A Little Bit of Luck and a Lot of Hard Work Fueled One Young Referee’s Path to the NBA:

Before the Whistle with CJ Washington

Recently completing his second year in the NBA, CJ Washington got his officiating start in 2002 refereeing high school basketball and was quickly bit by the officiating bug. Early on, he set three goals for himself, one being to officiate at the highest level of professional basketball.

Balancing a full-time job schedule in a completely different industry, and a few of life’s surprises along the way, two things that could make anyone lose sight of what they are passionate about, did not deter Washington, who was hired into the NBA in 2016. Read one young referee’s feel-good story of family, perseverance, and a little bit of luck.

What was your path to officiating prior to reaching the NBA?

“I graduated from college in the spring of ’02 and started refereeing basketball in the fall of ’02. My wife, at the time my girlfriend, and I used to go to the YMCA. She would play volleyball and I would play basketball. A gentleman (at the YMCA) approached me and asked me if I had ever thought about refereeing basketball. I said no but wanted to give it a shot. So, my first question was ‘will they pay me?’ Because I was trying to get a job having just graduated college. He said ‘yeah,’ so I said, ‘sign me up!’ I had always had a love for basketball, growing up playing as a kid. He brought me into the high school program and I refereed my first ever basketball game with him. It was a men’s league game, Exxon Men’s League.

So, in 2002 I started refereeing high school ball, got through the first year and fell in love with it. Then I was introduced to some more people who really started training me and I realized that I really wanted to get to the NBA. I had three main goals: I wanted to referee a high school championship, I wanted to referee in the SEC and I wanted to make it to the NBA. I will say I accomplished two of those. I never got to ref a high school state championship. In 2004, I got hired by Coach Guthrie in the Panhandle Conference, which was a Junior College conference with some Division II.

That summer, I refereed my first ever pro-style game in a league called the WBA (World Basketball Association). I just felt like this is it, this is what I want to do, I want to referee pro basketball. In 2005, I got hired into the SWAC, which was my first Division I conference. In 2007, I refereed in the PBL (Premiere Basketball League). Then in 2008, I got hired to the D-league. In 2009, I got hired into the SEC, which was a huge deal for me. Then in 2016, I was hired into the NBA.”

Did you have a career in a different industry?

“After I graduated from college, that same gentleman who approached me about refereeing is a certified resident appraiser. He offered me my first job. So, not only did he get me into refereeing, but he got me my first job out of college apprenticing under him as a real estate appraiser.

I did that for two and a half years and learned a lot about real estate and enjoyed doing it. I learned about how the market works, the buying and selling process, and how banks lend money based off an appraiser’s professional opinion. It also gave me the flexibility to referee. It wasn’t like a punch the clock 9–5 type job, it was a just get-the-work-done job.

After Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, I was a newlywed, my wife had just graduated from Southern University and we realized we weren’t going to stay in Baton Rouge. The hurricane had just turned the city upside down, and we realized we weren’t going to raise a family there. That’s when we decided to move to Houston. My wife had just graduated nursing school and had gotten a really good job in a hospital in Houston and we knew she had to take it. Even though I had a good job and enjoyed doing what I was doing, her opportunity was better. I knew refereeing was my end goal anyway, so we decided to move.

My old roommate from college had moved to The Woodlands, Texas, and he said, ‘come stay with me for a couple months and get settled.’ So, that’s what we did, and we just said, ‘we’ll figure it out.’

Well, two days after we moved in my wife found out she was five-weeks pregnant and we went into panic mode! I had just quit a job that I was making pretty decent money doing, she had just taken a new job, and all our family was back in Baton Rouge. All we had was the friend we were living with and my cousin who lived about 20 minutes away. That was it. So, I got the quickest job I could get which was a car salesman. I did that for a couple months and I was miserable. I realized it was not going to work with refereeing at all.

A friend of mine introduced me to his buddy who he went to church with who was an appraiser and had his own business. Come to find out that he wasn’t an appraiser, he was a home inspector. Luckily, there were a lot of similarities in the day-to-day work. Even though I wasn’t going to figure out values of homes, I was already used to mapping myself around a city to find homes, and meeting home owners and real estate agents. Now, it was just meeting with a different set of people, but the skill set translated; you get the work order, you go to the inspection, take the notes, write up a report and deliver it. I just had to learn how to inspect homes now. So, I became certified and started working the Houston metropolitan area as a home inspector. I loved it. I got to see so many more aspects of home buying and building. If I didn’t go in to full-time refereeing, I probably would have tried to start my own business.”

What helped you make the decision to pursue full-time officiating?

“I got fired! When the housing market crashed in 2008, we took a big hit. I went from doing 25–30 inspections a day to doing 3, and you don’t get paid by the hour, you’re getting paid per home inspection. It was rough, but my refereeing schedule was starting to pick up. Not only was there not a lot of work when I was there, but I was hardly ever there, so they fired me. So that made it a really easy decision after that, but still made for a tough couple of years. My wife was working full-time, we had a young baby and we were kind of just waiting for basketball to continue. Thankfully, it all worked out.”