Can an NCAA Basketball Official Work Both Sexes?

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by ilyazhito

I created this thread so that officials on the fence could know some of the differences between men's and women's college basketball, from an officiating perspective, as well as to find out if it were possible to actually work both sexes. Now I know that working both sexes simultaneously is not possible, except maybe at the junior college level. Is this the reason why some JUCO men's officials use women's signals in men's games (counting with 1 hand and making a fist to start the clock, instead of the CCA Men's approved method of raising one hand, counting with the other, and chopping the raised hand)?

It really does not matter what someone wants to do, they often are not going to have much of a choice anyway. To work any college, someone has to hire you. Someone has to suggest that you are good enough or competent enough to work their games. People can try to do what they want in this arena, but if no one gives them the games, it does not matter.

JUCO is often assigned by people that assign other levels. We had a JUCO assignor in our area at one time that would get officials that worked Men's to work the Women's side in a pinch. That is the trend as many D1 conferences are using lower levels as their consortium when they train and hire officials all over several levels. The BIG has done this and has even supervisors of lower level conferences sharing their training and camps with the BIG. Well, the conferences eventually got rid of that supervisor and gave the assigning to a guy that already assigned college and NAIA ball for the Men's side and gave the other side to a Women's assignor who also already assigned some college, including D3 in the area. So it is great to have a desire, but there is clearly a standard to keep officials on one side or the other. Conferences want their games covered for sure, but they also want access to the same quality officials that other levels have, including JUCO. Many camps I went to the supervisor assigned all levels of college in over many states, so I doubt your area is entirely unique.

Peace