by Thos Robert

Created on: August 19, 2007

One of the most difficult jobs in sports is refereeing an NBA game. There are the obvious demands and pressures that come from working in what is essentially a fishbowl. Like all game officials, NBA referees are subject to constant scrutiny and second-guessing, and only their mistakes get viewed on ESPN. And unlike their peers in football and baseball, NBA referees, due to the nature of the game, must work in much closer proximity of potentially hostile members of the crowd, as well as the benches. That said, there are basically three reasons which make working in the NBA as a referee an especially difficult job.

The first reason is the speed of the game and the size of the players. It's impossible to appreciate how fast an NBA game moves and how big the players really are on television. And when one factors in how accomplished many of the players are when it comes to "acting" (that is, faking fouls), calling a 100% accurate game is nowhere near possible. Also, each of the three NBA referees on the court is responsible for covering the entire length and width of the court (unlike basketball or football whose umpires and officials are assigned specific aspects of the game to monitor) which makes working an NBA game especially demanding.

Another element which is becoming more clear in the popular media is the fact that the NBA manages a frustrating work environment for its officials. The oversight they receive from the league office has been criticized as being confusing, the training they receive is regarded as inadequate by some within the referees own union, and the league's official interpretation of the rules actually changes during the course of a season, seemingly at the whims of the NBA office in New York. These have been cited as some of the primary reasons for the high turnover in the officiating ranks.

Few people give thought to the travel and lifestyle conditions that NBA officials have to endure. Despite the first-class accommodation, the life of an NBA official on the road is a long, lonely one, which does not permit ordinary human interaction. The personal sacrifices that NBA referees make are difficult to quantify, but the high divorce rate among referees can be interpreted as product of the stressful lifestyle that referees live. Unlike NFL game officials, who are actually part-time workers who have full and complete lives outside of football and baseball umpires who work in teams and are allowed to indulge in a much more normal social life when compared to NBA referees. The extent of the psychological toll on NBA referees can only be speculated upon, but it may explain why it is becoming more common for referees to take a year or two off from the demands of working in the NBA.

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