I have been watching alot of basketball during the week at night. I tend to see the same officials at every game like Tim Huggins or few other guys that I do not know their names. What do these guys do for a living that they can call basketball every night? I am just curious. Anyone have some thoughts?

Rich man
Poor man
Beggar man
Thief
Doctor
Lawyer
Indian Chief.

:)

ref basketball...4-5 games a week at about 750-1000 per lets see....about 16 weeks say...60 - 70 games total
750*60 = a whole lot of money.

keep smiling
SH

I know that Steve Wellmer is a retired school administrator, and Jim Burr has either a loan company or a bail bonding service I can't remember. I met both of them at a referee camp and asked them the same question. Most either are self-employed, or are retired from their first job and just referee for supplemental income. (some supplement)

In talking to a guy who does mostly Big West games and limits his games because of job and family I got some insight into this.He feels some games are getting cheated at the D1 level because even he sees the same officials at sites all over the country.These guys are doing 4 or 5 games a week and flying all over the place.There is no way they are not very tired a lot of the time.I think for the good of the game they should put some limits on this.By the way I have no aspirations of ever doing this level.

That would be pretty difficult to do. Several issues come to mind:

1- Most officials work for several different supervisors.

2- Those that work all of these games would probably fight any such restriction.

3- Coaches want the familiar faces of veteran officials when jobs and thousands of dollars are affected by the outcome of games.

I'm not saying that it's not possible to change but change is seldom, if ever, easy. A Wake Forest assistant coach tracked one such official who worked 10 games in 11 days. Can you imagine?

I don't think they work at Walmart where they don't know their schedule from week to week. The few that I know are into jobs where they set their own time schedule like Real Estate or Insurance or sales of some kind.

I'm a first year official, and at one of my 'learn the rules' classes, I got a chance to meet Phil Bova. (For those of you who don't know who he is, he's a Big 10 official -- and was the referee at the infamous game where Bobby Knight threw the chair....kinda neat!) Among all of the things Phil told us, he mentioned that he's a phys. ed. teacher at a local college (Cleveland, OH)...don't remember what school. It was a really neat opportunity to meet and talk with someone with so much experience. He was a very funny man, and projected himself as very confident in his knowledge of the game. And like HoopsrefBC mentioned, Phil mentioned anywhere between 6-8 hundred for a regular season, conference, non-tournament game.

Ever been to Bova's camp? I went two years ago.... it's only a 5 hour drive from where I am in Canada.

..Mike

No...but I understand it's very intense and not exactly designed for a first year official like myself. Perhaps in another year or two I'll be ready for it. I'm planning on attending an 'average' officials camp this summer.

Bova's camp
 

Any info on where it is or who/where I could contact to get such information?

Please post any info here -- thanks in advance!

Division I Ref's Occupations
 

I know that Ed Hightower and Sam Licklighter are both high school principals (Illinois and Ohio, respectively). Needless to say, they both have excellent staffs underneath them.

Higgins
 

We were lucky enough to have Tim Higgins speak at one of our meetings about 3 years ago. At the time he was a salesman for a chemical co. in NJ. He would sched appointments with customers in the area of the game sites. Good work if you can find it!!!