College basketball legend/official Ed Hightower talks EXCLUSIVELY With Spartan Nation about the State of Officiating!
College basketball legend/official Ed Hightower talks EXCLUSIVELY With Spartan Nation about the State of Officiating!
Q: I would like to see officials have to meet with the media after games. Coaches and players are accountable. What do you think of that?
A: Well, again, I wouldn’t like to see the officials have to meet with the media. We have pool reporters that are allowed to come in after every game, one pool reporter, and question rule interpretation, not judgment. Rule interpretation. But there’s strong accountability, in that most fans don’t realize, that go into officiating. We have to watch tape and if I have a game where there has been a questionable call… The Big 10 going back to when Rich Falk was here and now with Rick Barge. They sent us that tape. They have individuals at the game critique it. You would be surprised…the media doesn’t get a lot of the information. But all of the sudden you’ll see that official’s schedule has been cut or that official is no longer around. Please believe me, there is great scrutiny, there is accountability. I would not like to see the officials have to go to the media and have to justify why they made a call. But certainly that official, as it is with what I do in education, I have over 1100 employees, and I am criticized on every decision I make because I have the lives of so many people riding on my decision making. And it’s no different when I referee. So I’m not afraid of accountability. We should be held accountable. We should be called on the carpet when certain things don’t go well or we’re not ready to work or we just flat-out screw up a game and cost somebody the game or title or what-have-you. And those accountability issues are at stake and there are… There’s accountability. Please believe that.
Q: You guys are independent contractors. You’re doing games all over the country. Do you think officials are maybe doing too much?
A: I agree with that, Hondo. I think officials are independent contractors. But again, let’s just call a spade a spade. You cannot work physically seven nights a week. You cannot work physically six nights a week. You can’t do it. What I try and do, and certainly I’m not as young as I used to be so let’s just call a spade a spade again. What I try and limit myself now to 3-4 days a week. And very seldom, until we go down the stretch will you see Ed Hightower working three nights in a row. Now there are times when you have to, and last year was a case in point where we had injuries like the Steve Welmers and a couple three other people, key people, who got hurt. We have to stack some critical games going down the stretch. But I don’t ever say how much an official can work, but let me just be clear…and I’m not gonna dodge the question…we can work too many games. When you start getting up to 90, 100 games a year it’s gonna take a toll, and towards the end of the year it’s gonna have an impact. Again, each official has to make that decision. But can you work too much? Yes, you can. Do you need to limit yourself? Yes, you do. What is reasonable? I’m only gonna say what is reasonable and fair, for Ed Hightower, and that is no more than 3-4 games a week.
Q: As an official, are you told by XYZ Conference to call it this way or that? How does that work? How much influence does a Conference have on what they want you to go after and what they don’t?
A: Let me just talk about that for a moment. That’s an old trait from the past. That’s an old myth that’s still out there. Years ago, I agree, that Big 10 was a wrestling match. When I first when into the Big 10 thirty years ago as a young kid, boy was it a wrestling match. Only the strong survive attitude. Those days are over. When you worked the Big East, which I worked all of the major games out in the Big East Conference, that was another major Conference where only the strong survive. That attitude is now a myth, that’s not a fact. The standardization that’s out there right now, and it started years ago, probably about ten years ago with Dr. Hank Nichols, who in my opinion is the greatest official to ever walk onto the floor, and then was Coordinator of Officials. Jim Delaney and Rich Falk have been the gold star as far as changing the atmosphere of basketball. Jim Delany took a major lead in changing the approach to basketball in that the style of play should not dictate how you should call a game. You go out there…a foul is a foul. There should be freedom of movement. There’s no longer gonna be the wrestling match in the paint. Coaches have made the adjustments. So I totally disagree when they make the statement that the Big 10 is a wrestling match, or the Big East is a wrestling match. Then you go the ACC. Well, I think if you look at a couple of the teams that have played in the Final Four in the last couple of years, I guarantee you that the Big 10 teams that were involved were not the most physical team in that Tournament. So again, that overdone thing as far as the one league being physical… There are nights when we don’t do as good of a job of controlling and addressing the physicality of the game. But when those games happen, trust me, those officials are called on the carpet. Because they’re on national TV and the NCAA, the various Conferences, they do not want to see the major physicality of the game and the wrestling matches in the post that used to be the benchmark for a game.
Q: Do they teach officials to watch for anything suspicious and to pass it on if you see it? Or does that have nothing to do with you?
A: No. First of all, I’ll talk about the Big 10 and then I’ll talk about the NCAA. The Big 10 does a background check on every official. Every official that works in the Big 10 there’s a background check. NCAA, when you go to the Tournament, there’s a background check. So this issue that happened with the NBA official and point shaving… I’m not smart enough to be quite frank, and I’m not quick enough to say, I’m gonna fix this game. I’m gonna do this. I’m just not. But it’s all about perception. Everything is about perception. If Ed Hightower is hanging around in places where there’s gambling going on, all I’ve done is caused Ed Hightower’s reputation and integrity to be questioned. We are told you have to be careful as to where you are. You never know who’s watching you, to whom you’re speaking. You don’t talk about players and this person is hurt…you never know that someone is looking for a edge. So therefore, as the old saying ‘silence can’t be quoted’, and watch where you are at all times. So I don’t think that that is an issue with officials, college officials. Certainly the issue with Donaghy, the NBA official, and unfortunately he put a bad, bad mark. I’ll tell you what, the officials across this country…whether it was high school or college or at the NBA level…we are/were/will continue to be very, very upset with that man as to what he did to this great profession. Other than that, when have you ever heard that an official was implicated in the fixing of a game, until this idiot screwed it up for all of we officials? Now everybody is having to live that down. It’s just so unfortunate that he would be so greedy, so selfish, that he would put this type of game when it’s tough enough to go out there and have every call criticized and questioned, that he would be bigger than the game and to put us under that type of criticism. It is very upsetting. Then, now and will continue to be.
Q: If you see a player doing something that’s suspicious to a ref, do you guys pass that up or do you not even get involved in it?
A: We don’t get involved in it. Because again, the game is so fast you don’t know if this kid is sick. You don’t know if this kid is not feeling well or what’s going on. So we really don’t get involved with that.
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