On Friday morning, the NBA community lost one of its own when long-time referee, Hugh Evans, passed away.
He was 81.
Evans was more than a veteran official. He was an NBA referee who officiated almost 2,000 games (1,969) and was named to the Hall of Fame this past April, an honor reserved only for the greatest in the game.
According to ESPN.com, Evans officiated 170 playoff games, 35 NBA Finals contests and four NBA All-Star Games. Coaches, GMs and NBA senior vice presidents ranked him as the second-best official in the league during the 1995-96 season.
“I still haven’t put into perspective what it means. I am still processing it,” said Evans when he learned he had made the Hall. “Every time I hear it, you get chills, I get tears, I get happy, and I just know that I am special. I was chosen to be special by God.”
Evans had basketball in his blood.
He was born in Brooklyn and played college basketball and baseball at HBCU institution North Carolina A&T. He was drafted in the 1962 NBA Draft by the St. Louis Hawks but decided to play baseball instead.
In the late 1960s, he started officiating before going to work for the NBA in 1973. There he became the second referee from an HBCU to referee in the NBA. The first to do it was Ken Hudson, who was from Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio. He refereed in the NBA from 1968 to 1972.
Hudson and Evans opened the door that others followed through. Last season, according to the National Basketball Referees Association, 9 of the 73 NBA referees were from HBCUs.
Evan’s successful basketball career earned him induction into both the New York City Basketball Hall of Fame (2014) and the North Carolina A&T Hall of Fame.
While he had a lengthy career in the NBA, which included working as an NBA assistant supervisor of officials for two years after he retired in 2001, Evans faced challenges such as acceptance, respect and racism.
But his persona and quality of work overcame those barriers, and this September Hugh Evans will be inducted posthumously into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in September.
“Being accepted by the coaches, players, fans and general managers was difficult,” said Evans in an interview with Andscape. “They didn’t think we [Black referees] could do the job. I was the first Black to work past the first round of the playoffs. I went on to do the Finals. After a while they said, ‘This guy is good. We will give him space.'”
RIP Hugh Evans.
