It's not a bad gig. Work 80-90 games in a 20-week season, stay in the best hotels and get paid about $1,000 a game, plus expenses.
College basketball referees can make a nice living, but there is a lot of travel and stress involved. Now some officials are under scrutiny for working too much, including John Cahill, left, who was criticized for a series of calls in the Connecticut-Syracuse game on Feb. 10.
It was Cahill's eighth game in nine days, according to the site Stat Sheet, which tracks games referees work.
Connecticut's Jim Calhoun told the New York Times that referees who work too much are more prone to make bad calls.
"They can't work the nights they're working and give you the best they can give you," he said.
John Clougherty, the supervisor of officials for the Atlantic Coast Conference, didn't disagree with Calhoun.
"It has been an ongoing problem for 20 years," he said. "I worked too much and I knew when I was tired, but you accept a lot of games and you work those games. They are independent contractors. I can't tell them how many times to work."
John Adams, the NCAA's coordinator of officials for men's basketball, said that 15 to 20 of the top officials were working too much.
"They have a limited window, just like pro athletes, to make a lot of money," he said. "If you're 55 years old and trying to do this 90 times a year, it seems to me to be quite a bit of stress and wear and tear on your body. Their mental acuity has to suffer."
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