The Tim Higgins Story

I may be one of a small group of people that will read every word of Dana O'Neil's ESPN article on veteran college basketball referee Tim Higgins.

When the casual fan watches a college hoops game, they're focusing on the star players, the marquee coaches and the student sections. Having attended hundreds of on-campus Big East tilts over the better part of 21 years, I have a general idea of the tempo of the game before tip-off.

Once I see the trio of officials, the complexion of the 40 minutes has already been decided. And, that's what makes O'Neil's look at the lifestyle of a college basketball referee so interesting.

Sometimes we forget that these refs work day jobs too-- as vice presidents of sales companies and high school principals (see Tim Higgins and Bob Donato).

We also forget about the grief they get from players, fans and coaches for two hours straight every night. Nobody officiates a perfect game and even I lose sight of that occasionally.

ESPN doesn't caption the picture in the piece this way, but I'm 100 percent sure that its from a Texas at Providence game in Jan. 2004. I'll never forget Providence coach Tim Welsh (who would go on to lose to Rutgers on a Herve Lamizana buzzer-beater a few days later) staring over Higgins' shoulder with Texas head man Rick Barnes. Higgins was reviewing the floater that would create the "light-up backboards" in college hoops.

Rewind to 10 years ago. Higgins calls a Miami basket good at Villanova that clearly leaves the shooter's hand after the buzzer. There was no replay and this is the event that stays with the veteran, highly-acclaimed official to this day.

I had the chance to meet Higgins in Feb. 2006 in Piscataway when he called the infamous Rutgers-Marquette game that led to Gary Waters' firing. Until that point, I didn't respect referees as humans. I looked at them as robots that flew from game to game and were paid to take a beating from fans due to their ineptitude.

I never once saw an official talk to a fan pre-game before that day. With 30 inches of snow in New Jersey, only a handful of people were able to get to the RAC (I walked). Higgins went around the lower level of the arena and personally thanked the fans for coming out in his deep tri-state area accent. That moment made me realize that refs are people too. As corny as it sounds, that was refreshing for a college hoops junkie. I could now respect every aspect of the game.

With last week's intentional foul on Kris Joseph in the Syracuse-Louisville game--given out by Higgins-- making national headlines, all of the talk is about how poorly Higgins calls a game.

Five years ago, I would have agreed. Now, I know how important officials are to college basketball. Props to the Tim Higgins figures in the sports world-- we owe you some more respect.

ESPN article on Tim Higgins