A referee pursues her calling in the men’s game
Hogan became first female Division I officiator last season
COMPTON, Calif. — There are nearly 900 officials working in the top tier of men’s college basketball, keeping order at thousands of games. They wear black-and-white striped shirts and try to keep a low profile.
Last season, only one of them was a woman. Her name is
Crystal Hogan, and when she sat down in February to talk about it, about the lonely and perplexing ratio of being one out of 900 in NCAA Division I men’s basketball, she was coolly diplomatic, as a good official should be.
“I can’t answer that,” she said. “I’m just happy for the opportunity.”
Hogan, 43, is glad to know that the number of women officiating top men’s college games has doubled this season with the addition of Amy Bonner. “I hope there’s more coming,” Hogan said last week.
In an era in which women are breaking into jobs traditionally held by men across the sports world — there are female assistants in the NBA and the NFL, for example, and Kim Ng last month became the first female general manager in Major League Baseball, with the Miami Marlins — men’s college sports have generally been slower to adapt.
For female basketball referees, men’s college basketball may be the bleakest of frontiers. In the NBA, four of the 70 fulltime officials last season were women, the league said. In its developmental G League, 25 of 63 were women — a ratio similar to that of the WNBA, where 11 of 27 referees in 2020 were women.
In college basketball, there are about 500 women officiating in Division I overall; all but Hogan and Bonner work in the women’s game.
The NCAA does not track how many women have ever worked Division I men’s games, but it might be counted on one hand.
Only one, Melanie Davis, has officiated in the NCAA Tour
nament, at a first-round game in 2002.
That was the year that Hogan began officiating. She was raised in Compton, Calif., mostly by her late grandmother, whose name is tattooed on Hogan’s wrist. She played many sports as a girl, but not much basketball until high school. She took to it quickly and earned her way to Compton College, a community college coached at the time by a former NBA player, Louie Nelson, and became a leading scorer.
“Now that I look back, I never paid attention to the referees — never,” Hogan said. She laughed. “Maybe because I didn’t play defense, I don’t know.”
She was recruited to Long Beach State. Her playing career was disappointing, she said, but she earned degrees in psychology and criminal justice, leading to a job as a social worker in Los Angeles.
Part of Hogan’s job was accompanying police officers on raids and searches, figuring out the care and placement for any children swept up. She soon realized that she liked the law enforcement aspect, too.
She now works as a parole agent for California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, overseeing about 40 cases, people who have served time for violent crimes. She visits them once or twice a month, occasionally arresting those who violate their parole.
“You have to know your surroundings, trust your training,” Hogan said, and there are times when she might be talking about either of her professions, or both. “But you know what? I’m from the city of Compton. I’ve seen quite a bit. I’ve heard quite a bit. But when you deal with people with respect, and show them respect, you get respect back.”
In 2002, a friend asked if Hogan would be interested in officiating, as a way to earn money and stay connected to basketball. In the scrambled hours between a full-time job and raising a daughter as a single mother, she went through the training and worked high school girls’ games, because that was where schedulers nudged her.
Her first game was with a heavyset partner who did not want to rotate into the prescribed officiating positions on the floor, as Hogan had trained to do, and who scolded her when she called a foul late in a blowout game.
“He yelled at me from way in the backcourt, ‘That’s not a foul!’ ” Hogan said. “I couldn’t believe it. In front of everybody. After that, I was so discombobulated. I was so embarrassed.”
She soon hardened from criticism (“I’ve learned to ignore things — nothing really bothers me anymore,” she said) and moved up to junior college women’s basketball.
She spent summers watching the Drew League, rooted not far from home, featuring street ball legends and pro players. In 2007 or 2008, she said, organizers pulled her onto the floor to officiate, calling games featuring the likes of LeBron James and Kevin Durant.
A highlight remains calling a foul on Kobe Bryant. Her phone holds a photograph of her officiating with a serious expression while Bryant smirks beside her.
About that time, Hogan said, she was approached by a men’s college basketball officiating coordinator.
“He says, ‘If you were a guy, I’d hire you today,’ ” Hogan recalled. She took it as a compliment. Back then, Hogan said, she had never heard of women officiating top-level men’s college games.
During the next decade, she moved on to the NBA’s development league and Division I women’s basketball, a résumé not unlike that of Bonner, a veteran of the WNBA, the G League and international basketball. She was working the Drew League when she caught the attention of the veteran NCAA men’s official Donnie Nuñez, who mentioned her to Bobby Dibler, the men’s officiating coordinator for six major conferences.