Road Dog: The life of a top college basketball game official

When Rick Hartzell was the athletics director at Northern Iowa for nine years until January 2008, I wrote a column about the in-season traveling he did to officiate games.

Since he no longer is at UNI, the volume of traveling he does to officiate is even more mind-boggling. He worked the Minnesota-Iowa game Sunday, his third game in Carver-Hawkeye Arena of the 67 he had worked this season through Sunday.

Hartzell began the season by officiating nine straight days. The games were in nine different states, stretching from West Virginia to Nevada. Get this: On Nov. 18 he worked a game in Laramie, Wyo. The next night he did a game in Auburn, Ala. And the day after that? The Wisconsin-UNLV game in Las Vegas.

Hartzell has officiated in 48 cities and 28 states, and there are still several weeks left. He has worked in seven different cities in Texas alone. He has made four separate trips to Ann Arbor, Mich. He's worked in Detroit and Chicago and Washington. He's worked in Jonesboro and DeKalb and Murfreesboro.

I don't know where he's scheduled to be tonight (Monday), but I'll bet it isn't home. Because he's had five days off in February already, and that's a bunch for him.

Many believe no one refs more games than Ed Hightower, but he's worked "just" 41 games heading into Monday.

Hartzell is tied with Ted Valentine (Happy Valentine's Day, Ted) for eighth of most games worked this season. First in

Mike Kitts, with 76.