Can an NCAA Basketball Official Work Both Sexes?

[ilyazhito]

Agreed. That is why I wanted (initially) to be able to work both men's and women's college basketball, just as I would want to work both boys and girls high school basketball. Unfortunately, that is impossible, so I choose the men's side. Perhaps men's officials are starting to catch on as well and call freedom of movement as consistently as the women's officials.

Speaking of FOM and the automatics, I am vigilant about calling handchecking, illegal screens, fouls against cutters, etc. whenever I have the chance to work 3-person games (and even in 2-person games), and I will try to put these habits into practice should I get (charter school) varsity games this year.

Washington, DC has an interesting way of scheduling public school basketball. Just like South Carolina has boys/girls doubleheaders, DC public schools have the JV game first at 4 PM (only boys have JV teams, probably due to budget issues), the girls varsity game at 6 PM, and the boys varsity game at 8 PM, so both boys and girls play at the same site in succession. One of the officials from the JV game stays to work either the girls or boys varsity game.

For private school girls games, I have experienced something similar. Usually, my partner for the JV game would work the following varsity game with 2 other officials (including my evaluator, for games where I was being evaluated).

I doubt that this arrangement would catch on at the college level, even if assigners were open to having officials on games independent of gender, because of the physical demands of working a college game (40 minutes requires more stamina, focus, and energy than 32 minutes), whether with women or with men.