[Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.]

This year is my 31st year as a basketball official. I have officiated at every level from boys'/girls' jr. H.S. to women's Div. I (and was lucky enough to have officiated in three D-1 and four jr. coll. regionals) and men's coll. jr. varsity. I have been lucky enough to have been officiating AAU and YBOA nationals since 1993. I still officiate at most of these levels as well as CYO, summer league (jr. H.S. and H.S.).

I look at basketball officiating much the same way as I do structural engineering. I encounter clients with small projects, medium size projects, and large projects. All projects have certain things that are common to all of them regardless of size. And each category of project also has its own requirements that the other ones do not. Some engineers only want to do small and medium size projects. Some engineers only want to do medium and large projects. And some engineers only want to do large projects.

An official has to decide what level of competition that he likes to officiate and stick with. I enjoy officiating all of them. I understand requirements of each category and officiate accordingly. Let me add one other thing here. Tonight I officiated two Special Olympics regular season games (one men's and one women's). Officiating Special Olympics basketball has its own requirements also. I have been fortunate to have been officiating Special Olympics for eleven years now and was picked to officiate in the 1999 World Summer Games (a neck injury two weeks before the competition knocked my out of the games).

If you do not like working a certain type of game, do not take the game. I find that every game and level of game has its own challenges just like every engineering project. The job is to define those challenges and meet them.