earned him a 4 year Football scholarship to the University of Maryland. As a sophomore Jimmy was the second leading tackler on the Terps that year, ahead of the NFL Hall of Famer, Randy White, who was also a sophomore (see Washington Post article). He was injured against Duke the seventh game of the season and did not play the rest of the year. (See NY Times article).
Jimmy came back from his knee injury and returned as a periodic starter for the next two years and was the starting linebacker and Captain for the 1974 Liberty Bowl (See TV Guide starters lineup), which was played during the Monday Night Football slot on ABC vs the University of Tennessee. The Terps lost to the Vols 7-3 on a controversial call late in the 4th quarter. The Terps that year ended up being Ranked 13th in the Nation and were ACC Champions. Jimmy’s senior class had a record number of Maryland players enter the NFL that year, with seventeen players entering NFL training camps. That class of seniors had 11 drafted and 6 free agents. Jimmy was one of the free agents, who went to the NY Giants.
Jimmy was released in the preseason and he went back to the University of Maryland, where he finished his degree at Maryland’s Smith School of Business.  While at Maryland that 5th year Jimmy was a Graduate Assistant for the Freshman Football team but also worked for a security bodyguard service. It was that job that allowed Jimmy to be chosen to be Muhammad Ali’s bodyguard. The “Champ” trained in Maryland for a fight at the Capital Center against Jimmy Young.
It was then that Jimmy found a love for boxing.  Ali liked Jimmy and after spending 2 weeks with the “GOAT” it was under Ali’s recommendation that Jimmy become a referee.  Jimmy started training in world renown Gleason’s Gym in NYC in year 1978. Over the course of the next 25 years Jimmy worked his way to the upper echelons of the boxing hierarchy. He was then doing major fights in Madison Square Garden during the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. His refereeing career spans over 40 years and over 350 fights which included many title fights. Jimmy was on HBO, ESPN and other TV outlets over 75 times. He did title fights in England and other venues in Europe as well. Some of the great fighters that have been under Jimmy’s watchful eye in the ring, were former Heavyweight Champs Larry Holmes, Buster Douglas, Hasim Rahman, Riddick Bowe, Tim Witherspoon along with Champs in other weight classes like Roy Jones Jr. where Jimmy did the WBC/WBO unification bout on HBO in Madison Square Garden. He also refereed champions Arturo Gatti, Pernell Whitaker, and Livingston Bramble. Jim officially hung up his bowtie and retired in 2018.
With Jimmy’s mom Irene being Jewish, Jimmy was also nominated to the Jewish National Sports Hall of Fame by Senator and former Vice Presidential Candidate Joe Lieberman (See letter of recommendation). Jimmy was also featured in a 2 page article in the NY Times in 2012 during Super bowl week regarding his comeback from his knee injury  (See NYT’s link “Linked by one play”). He also was featured on ABC Local Sports in Washington, DC (See YouTube Link “Where is he now”). Recently Jimmy did a podcast interview by international musician and boxing enthusiast Joe Wamsley. (See YouTube link)
Jim is an accomplished musician who plays the Piano, Accordian, Harmonica and the Guitar. He is married to Sylvia Santa, who is ironically born on Christmas Day. He has two children Molly and David. He is employed by Givaudan Company, the largest food flavor company in the world ,for the last 37  years as a Key Account Manager.