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Originally Posted by JRutledge
I will say this, most the Women's officials that I know as a whole tend to be less experienced then their Men's official’s counterparts. I know female officials that worked college within their 2 and 3 years of overall officiating that have D3 experience. I have been working 10 years and I have yet to get a shot at the D3 level along with many other officials I have worked with. And the JUCO conference I work, I am by far one of the least experienced officials around.
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As a young women's official (27 year old male, been doing DII, JUCO, NAIA for 3 years), I have to agree that the women's side in my area tends to hire referees with less experience than the men's counterparts. Although, I must emphasize that it is
100% based on their ability to officiate women's basketball. They don't care if you've been ref'ing for 3 months, 3 years, or 30 years, if you can do the job the way they ask you to do it, you will be hired. I agree with this philosophy completely. When I am ref'ing with a crew, I don't care how long they have officiated, I just want to make sure they handle their business for the entire 40 minutes we are on the court.
Of course, the lack of experience can cause an issue. There are certain situations I have never seen before that I really need to handle before I'm put into the wrong situation. I'm working on seeing as many plays as possible!
I chose to referee college women's basketball because the 2 other young guys in my high school association were in D-I women's. I liked their mechanics and gave it a try. Since I've been in, I have not regretted one minute of it. I am fortunate enough to live in an area with a lot of great college women's officials who are there for support and encouragement. Also, the JUCO women's basketball here in the panhandle of Florida is probably the best in the nation. There have been times where 5 of the 6 teams in the league have been ranked in the top 25 in the nation (including #1 and #3). Conference games are wars and you have to work your a$$ off. From other D-I officials, I have heard that it is as good, if not better than most of the lower level D-I games.