Ashley Moyer-Gleich checked her electronic mail simply earlier than heading to the airport Saturday for a visit to what she thought could be her remaining sport of the season.
That is when the information got here in: She has extra video games to do.
Moyer-Gleich will quickly develop into solely the second girl in NBA historical past to referee a playoff sport. She was considered one of 36 referees introduced by the league Thursday as its referee choices for Spherical 1 of the playoffs beginning this weekend.
“It is surreal,” Moyer-Gleich stated. “It truly is.”
She joins Violet Palmer as the one girls picked by the NBA for a playoff project. Palmer labored 9 playoff video games between 2006 and 2012.
Moyer-Gleich, a former Division II participant at Millersville College in her native Pennsylvania, was promoted to the full-time NBA officiating ranks in November 2018. She has labored greater than 200 regular-season video games in her six seasons and is considered one of three first-time playoff choices by the league this yr — Marat Kogut and J.T. Orr are the others.
“I labored 4 video games as an alternate final yr, so clearly, my objective was I needed to be an alternate once more as a result of that is simply sustaining the expansion that I’ve had in my profession,” Moyer-Gleich stated. “After which to see my identify on checklist of working ground officers … I imply, my mother was with me, she got here with me on my final two video games for slightly journey, and to open that electronic mail and have her there with me and share that information, it was actually fairly wonderful.”
The total checklist of first-round referees chosen by the NBA: Ray Acosta, Brent Barnaky, Curtis Blair, Tony Brothers, Nick Buchert, James Capers, Sean Corbin, Kevin Cutler, Marc Davis, JB DeRosa, Mitchell Ervin, Tyler Ford, Brian Forte, Scott Foster, Pat Fraher, Jacyn Goble, John Goble, David Guthrie, Invoice Kennedy, Courtney Kirkland, Karl Lane, Mark Lindsay, Ed Malloy, Gediminas Petraitis, Kevin Scott, Aaron Smith, Ben Taylor, Dedric Taylor, Josh Tiven, Justin Van Duyne, James Williams, Sean Wright, Zach Zarba, Kogut, Orr and Moyer-Gleich.
“Congratulations to those 36 officers on the well-earned and prestigious honor of being chosen to officiate within the NBA Playoffs,” NBA president of league operations Byron Spruell stated. “We recognize the professionalism, dedication and teamwork that our officiating employees shows each day all through the season.”
The league trims the officiating roster down for every spherical, usually culminating with a 12-person checklist for the NBA Finals. These referees obtain white warm-up jackets for Finals video games, one thing the league has made a convention for years.
Moyer-Gleich is not there but — however she’s one step nearer.
“Similar to playoffs are coveted, the white jacket is much more super-coveted,” she stated. “Clearly that is an aspiration and that is a objective manner far down the highway. And hopefully I can proceed on the identical trajectory, proceed to extend my duty on the ground, perhaps going from the referee to a crew chief sooner or later after which hopefully attending to the finals — the epitome of what we do. And whether or not I am the primary or not, I feel only a feminine breaking by means of and getting that chance could be monumental.”