COMPTON, Calif. — There are nearly 900 officials working in the top tier of men’s college basketball, keeping order at thousands of games. They wear black-and-white striped shirts and try to keep a low profile.

Last season, only one of them was a woman. Her name is Crystal Hogan, and when she sat down in February to talk about it, about the lonely and perplexing ratio of being 1 out of 900 in N.C.A.A. Division I men’s basketball, she was coolly diplomatic, as a good official should be.

“I can’t answer that,” she said. “I’m just happy for the opportunity.”

Hogan, 43, is glad to know that the number of women officiating top men’s college games has doubled this season with the addition of Amy Bonner. “I hope there’s more coming,” Hogan said last week.

In an era in which women are breaking into jobs traditionally held by men across the sports world — there are female assistant coaches in the N.B.A. and the N.F.L., for example, and last month Kim Ng became the first female general manager in Major League Baseball, with the Miami Marlins — men’s college sports, generally, have been slower to adapt.

Source: New York Times

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