Dan Heath:
Billy Kennedy spent a lot of time at the Boys Club where he grew up in Phoenix, Arizona. He played on a basketball team there, but one day a referee didn't show up for a younger kid's game and the boys club director asked if anyone wanted to referee.

Billy Kennedy:
And I raised my hand up. I don't know why. I have no idea why I did that. I'll never forget it. It was a Saturday morning. They didn't have a shirt that fit. They just gave me a whistle and I kind of went out there.

Dan Heath:
Billy got the bug, the referee bug. It changed the way he watched games as a fan.

Billy Kennedy:
There was a guy by the name of Joe Gushue, he's out of the Philadelphia, a great NBA referee, and I was at a game watching. I wasn't watching the players or the game itself. I was always watching the referees.

Dan Heath:
He had a few people encourage him along the way and he caught the attention of a local journalist.

Billy Kennedy:
There's an article in the Young Athlete Magazine and in that story, and it's clear that I say at 12-years-old, "Yeah, I'm going to be an NBA referee," and so it's documented that this is something that I've been doing for over 40 years.

Dan Heath:
And over those decades he's seen some magical moments on the court. He officiated the game where Kobe Bryant scored 81 points, and-

Billy Kennedy:
In 2012 I worked the bronze medal game in the Olympics. I worked the All-Star game and I worked a finals game all in the same year. That was a pretty good year.

Dan Heath:
I am Dan Heath and this is what it's like to be in every episode. We walk in the shoes of someone from a different profession, a long-haul trucker, a couples' therapist, an FBI special agent. We want to know what they do all day at work. Today we're going pro. We'll ask Billy Kennedy what it's like to be an NBA referee. We'll talk about what's the hardest call to make on the court, why he tries to go incognito when he travels, and what it's like to be booed by 10,000 people. Stay with us.

Alan Alda:
I'm Alan Alda. My podcast, Clear+Vivid is about connecting. Mo Rocca enjoys connecting with older folks.

Mo Rocca:
The older you get, the less you care about what other people think of you.

Alan Alda:
But words change. Anne Curzan says, "It was once proper to say the house is building."

Anne Curzan:
Heaven forbid you say the house is being built rather than the house is building.

Alan Alda:
Charles Duhigg says, "Everybody can connect better."

Charles Duhigg:
Thinking about communication is what makes us better at communication.

Alan Alda:
You can connect with Clear+Vivid wherever you get your podcasts.

Billy Kennedy:
As with most professions, refer in the NBA comes with a career ladder. I have been an umpire. I have been in the referee position and I have been a crew chief, currently one of the crew chiefs.

Dan Heath:
So that's the career progression umpire to referee to crew chief. What does a crew chief do? Coordinates pregame meetings, makes final decisions, leadership stuff. It all sounds pretty hierarchical, but when there's a live ball-

Billy Kennedy:
Once the ball is thrown up, all of our responsibilities are pretty much the same as far as the rotation.

Dan Heath:
You see each ref rotates through three different positions on the court. There's a trail official, a slot official, and a lead official. And the best way to get a sense of these three positions is to envision where they are on the court.

Billy Kennedy:
So the trail official is the one that's furthest away from the basket.

Dan Heath:
Think beyond the three point line on the strong side of the court. Now the strong side is the side of the court that the ball is on.

Billy Kennedy:
The lead official is underneath the basket-

Dan Heath:
And they're also on the strong side-

Billy Kennedy:
And the slot official is usually at the free throw line extended.

Dan Heath:
And there on the weak side, the side where the ball isn't. Each position, trail, slot and lead is responsible for an area of the court generally the area closest to them though, if they've got a better view, they'll sometimes make calls outside of those areas and as the ball moves around the court or a foul is called, they switch positions so they're constantly rotating in and out of the trail slot and lead positions.
What if you pull a muscle or something in the game? Is there somebody ready to streak off the sidelines and take your place?

Billy Kennedy:
I'm glad you brought that up. The answer is no unless we're in the Playoffs.

Dan Heath:
Oh, really?

Billy Kennedy:
Yeah.

Dan Heath:
Oh, so you just have to go to a skeleton crew of two if something happens?

Billy Kennedy:
We have a two-man officiating system-

Dan Heath:
Okay.

Billy Kennedy:
... that everybody on staff is aware of, and I have been in that situation numerous times, especially during COVID. We also have a mechanic that if we have one official left, that official has a mechanic on how to handle a game refereeing with one person.

Dan Heath:
In many sports, there's a preseason training camp where the athletes come back and you get to see who's still in shape and who's not. Same goes for referees. They bring them in for a preseason checkup and-

Billy Kennedy:
We have to get on a treadmill.

Dan Heath:
No kidding?

Billy Kennedy:
Oh, absolutely. We're on a treadmill. You're going to run anywhere between 15 to 20 minutes and then they check your heart rate, they check your blood pressure, they make sure that everything is in working order. The referees don't work every single day. I usually work between 60 and 65 regular season games. For me that's about three a week.

Dan Heath:
With the NBA arena spread out around the country, that means he's always on the go.

Billy Kennedy:
We average about five days a month that we're home-

Dan Heath:
And they're not off on the holidays, of course.

Billy Kennedy:
We fly during Christmas, Thanksgiving, we fly during Spring Break, New Year's, all of the holidays that everybody's home for, I mean, we're traveling.

Dan Heath:
And they're not immune to all of the travel frustrations that you and I go through like hotel rooms not being ready or flight delays and cancellations.

Billy Kennedy:
I've been in a situation where I got to an arena 25 minutes before the game started.

Dan Heath:
Oh, man. I bet you were sweating that.

Billy Kennedy:
Yeah, that was crazy.

Dan Heath:
So Billy has racked up a lot of miles in the air and also on the court. Every game he's running to keep up with the players who let's remember, are professional athletes. Billy has tracked how many miles he puts in during an average game.

Billy Kennedy:
So I know that we run anywhere between five to six miles a game.

Dan Heath:
That's a lot of running, but more to the point, it's a lot of running in a situation where it's really costly to take a break or get hurt. That's why before each game, referees get access to a professional athletic trainer who can work on a tight muscle or a sore lower back. Seeing the trainer is part a Billy's pregame ritual and he's got a few others too.

Billy Kennedy:
There's a certain way that the uniform is displayed when I get to the locker room. You put the socks on one side, you put the pants on the other side, the shirt is inside out, the timing device is sitting on top and your whistle lanyard is in a certain place.

Dan Heath:
What do you think are the grayest areas in the rule book? Are there certain kinds of plays or certain kind of infractions where two different referees might look at the film and one of them would call it one way and one of them would call it another way?

Billy Kennedy:
I would venture to guess that a majority of the people that's listening to this would say, "Basket interference, goaltending would be the hardest call," and they would not be wrong, but there would be one other play that we have that I think is so difficult for us and it's out of bounds. For the human eye to sometimes be able to see at a split second. It is the, and in my opinion, the most difficult play we have.

Dan Heath:
NBA referees are under tremendous pressure to get calls, right. And there are a lot of opportunities to make a mistake.

Billy Kennedy:
There's anywhere between 3000 to 4,000 decisions being made on a nightly basis. That's what these three officials, when you're watching the game, you have no idea that they are doing.

Dan Heath:
And the plays at the end of the game get the most scrutiny. For years now, and I had no idea this was true, the NBA posts last two-minute reports on their website for any overtime game or any game that's within three points with less than two minutes remaining. They list and even provide video of every correct call, every incorrect call, every significant correct non-call and every incorrect non-call. And furthermore, there are consequences for incorrect calls. Adam Silver, the NBA commissioner told ESPN in 2023, "Some of those consequences can include working fewer games or not progressing to the playoffs." So you can see the link here. To make more money as a ref, you've got to get your calls right.

Billy Kennedy:
After every game we do tape review and we look at plays and we know that we've made a mistake and we function with this particular phrase in our mind, "We are striving for perfection, but we'll accept excellence."

Dan Heath:
I love that. Will you usually figure out within the game that you got something wrong or is it usually afterwards where you're looking back and, "Oh, I missed that one"?

Billy Kennedy:
Contrary to popular belief, as soon as you blow the whistle, you know you've made a mistake.

Dan Heath:
Oh wow.

Billy Kennedy:
It's that quick.

Dan Heath:
That's fascinating.

Billy Kennedy:
You know that you've made a mistake and you're going, "Uh-oh."

Dan Heath:
But the whistles out and you can't put it back.

Billy Kennedy:
Yeah. I'm not going to like this one. Now, and then you go, you could go look at the tape, you might be right, but with the level of experience that you have, you're going to know that you've made a mistake and so you don't dwell on it. You try to get past it as quickly as you possibly can and get back to refereeing the defense, calling the obvious, staying in your primary, don't guess, trust your partners. If you get back to that routine, it'll get you what we call out of the soup and now you're back on track to being more accurate and getting your plays correct.

Dan Heath:
I never thought about how you would have a similar struggle with psychology with the players. A player misses a crucial three and it kind of rattles them and in a similar way, you catch yourself blowing the whistle at the wrong time, you have to get back in the game too. You have to just shake it off and-

Billy Kennedy:
100% correct. And we're the third team out there. You have the home team, the visiting team and the officiating team.

Dan Heath:
The least popular of the three teams.

Billy Kennedy:
That does happen. That does happen. And we have strategic stuff that we use to get our team back in focus when we need to be back in focus and individually and collectively as a unit working together. The five things that I just referee the defense call the obvious, stay in your primary, don't guess trust your partners. I can't tell you how many times I'm out there on the floor night in and night out saying those same things to myself to keep my mind focused for 48 minutes. You go to an NBA game and you never notice or see the officials go sit down for a timeout. We don't get to go sit down for the timeouts. We're still standing out there on the floor waiting for this timeout to be over and then we go right back to work. Nobody comes and subs for us.

Dan Heath:
That's a great point.

Billy Kennedy:
Yeah. There's no subs sitting at the table say, "Hey Billy, you need a five-minute break?"

Dan Heath:
Yeah, even LeBron gets like a minute on the bench every now and then.

Billy Kennedy:
I'm telling you. The officiating crew that's working that night does not get time out. We don't get time out. We don't get to go and have a water break. We get the halftime, we go 14 minutes, we go to the locker room and we spend a lot of that time just looking at plays and making sure that we have the answers that may be asked of us during the first half and then we're right back out on the floor.

Dan Heath:
Hey folks, Dan here with a casting call. We're starting to think about a holiday episode. Last year, you may remember we had the professional Santa Claus, Larry Jefferson, who was incredible. What profession do you think we should target this year? A toy maker, a reindeer trainer, Christmas tree farmer. Do you know anybody in one of these professions or something similar? Let us know, jobsatwhatitslike.com. Just keep in mind we want people for whom their job is their main thing. We're not just looking for someone who's an awesome caroler or bakes a mean fruitcake or whatever. We want someone who's in a profession. If you know that person, please write us at jobsatwhatitslike.com.

Chris Duffy:
We all have bad days and sometimes bad weeks and maybe even bad years, but the good news is we don't have to figure out life all alone. I'm comedian Chris Duffy, host of TED's How to Be a Better Human Podcast, and our show is about the little ways that you can improve your life, actual practical tips that you can put into place that will make your day-to-day better. Whether it is setting boundaries at work or rethinking how you clean your house, each episode has conversations with experts who share tips on how to navigate life's ups and downs. Find how to be a better human wherever you're listening to this.

Dan Heath:
So you and your 72 colleagues are among a small tribe of people on planet Earth who have had the experience of 10,000 plus people booing them. What is that like?

Billy Kennedy:
This may be strange to hear, but a lot of times we don't hear a lot of that.

Dan Heath:
Interesting.

Billy Kennedy:
We call it the noise because the next time you go to an NBA game, just understand the three individuals that you see out there officiating a game, the focus and the level of concentration that they're on to make sure that mistakes aren't made, their level of concentration is so high that to say that we hear certain things. Now if it's a time-out and we're standing there and we get the illustrious chant that normally comes with officiating and we all know that chant, but obviously we're human, we're going to hear that. But if we're working again, we're moving and we're officiating and we're running up and down the court, I would venture to say many of us, I would say the majority of us, we don't hear what's going on in the stands because of the level of concentration, the focus that we have.

Dan Heath:
Even though there are only three referees on the court, they've got help sometimes thousands of miles away.

Speaker 9:
Located in the NBA's offices in Chicago's, New Jersey and developed over a two-year period, the new state-of-the-art NBA Replay Center officially makes its debut on October 28th, opening night of the 2014, 2015 season.

Dan Heath:
The NBA's Replay Center looks like a huge TV control room. More than a hundred HD monitors stream live feeds with multiple angles of every game being played at one of the 30 NBA arenas. It costs $15 million to build and on average referees on the court use it twice a game. There are 16 triggers for the Replay Center to be used. Things like plays right before time expires or there's a close out-of-bounds call or a coach can challenge a call and ask for the Replay Center refs to take a look. When there's a replay request, the on-court ref twirls their finger in the air and the Replay Center refs spring into action. They generally make the final call.

Billy Kennedy:
I applaud the guys and gals that work in there because if you've ever been to the Replay Center, there are no windows and the people that work there worked very long hours. Games can start at four o'clock and then the last game would be at 1:00 A.M. ending time, on the East coast.

Dan Heath:
Billy gave me an example of how the Replay Center might be staffed.

Billy Kennedy:
Let's say we have 10 games on the slate for the NBA on a Thursday night. There can be anywhere from four to five different NBA officials in the Replay Center that particular day. So an official could have one game that he or she is responsible for, and all of the replays that go with that.

Dan Heath:
There's never been more technology arrayed in favor of fair officiating, even so, it doesn't stop athletes from complaining about calls that didn't go their way. Here's LeBron James after a game against the Nuggets.

LeBron James:
I don't understand what's going on in the Replay Center, to be honest. I think I said it this year or last year or whatever, "What the... do we have a Replay Center if is going to go..." It doesn't make sense to me.

Dan Heath:
For his part, Billy is glad the Replay Center is there. The people there even help him figure out what to say.

Billy Kennedy:
Somebody in the Replay Center may say, "Say it this way." And so I'll say it that way.

Dan Heath:
What do you mean by that? What are you saying?

Billy Kennedy:
After further review, the defensive player may contact clear and conclusive those types of words, clear and conclusive.

Dan Heath:
I gotcha, okay.

Billy Kennedy:
You see what I'm saying? Making sure that we're educating the fans that the reason why we changed this play was because there was clear and conclusive evidence that the person stepped out of bounds or that there was contact to the wrist prior to the ball being released.

Dan Heath:
That's so interesting that they're helping you with word smithing in realtime.

Billy Kennedy:
Absolutely.

Dan Heath:
Billy has a very public job that a lot of people love to hate. I wondered if that made him think about his own security when he was out and about.

Billy Kennedy:
When I first came into the league, my first three years, I was so excited about being an NBA referee, I would put my bag that you take on the plane, your carry-on luggage, and I would stuff that underneath the seat and I would make sure that that NBA emblem, "Ooh, I got to be able to see that NBA emblem." You get an All-Star ring or something and you want to wear... Today, I don't wear anything.

Dan Heath:
That's kind of sad.

Billy Kennedy:
Well, it's for your self-protection that you never know if one of those so-called fanatics, wants to now become fanatic with you. With the evolution of how things are going nowadays, you always have to be cognizant of the fact that something could happen.

Dan Heath:
So Billy, we always end our episodes with a quick lightning round of questions. Here we go. What's the most insulting thing you could say about an NBA referee's work?

Billy Kennedy:
It is fascinating to me that people think that they can walk out onto an NBA floor, put on an NBA referee's shirt and officiate to the level of the staff that we have today. I equate it this way. If I was going to, or you were going to have brain surgery today, and you went to the hospital and they prepped you, and now I walk in and they say, "Okay, we're removing a brain tumor today and here's the patient and good luck." There is no way that I would be able to go in and do brain surgery on anybody. And yet I find it fascinating that a number of people-

Dan Heath:
Every yahoo on a couch in America thinks they could do better than you.

Billy Kennedy:
And they consistently tell us that. And so that would be something that... It's not disheartening because I've been doing it for so long, it's just I wish that they would understand that the time, the effort that everybody on staff puts in to maintain the level of excellence that we have on a night in and night out basis.

Dan Heath:
What's a tool specific to your profession that you really like using?

Billy Kennedy:
So-

Dan Heath:
It's got to be the whistle, no?

Billy Kennedy:
Well, yeah.

Dan Heath:
Something more high-tech?

Billy Kennedy:
I mean, if we're going to basic stuff, yeah, it's the whistle that we use. And I'll give Fox 40 a shout-out, the Fox 40 whistle. I remember way back in the day we used to have a pea in the whistle. It was an ACME Thunderer whistle back in 1999 and 2000. It actually had a pea in the whistle and you had to-

Dan Heath:
What do you mean a pea in the whistle?

Billy Kennedy:
So like, a small little green, like a pea. The whistles way back in the day had to produce the sound, the pea inside the whistle, in the chamber of the whistle, it would vibrate and create a sound as you put air through the whistle. So these ACME Thunderer-

Dan Heath:
Okay.

Billy Kennedy:
Yeah. So we had to buy nine ACME Thunderer whistles to get one whistle out of the nine that sounded good. That sounded... I'm serious.

Dan Heath:
That's not a great hit rate.

Billy Kennedy:
Nope. Exactly. You have to buy like 15 of them to get one whistle that sounded good. And Fox 40 figured out how to create a whistle that's pea-less. And so the only thing you have to worry about Fox 40 is if you bite through the plastic and if you don't keep it clean-

Dan Heath:
Ladies and gentlemen, meet my new sponsor, Fox 40, who-

Billy Kennedy:
Exactly.

Dan Heath:
Home of the pea-less whistle.

Billy Kennedy:
Home of the pea-less whistle. Exactly.

Dan Heath:
I've just got one last question for you. What is an aspect of your job that you consistently savor?

Billy Kennedy:
There's no better feeling when a crew together, not necessarily individually... Individually, we will celebrate that later, but as a crew, when the crew walks off the floor and they know that everybody on that crew, including the alternate, including the official in the Replay Center if it happens to be during the playoffs, did a great job. And when I say great, that means we may not have been perfect, but we achieved the excellence that we were striving for. And if you can put the game first, your partner second and yourself third, you can have that mentality on a night in and night out basis, then the crew walks off in an excellent mindset of, "We did really well that, night," or, "this game, and then we got to go do it again tomorrow."

Dan Heath:
Billy Kennedy has been an NBA referee for more than 25 years. My favorite part of this interview was at the top of the episode, that moment that Billy as a kid raises his hand to be a fill-in referee, to this day, he's not sure why he did that. He just knew. He knew at age 12 what he wanted to do with his life. How often do you figure that happens? Did it happen for you? How early did you know what you wanted to do? And don't get too hung up on your current title, like if you're an associate development director at a university or something. Obviously those words weren't on your lips as a 12-year-old. But looking back, do you see the signs that what you do now was something you enjoyed even at an early age? I didn't call myself a writer until I was probably 35-years-old so the profession was not an obvious choice for me the way it was for Billy.
But looking back at my childhood, the clues are so obvious. I was always seeking out chances to write, volunteering for the school paper, entering essay contests and that sort of thing. A friend told me recently that the kinds of activities you seek out as a kid voluntarily are the best clues for what you'll enjoy as an adult. I have absolutely no proof that that is true, but it's true for me. And it's certainly true for Billy. Running the court, trusting your teammates, staying out of the soup, enduring the abuse of fans, and fighting to maintain the integrity of one of the world's most popular sports. Folks, that's what it's like to be an NBA referee. A shout-out to recent reviewers on Apple Podcasts, Masha Sharon 888 Lee, Ann Arbor user, Rogo Foo, NY iPhone Gal, Umahk or Uma HK, and 82 LJP. Thanks to all of you. This episode was produced by Matt Purdy. I'm Dan Heath, take care.