'Nothing else I'd rather do': Ex-Wildcat Felecity Willis hits goal of officiating NCAAs

Felecity Willis can’t believe she’s hit this sort of milestone.

She’s been officiating women’s basketball games for 13 years — 10 of those at the NCAA Division I level.

“It’s a little weird because it feels like I just started refereeing a couple years ago,” Willis said. “I’m going to blink and it’s going to be 10 years later and hopefully I am still a referee. It’s been great. I love it. Nothing else I’d rather do.”

For Willis, it’s meant putting in a lot of work.

But a little hard work has never fazed her, either.

As part of Willis’ goal of being the best she can be, that means watching back games she and others have officiated each week.

“I think we watch more film as referees than players do,” she said.

It also means staying in shape. This is the easy part; she’s always loved working out.

In the past that meant going to the summer camps to keep learning. Now, she’s gotten to the point where she’s the teacher, hosting her own camps and clinics alongside another former UA basketball point guard in Dee Dee Wheeler.

Former UA stars Dee Dee Wheeler, Felecity Willis destined to give back to Tucson youth

Former Wildcat point guards create camps/clinic circuit to teach basketball fundamentals to Southern Arizona kids.

But that doesn’t mean that Willis’ growth has stopped here.

She’s also keeps up with new and old rules by studying three thick books — the rule book, case book and mechanics book — to keep refreshed. Willis joked that with all the rule changes in the past 10 years she’d most likely “foul out of every game” if she played today.

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All of this has led to her officiating in all six of the Western United States’ DI conferences — Pac-12, WCC, Big West, Big Sky, Mountain West and WAC — and to achieving one of her biggest goals: back-to-back NCAA Tournaments.

In 2022 and 2023, she’s worked first round tournament games that both happened to include Ole Miss. The first one, the Rebels lost to South Dakota in Waco, Texas. Then, last year, Ole Miss beat Gonzaga on Stanford’s home court — a game that set up the Rebels’ upset two days later over the No. 1 Cardinal.

Willis said she knew Ole Miss would give Stanford a run but like the rest of us, didn’t expect them to win.

As with a lot of things, her NCAA Tournament opportunity was delayed because of COVID-19. Prior to that, Willis was an alternate at the Oregon State regional and was on track to officiate. The next year the NCAA Tournament was canceled and the following year (2021) it was played at one site in San Antonio in a bubble with half the normal referee pool on site.

“When I got the email two seasons ago, I was very, very happy just to know that all the hard work I had put in got me somewhere,” Willis said. “(Last year) I felt the same. Still excited and I hope that I’m going to get excited every time I get chosen. It’s not a guarantee. You think about the number of officials in the United States that we have the Division I level and then the number that they select for the NCAA Tournament. There’s not a lot of referees that are chosen. To be chosen the last couple years, I mean, it’s a high honor. I definitely feel like I’m one of the lucky ones.”

Willis said that nothing changes from the officials’ standpoint when they work an NCAA Tournament game. What changes is everything around the game. That includes the placement of NCAA signage of typical arena graphics and bigger crowds. Willis notes “the energy goes up a lot and you get a little nervous, but then once that ball goes up, it’s good. You just go back to everything that’s been taught to us is just another game.”

As Willis is considered a veteran in her field and has accomplished so much, there is still a lot that drives her journey forward. She wants to continue to work more and more games each season, officiate in more conference tournaments (last year was the Big Sky) and more games in the NCAA Tournament.

“You set these goals and you accomplish them and it feels great but the work isn’t done, because every year you start over,” Willis said. “I could be an NCAA tournament for two years and then not be an NCAA Tournament. You just never know. All I can do is control what I can control, put the work in, work the games to the best of my ability and hope that I’m one of the 120-something referees come the NCAA Tournament time.”

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