By James Harris
The whistle blows and an arm goes up to signal another foul on the tallest player on the team, kicking him out of the game. His teammates may not agree with the call, but they can''t do anything about it.
While playing intramural men''s basketball at BYU, thousands of students see something like this happen.
Some of them complain about the call the referee made but find the Intramural Activities Office stands behind the calls of its officials.
Intramural referees are expected to have the same level of professionalism as high school referees, according to Emily Andrews, assistant director of Intramural Activities.
'Each referee gets a test,' said Andrews, 'the same one that high school officials take.'
In addition to the test, they go to eight hours of training from high school certified referees.
'The training is a lot to take in,' said Laura Bushnell, a junior in sociology from Cincinnati, Ohio. This is the second semester that Bushnell has refereed at BYU and she has played basketball on a league previously.
'Some of the referees knew nothing of basketball ,' said Bushnell. 'My husband had to do a lot of studying on his own because he was not as familiar with it.'
Despite all the training, Bushnell admits that she is not a perfect referee.
'The first part is hard, the practice games are a big help though,' Bushnell said. 'By the time the tournament starts are fine.'
The intramural men''s basketball season is still in its beginning stages, so it is hard to see if the referees will be at a higher level by tournament.
Right now, some of the players think that the referees have some room for improvement.
'The first game they were a little gun-shy,' said Richard Hyde, a 6-foot-6-inch freshman from Palo Alto, Calif. 'In high school the referees didn''t put up with as much.'
Hyde was quick to point out that the refereeing is not all bad.
'There''s a couple of calls you''re gonna argue with, but its good overall,' Hyde said.
Some of the calls that are not accurate might be attributed to the demanding nature of the job.
'Refereeing men''s (intramural) basketball is very intense,' said Bushnell. 'Some of the guys are respectful and some are not at all. If you don''t like sports this is the worst job you can ever have, you have people yelling at you all day long.'
In addition to the intensity of player-referee relations there is also a physical demand on the body.
'We run three or four hours in a row,' said Bushnell. 'At the end of the third hour I can really feel it.'
Because of all the challenges that the referees go through they will continue to receive training throughout the season according to Andrews.
'If our referees have any questions I tell them to come talk to me and we have staff meetings every week,' Andrews said.