A seemingly niche rule of Seattle University’s University Recreation (UREC) intramural basketball program is drawing criticism from players who feel it promotes bias in recreational sports officiating.

The rule in question permits referees, who are all student employees of UREC, to participate in intramural basketball while also officiating. This means that in a single tournament, a referee can officiate one game and play in the next. This can be frustrating to players, such as one who requested to remain anonymous.

“A lot of these people work very closely together, so they know each other really well… but when you’re a team coming in that does not work for UREC it’s almost intimidating and also feels a little bit more, I would say biased in a way,” the anonymous player said.

Being critical of officials is a common thread throughout sports at all levels, with some sports fans taking a more conspiratorial bent than others towards close calls. Clark Hayashi, a third-year business analytics and marketing double major, is in his third year as an official for UREC. Hayashi wasn’t always an official, though.

“As a player, I always had hate for the refs,” Hayashi said. “I always made fun of them for not seeing correctly, not doing their job right.”

Of the roughly 25 referees and managers at UREC, Hayashi estimated that half play in some form of intramurals. In the co-rec basketball league, one team called “Da house” is made up of UREC managers, some of whom live in the eponymous house together.

Trace Seaton, assistant director of competitive sports at UREC, doesn’t see an issue with this policy in a league he has overseen for years.

“Intramurals is an inclusive environment for all students, faculty and staff. So just because you work as an official doesn’t mean you don’t get to play,” Seaton said.

Seaton has also worked at the University of South Carolina and Stephen F. Austin University, both of which allow student officials to participate in intramurals.

Seaton shared that officials receive roughly 10 hours of training before donning the striped uniform and hitting the court.

“When I actually became a ref and I ended up doing that job, I came to the realization that their job is hard. And the hate they get is almost sometimes not as deserved as it should be,” Hayashi said.

An intrinsic part of officiating is making close calls that can determine the outcome of a game, Hayashi explained. In a casual environment with none of the instant replay trappings that professional referees have come to rely on, student officials have to rely on their own observations.

“We’re not officiating the NBA or the NFL or MLS or anything like that. We’re officiating intramurals and it’s okay to come out and not know what you’re doing and learn and make mistakes,” Seaton said. “It’s not that deep.”

Beyond who is allowed to play in the league, UREC also has a rule in its Co-Rec league that has been met with some skepticism and caused on-the-court conflict. Co-Rec basketball is similar to the open league in that players of all genders are permitted to play, but Co-Rec teams are required to have two female-identifying players and three male-identifying players on the court. If teams cannot meet this requirement, they may forfeit or play with only one female-identifying player and two male-identifying players.

Co-Rec’s player requirements are a source of frustration for players, including another student who requested to remain anonymous.

“Inherently women are, by the rule, officiated differently than men, and I think that just leads to problems, especially when you have refs that are new,” the student said. “It’s almost set up systematically to be like ‘women are not as good as the men.’”

Currently, if a man wants to guard a woman in Co-Rec, their movement during blocking is restricted.

“Men can absolutely guard women. We do have a goaltending rule for Co-Rec where men have to be straight vertically and can’t jump to block a shot, but they’re 100% allowed to guard a female,” Seaton said.

In practice, this rule leads to a significant amount of goaltending fouls in games. The anonymous student noted that in cases of significant height differentials, men are frequently given fouls even when they feel they followed the rules.

Even if officials make the right call in a consequential scenario, be it in professional or casual sports, sports fans throughout history have shown great resolve in their vehement opposition of referees. At the intramural level, especially at a close-knit university like Seattle U, these close calls sting even more when they come from someone who might have been an opponent in a different bracket. 

UREC seems unlikely to change the policy, given its prevalence across the intramural field and the high number of UREC employees involved with intramurals. So if you’re an intramural player and your team is pitted against “Da house,” it looks like you better not fold.