Meier is one of the scouts in the stands at these camps. He says he travels 15 to 25 days a month during the summer, seeing close to 500 officials. If he likes someone’s calls and demeanor on the court he will ask for their resume and speak to a coordinator in their current league. And then, come August, official number 27 on court 23 might have a coveted one-year contract with the Ivy League.

“We’re independent contractors, so part of your goal every year is to get your contract again,” Terry Funk said. “I hope I ref well enough that the boss thinks well enough of me.”

Because there is so much review, the ability to be relentlessly self-critical is key.

“The amount of time we spend thinking about a play is double the time of the actual play,” Tieman said.

If she has an off night, she will go watch another official. She subscribes to Referee magazine, and studies different personality and leadership styles.

“I absolutely love it,” Tieman said. “There’s not a moment that goes by that I’m not thinking about the game.”

But such a devotion has its tolls.

Ivy League officials must be at the location of a game one and a half hours before tipoff in order to confer with the other two people on the officiating team that night. Female officials often manage these time imperatives with their day jobs and roles as primary caregivers.

“We have a saying in officiating: The hardest part is getting to the game,” Smith said.

Ivy League officials are compensated $500 a night, plus their transportation costs and a per diem. This amount is more than it used to be—when Meier started officiating the pay was $25 a night—but it is less than the $2000 that the Atlantic Conference pays and the work season is only October to April. As such, many officials have other professions. Smith, for instance, has a full-time job as a health insurance agent.

“I’ll do everything I can in terms of getting my work down, and my coworkers are really good at helping,” she said. “I use my vacation time when I do have a basketball game. So far it’s working, but it’s very, very challenging.”

Such a daunting travel schedule can affect family life as well. Being a great referee who is constantly improving and landing spots in higher conferences is not necessarily conducive to starting a family.

“It’s a lot easier for me because I’m single and don’t have children,” Smith said. “My family just knows from the months of October to April I’m pretty much all over the place.”

In other cases, with a full-time job, officiating career, and active family role, often something gives. For Funk, who has five boys under the age of seventeen, it was her day job that suffered.

“When I had my third son, I gave up my full-time job in engineering and decided to just referee,” she said. “For four to five months of the year it’s very hard to manage, but it gives me five to seven months of the year where I’m with my kids all the time, which is a wonderful gift for me.”