Tending bar to NBA:
A woman’s presence as a referee is rare in its own right. But Jenna Schroeder’s journey to the league is a story in itself.
Michelle Del Duco had just completed officiating a women’s basketball game at Siena Heights University, in Adrian, Michigan, when she was approached by a young referee.
The young woman wanted Del Duco, a veteran college referee, to stick around and watch her officiate a later game.
Del Duco agreed, observing the first half.
The young official was not good.
“Very green, inexperienced, like all of us were at some point,” Del Duco said.
What did she do wrong? Officiating is about getting to the right spot, blowing the whistle, making the call, communicating with players and coaches. It requires carrying out responsibilities with confidence, knowing you got the call right.
Jenna Schroeder struggled with all of that.
Del Duco relayed her feedback the following day.
“We’ve talked every day since,” Del Duco said with a laugh.
Now Schroeder is making the calls, officiating games played by some of the best athletes on the planet.
She reached the summit in October when she was promoted to full-time NBA referee, one of four on the current roster and the sixth woman to reach that level in league history.
Schroeder, 34, who played basketballat two Michigan colleges and lives in the Detroit area, started her journey nine years ago, officiating AAU games at Cage Fieldhouse in Swartz Creek.
“Jenna is such a determined soul. It’s almost unheard of that in (nine) years you go from high school and then you’re in the NBA. It’s just so surreal,” Del Duco said.
A slight pause.
“That doesn’t happen to everybody.”
‘Perfect summer gig’
Many college graduates had to reassess in 2009. The financial crisis of 2008 led to an unemployment rate of 7.2% toward the end of that year.
Michigan’s financial picture was even worse.
Schroeder, who is from Clio near Flint, graduated from Saginaw Valley State with a bachelor’s degree in communications and faced an uncertain job market.
Not that she spent much time thinking about the future while playing at Oakland University and later Saginaw Valley.
“Oh, I didn’t have a plan,” she said with a laugh. “I just picked a degree and it was see how this goes. I guess maybe I thought I’d go into sales, but nobody has a plan like that you follow through with when you get your degree.”
She didn’t know her path, but she liked the idea of staying in the game.
That led to Schroeder’s first officiating gig at The Cage, calling games on the AAU circuit. She quickly found work officiating high school and college women’s basketball games. But Schroeder needed a primary
source of income.
She found it at Comerica
Park.
From 2011 to 2015, she was a bartender during a memorable stretch for the Detroit Tigers, who reached the World Series in 2012.
Schroeder jokes that there’s no pressure like taking drink orders from a horde of Tigers fans.
“Refereeing is really difficult but trying to get 41,000 people a beer before the first pitch (of a postseason game) with (Justin) Verlander on the mound is crazy hard but fun at the same time,” she said.
The Comerica Park experience and calendar meshed well for the basketball official.
“Baseball was perfect because I could work 81 home games in the summer and then have the flexibility to referee all winter long without any outside distractions during the basketball season,” Schroeder said.
She finally was able to make enough money just officiating in 2015, working in the Atlantic Coast, Big East, Atlantic 10 and American Athletic conferences.
“Most referees when they start out have 9-5 jobs, then go referee a game after they have been working all day.
“They basically run themselves ragged trying to do both.”
Schroeder rose to the NBA developmental league, where she officiated for three seasons. She spent two more officiating WNBA games.
Once Del Duco got to know Schroeder, she wasn’t surprised that she began to excel.
“She was going to stick with it,” Del Duco said. “She’s a student of the game. She’s worked so extremely hard at getting the plays right and getting in the right position and breaking down tape.
“When I first saw her, one of the things I told her the next day is you really have to be dedicated to officiating, to breaking down tape, to knowing the rules and enforcing the rules.”
‘It’s necessarily rigorous’
The NBA officiating program, which serves the NBA, WNBA and G-League, employs four scouts who watch roughly 3,000 officials each year at various levels.
They go everywhere, including international games.
“It doesn’t matter where we see them,” NBA head of referee development Monty McCutchen said. “If someone tells us where we should look, we take the time to look at them.”
From that initial group of 3,000, the list is cut to 100 candidates, who are invited to attend a camp. The group is cut down to roughly 50, who are interviewed and audition during exhibitions.
From that, 10 to 12 new officials are added each season to the G-League.
Official Lauren Holtkamp, who has known Schroeder for several years, calls it a strong vetting process.
“It’s necessarily rigorous so you do the years of work, the training programs and then you have your opportunity,” she said. “There’s this moment, you’ve been hired, earning the job you’ve worked so hard for and then knowing there’s so much still ahead of you. It’s really only a starting point.
“I remember feeling a sense of accomplishment to get to that point, but there’s also a readiness in knowing there was so much ahead to learn and to do in the profession. It was a beginning and an ending.”
McCutchen retired from officiating in 2017 after roaming the courts for 25 seasons. It has been a period of increasing attention for officials. TV cameras are everywhere, and the rise of social media allows fans to critique immediately after judgments are rendered.
A replay center with nine cameras scrutinizes, and sometimes changes, the officials’ work.
The league introduced lasttwo-minute reports in March 2015, which highlights officials’ mistakes made during winning time, when many games are decided.
And players routinely complain after obvious fouls, which can lead to intimidation.
“I don’t think you survive scrutiny; I think you embrace scrutiny,” McCutchen said. “At the NBA level, if you try to survive scrutiny, you’re going to be a bundle of nerves that can’t move from city to city and do the work.”
Holtkamp has firsthand experience. A search on the web produces articles of Chris Paul’s criticism after a game in 2015, and she became a topic of discussion for talking heads.
Holtkamp has sage advice for officials who find themselves suddenly becoming part of the public discourse.
“It is certainly unlike any other professional experience that person has had before now,” she said. “The level of scrutiny at the NBA is higher than any other they’ve experienced as an official, so that will be new.
“One of the biggest things I had to learn was what it meant to give myself grace in the moments I fell short and then learn from them. Show up and do better next time.”
‘It takes time’
On Oct. 9, Schroeder officiated her first NBA game, a preseason contest at Atlanta.
“I was nervous as hell,” she said with a laugh. “I just didn’t want to screw up.”
She later officiated a game involving Detroit, where the other members of the crew introduced her to Pistons coach Dwane Casey.
Then came her promotion. She officiated the Pistons’ loss at Indiana on Nov. 8.
“The young officials in our league have a chance to be good officials,” Casey said. “It’s just like developing players. It takes time, it takes work, it takes film work, it takes teaching teamwork. They have a good pool of young officials in the league that are going to make mistakes, but it just takes time.
“Jenna’s going to be a good official.”
A quick Twitter search yields compliments.
ESPN’s “SportsCenter” account notes her wheels.
A Miami Heat-Charlotte Hornets game brought comments.
Schroeder knows it goes with the territory. She adds that feedback from players and coaches has been positive.
“It’s obvious that I’m brandnew and it’s obvious I’m a female,” she said. “I have bleached-blond hair so I’m extremely recognizable, so people come up and actually introduced themselves – players and coaches.
“They say welcome to the league. They tell me congratulations. They know it’s a process for us to get into the league, just like it’s a process for the players, it’s a process for the coaches.”
Schroeder didn’t realize her journey would lead to the NBA when she first started officiating; she was just trying to earn a few bucks.
But when she saw it was possible – a door first opened by Violet Palmer in 2006 – she was all in.
“It’s quite an accomplishment for her,” Holtkamp said. “I know when I learned she’d been hired, I also felt excited for our staff because I know she’s incredibly talented, (a) hardworking, human-oriented person.
“I can’t think of a better person to join our staff – not only to continue our good work, but also to be a role model for younger referees coming up in our program.”