JUMPING THROUGH
H
PS BY SCOTT TITTRINGTON
March Madness in a bubble provided unique challenges for tournament officials.
J
.D. Collins has heard plenty of colorful descriptions of his work during his time as an oncourt college basketball official and more recently in his role as the NCAA’s national coordinator of men’s basketball officiating. However, he likely never saw the day when he would be compared to a prison warden. He has the unique environment of the 2021 NCAA Tournament to thank for it. With leisure-time options limited for the 58 men’s basketball officials who found themselves confined to an Indianapolis bubble due to ongoing COVID-19 concerns and restrictions, the NCAA had to get creative to keep its tournament arbiters from going stir
crazy. The decision was made to lease Victory Field — the home ballpark for the Triple-A Indianapolis Indians minor league baseball team — for four one-hour periods. The idea was to allow the officials to break up the monotony of Netflix binge sessions in their hotel rooms with some fresh air and exercise. Never had tossing around a football, playing a few games of cornhole or enjoying a simple walk on fresh-cut grass felt so good. And when the moment came each time for the group to load back onto a bus and return to their bubble accommodations, Collins got an earful. “All 58 of our officials would boo me in unison,” he said with a laugh.
“We got time in the yard. We really enjoyed just getting that freedom more than anything. It gave us a boost.” On one hand, it might seem hard to believe that a group of men and women chosen to work on the biggest stage afforded by their chosen avocation would need any type of psychological or physical intervention or enhancement. To have one’s name on the list of officials selected for the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments would, under normal circumstances, be more than enough adrenaline to fuel their own personal March Madness. However, the madness manifested itself in a much different form in 2021. Coming on the heels of an unprecedented conclusion to the 2019-20 season when the COVID-19 pandemic caused the cancellation of all the NCAA’s national basketball tournaments, the return to postseason
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