With .5 seconds left on the clock in the fourth quarter of a regular-season matchup between the Chicago Bulls and Washington Wizards, one whistle from NBA official Jenna Schroeder would change the game.
The Wizards were up 98-96 and after a timeout from the Bulls, Lauri Markkanen inbounded the ball to Zach LaVine who stood right under the basket. The Bulls guard and Wizards’ Isaac Bonga jostled each other and Bonga held onto LaVine’s arm, preventing him from getting the ball. Schroeder immediately blew her whistle for a loose ball foul, sending LaVine to the line.
“All the pressure in the world I felt like was on me, and I’m just a rookie trying not to screw up and that’s when I’m like, ‘Okay, I’m in the NBA,” Schroeder said.
To the almost 15,000 people packed into Capital One Arena and the world, Schroeder, the NBA’s sixth-ever female official, looked calm as she pointed to Bonga and ran through the signals for a foul.
Inside though, Schroeder’s heart was rapidly beating as the game went into overtime.
Schroeder never set out to be a professional referee, but the 36-year-old has fallen in love with it. Now, the Clio High School native wants to share that love for calling games with the next group. For Schroeder, refereeing can be a career for anyone who can find a passion for it.
“I would bartend, then go referee, a game,” she said. “Then bartend, then referee a game, and I made it to the NBA. So the opportunity, especially for women, is there.”
This season Schroeder is one of five full-time female referees in the NBA, along with Lauren Holtkamp-Sterling, Simone Jelks, Ashley Myer-Gleich and Natalie Sago. Dannica Mosher and Danielle Scott are two of the league’s other female officials, but they are considered non-staff.
Before drawing the attention of the NBA for her speed on the court, Schroeder bartended at Comerica Park from 2011 to 2015. She began refereeing in high school, making about $100 on the weekends. A basketball player herself at Clio High School in Clio, Mich., she went on to play at Oakland University and then Saginaw Valley State.
After graduating from Saginaw Valley in 2009, she began refereeing as a side job after someone suggested she try it out as a career. When she thought about it, she preferred the idea of running up and down an NBA court with some of the best athletes in the world better than working a typical desk job.
“That was an easy decision to make,” Schroeder said. “And then from there, I said, ‘I’m doing it,’ and I just went for it. I put all my effort into it. But refereeing is a career or a job that you can’t do unless you’re passionate about it.”
For referees looking to break into the NBA, there are major steps that happen. First, they referee in the lower levels, where the NBA Scouting Group will keep an eye on them. The Scouting Group then picks 100 candidates to go to a camp, where they will get training and be evaluated.
The top participants are hired by the G League, where they participate in Summer League Training, an additional New Hire Orientation Session or both. The league then works to develop the candidates by having them attend Referee Preseason Meeting, work games during the preseason through the playoffs.
The referees are then evaluated and could earn promotions to the WNBA or the NBA.
That’s what Schroeder did. Over the course of a decade as a referee, Schroeder spent seven years at the collegiate level, working in the ACC, Big East, Atlantic 10 and American Conferences. She spent three seasons in the G League and two seasons in the WNBA.
“I was on the road for three years straight,” she said. “I worked the NBA G League, which has almost 30 teams in 30 different states I was traveling to. After the G League season, I went and worked the WNBA with 12 different teams in 12 different states we’re traveling to, and then I did it again. So I worked three years straight all year-round. I was never home.”
Each step of the way, though, Schroeder sought someone to help mentor her. She said that though there are training sessions in professional basketball, the lower levels have far less structure when it comes to learning. So finding more experienced referees to guide new officials is important in developing skills.
She has also leaned on the NBA’s more experienced officials, like those who have called playoff games, for guidance.
When she began though, she sought the help of a referee who worked some of her college basketball games in the late 2000s. That person was Michelle Del Duco, a referee in Michigan with over 20 years of experience at the lower and collegiate levels.
“I met Jenna, well, she played college basketball, so I was officiating,” Del Duco said. “So my first interaction with her was, I think I gave her a couple of warnings. I think I warned her every game I had her because she’s just feisty.”
Del Duco agreed to be her mentor on the court, as well as in life in general. The two, by Del Duco’s estimate, have talked every day since.
“She was very passionate about officiating, trying to be 100 percent on all of her calls,” Del Duco said. “In the beginning she, like all of us when we’re young officials, you have to learn how to communicate with coaches and everybody’s got their own mojo. Everybody’s got their own way of doing that, so Jenna had to learn.”
Schroeder, who now lives in a suburb of Detroit, would like to do that for others looking to breaking into officiating.
“(Del Duco) kind of just took me under her wing and showed me the way,” Schroeder said. “She kept me out of trouble when I was younger because you know I was young and whatever, so she did her best to keep me out of trouble and keep me on the right path. Like everyone kind of needs that. It’s really like a mentorship program to an extent.”
The Flint native is looking to create a mentorship program of her own for young up-and-coming referees. Del Duco said that she and Schroeder have had long conversations about getting more young people involved in officiating. The ongoing pandemic has shifted those plans, though.
“Hopefully she can get back on track with that, too, and give back,” Del Duco said.
In the meantime, Schroeder has elected to try to pull back the curtain a little so that future referees know what they would be getting into. NBA referees generally work 3 games a week or 10-12 a month.
The base salary typically starts around $200,000 for rookies and then increases depending on the years of service. The more senior referees will make more. If a referee covers the postseason they’ll earn a play-off bonus.
Then there is, of course, the running, which Schroeder estimates amounts to about six miles a day. Then there’s watching game film and live games to stay up to date on what’s happening in the league.
“We break down the tape for hours and hours and the commitment involved in being an NCAA referee and obviously an NBA referee, I mean it’s just a huge commitment, it’s not just fun and games,” Del Duco said.
Watching film allows both Del Duco, Schroeder and other referees to review calls they made or did not make during a game. It helps them get better as they strive to make the right call 100 percent of the time.
“We put so much pressure on ourselves to be perfect, when in fact that is an unattainable goal in our job,” Schroeder said. “We’re never going to get every single call right. It’s not attainable, but we’re continuously chasing that and that’s a challenge in our job. I think that’s why people love it, referees love it so much because it’s a challenge that we’re chasing and we might not ever attain it.”
Making the wrong call, of course, opens the door to criticism from coaches and players. Ahead of this year’s NBA All-Star Game, a few of the league’s stars blasted the officiating in a few recent games. This prompted NBA Commissioner Adam Silver to say there was “nothing aberrational” about the officiating.
Schroeder, herself drew complaints from Los Angeles Lakers center Montrezl Harrell on a technical foul issued during his team’s game against the Sacramento Kings on March 4.
Sometimes the criticism comes from fans online. One of the ways she has navigated that is by being transparent with the players when she makes calls. She’s also willing to admit and apologize to the players when she is wrong.
“That’s just something you have to maneuver through and get used to. But referees, in general, do have thick skin,” Schroeder said. “That’s just an extra layer of it that you have to kind of figure out.”
Despite the pressures, Schroeder said she can’t imagine her life without it. Being an official in the NBA has led to some pretty bright moments.
In January Schroeder, along with Sago became the first two female officials to work on a majority female crew during the NBA’s regular season. The two, along with Sean Wright, officiated a matchup between the Charlotte Hornets and Orlando Magic on Jan. 26.
“The initial, surprise was on Christmas Eve and then we kind of like let it go for a little bit because we had other games and other things you had to do,” Schroeder said. “The day of the game social media got hold of it, and it just took off and it was wild as our phones are blowing up everywhere.”
Schroeder said that feat will likely happen again in the second half of the NBA season after she took a look at her schedule. She has a game scheduled with another female official. The league releases game assignments the morning of, but Schroeder said the trend of majority female crews will continue.
One thing she is uncertain about though is when there will be an all-female crew.
“So I don’t know the timeline for that,” she said. “I just know that by putting two women out there at the same time, we only got really positive feedback and encouragement. It gives the NBA even more reason to try it with three women.”