Jeff O'Malley, the interim director of athletics at Marshall, has been named NCAA Men's Basketball Rules Committee secretary-rules editor, effective Sept. 1, 2022.
O’Malley will succeed Art Hyland, who will begin his 12th and final season in the role in the 2021-22 academic year. O'Malley will shadow Hyland over the next 12 months to prepare to take over the position.
O'Malley has been an NCAA men's basketball referee in all three divisions since 1997. Last season, he worked games in Division I and was selected to officiate games in the Division II Men's Basketball Championship.
"I've always had a passion for the game of college basketball and the rules," said O'Malley, who has worked in the Marshall athletics department since 2002. "Being a referee for as long as I have been, I've come to love everything about it. Given my skill set, it seemed like a natural progression for me, and it attracted me to the job."
O'Malley began officiating basketball games during his undergraduate days at Miami (Ohio), where he competed in an intramural league.
He noticed a need for more people to referee the games, and he has officiated games for more than three decades.
"When you started doing intramural games at Miami (Ohio), you took a class, and you were certified for high schools," said O'Malley, who earned a degree in accounting in 1990 and a law degree from Dayton in 1994. "It was a way to earn a little extra money and kept my foot in the game of basketball."
O'Malley, who served on the NCAA Men's Basketball Rules Committee from 2013-17, began his collegiate athletics administrative career in 1994 as a compliance coordinator at Dayton. From 1996-2002, he was the associate athletics director for compliance and regulatory affairs at Massachusetts.
O'Malley was associate athletics director/chief of staff at Marshall until being named interim director of athletics last month.
O'Malley said he will miss working games on the court but is ready to transition to being the secretary-rules editor for NCAA men's basketball.
"Having a background knowledge of the rules has prepared me," O'Malley said. "It has given me the working knowledge of the rules because I had to study them every year. Working alongside coaches and conference supervisors has given me the experience to do this job also."
