The NBA reportedly currently employs eight full-time women referees. Simone Jelks, the seventh full-time woman official in NBA history, played college basketball for the USC Trojans women’s basketball team from 2004 to 2008. She was named to the Pac-12 All-Defensive Team for the 2007–08 season.
After her hoops career, she refereed three years of college basketball, officiating games for the Mid-American Conference and the Horizon League. In addition, she has years of NBA G League officiating experience.
Simone Jelks Is No-Nonsense NBA Referee
During the 2019-20 NBA season Jelks officiated 16 regular-season games as a non-staff official. Jelks along with Andy Nagy and Suyash Mehta were promoted to the NBA officiating staff on Dec. 23, 2020.
An old clip of Jelks getting into it with New York Knicks player Josh Hart over a call he objected to in a game against the New Orleans Pelicans sparked a widespread debate on social media about women referees in men’s sports.
Fans Start Gender War Over Women Referees In Men’s Pro Sports
Some fans didn’t like the way Scott engaged with Hart in an aggressive manner, yelling at him as he walked away, unhappy with the call.
“Women shouldn’t be refs in men’s sports,” one fan stated bluntly on Threads.
“She is one of the worst refs in the league, DEI hired for sho,” another person quipped.
“Some female refs are just emotional,” one fan added.
“This is why women shouldn’t be reffing men’s games. Can’t match the energy. Women should referee women’s games only, “ a third fan said.
Jelks had her share of defenders who felt that she exhibited a lot of leeway by not calling the tech on Hart and leaving it at a spirited debate between two professionals.
“Yall dogging her but a male ref would’ve hit him with a tech with the quickness,” one fan said.
“He lucky she cool because the men throw techs with the quickness,” said another.
“Yall aint even see the play and think shorty wrong,” one fan posted.
“This is so black women coded. She looking like “who you getting loud with?!.” another fan praised.
“Simone grew up in Cleveland and was a great female hooper! She;s not taking disrespect from nobody !!!” one fan noted.
“I will never speak bad of a woman ref because I had to sit thru Joey Crawford’s calls and any big game with Scott Foster. Yoooo,” one fan commented in defense of Jelks.
“I’m seeing some of the dumbest, misogynistic, disrespectful comments,” one fan interjected. “It shows that a lot of you don’t give a sh*t about the women in your lives. If a woman is officiating a pro sport, it’s clearly because she is qualified for the job.”
It’s not clear if women give more technical fouls then male referees, but the quick trigger finger is not obviously gender-correlated in NBA games, where players are expected to play with zero emotion at times.
