The right call: West Holmes grad enjoys time on the court as basketball referee

A general rule of thumb in sports is, the best referees and officials are the ones you never even notice.

That is what makes West Holmes graduate and Ohio State civil engineering student Andrew Jr. "A.J." Jones' meteoric rise through the referee ranks so rare.

Jones recently enjoyed the opportunity to represent Ohio State University as an official at the National Intramural Recreation Sports Association (NIRSA) National Championships, April 14-16 at the University of Maryland.

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Jones is one of 51 basketball officials from across the United States selected to officiate the NIRSA games at the in College Park.

"It was a pretty memorable experience," Jones said. "Just knowing that I was one of only 51 people selected from across the country is pretty amazing. Plus I got to meet some NBA officials and hear them speak. Not many people in their second year of officiating get this kind of opportunity."

Highly recommended by OSU

Emily Murphy is the coordinator of competition for the Office of Student Life at OSU, which oversees intramural and club sports on campus. She had high praise for the work of Jones.

"The scope of what NIRSA Championship Series does is dedicated to student officials and club sports or intramural sports athletes across the different institutions nationwide," she said. "A.J. applied to the regional tournament at Duke in March, where he attended an officials clinic, officiated games throughout the weekend. Officials were ranked and evaluated based on criteria such as communication, court presence, leadership, play calling, accuracy, rules interpretation and knowledge.

"High-level basketball referees who also work in higher education settings take time out of their weekends to provide those evaluation points to the student referees," Murphy continued. "A.J. did really well at Duke. He responded to all the feedback with such grace, and was a sponge. He incorporated some of the things our clinicians felt would be helpful for him to improve, which he did from Friday to Sunday."

His success earned him a top 8 ranking, and a spot officiating the regional championship game, which earned him an at-large berth for a shot to go to nationals. He went through the application process and was selected to work the national tournament.

At the tournament in Maryland, he attended officiating clinics on Thursday and Friday and worked games Friday and Saturday. NBA officials were among the speakers at the clinics. Murphy said Jones has brought a wealth of information back and shared it with the students on campus at Ohio State.

Suyash Mehta was one of the NBA officials who offered the advice to not change the officiating style used to get them to this point. Matt Myers and Eric Lewis were other NBA official who spoke to the young referees.

Jones added that working as an official in the NIRSA Regional tournament and doing the championship game in Cameron Indoor Arena at Duke in March was also an amazing experience. He earned an at-large bid for the Nationals by working the Regional championship game.

"Working the championship game on the same court Coach K (Hall of Fame Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski) made famous was really special," Jones said. "Also meeting the NBA officials was pretty exciting."

Encouraged by his dad

Jones got the bug to officiate sporting events after talking to his father about it. He began working as an official of Wooster recreation games last year while a freshman at OSU-Mansfield.

"I really liked officiating, and there was a lot of opportunity," Jones said, noting he has also worked recreational soccer games. He has a good understanding of the games as a former player of both high school soccer and basketball at West Holmes, which has been a big help for him as an official.

So far he hasn't had any run-ins or trouble with players during the games. The biggest challenge he's faced is managing his time with the officiating and his busy class schedule.

"My professors have been willing to work with me, getting me notes, since I was serving as a representative of OSU," he said. "In what little free time I had (during the tournaments) I was able to get my studying done."

This article originally appeared on The Daily Record: West Holmes grad A.J. Jones referees national basketball tournament