HARRISONBURG, Va. (WHSV) – Roger Ayers is considered one of the most respected officials in college basketball.
Last month, Ayers worked his seventh Final Four and also officiated the 2024 national championship game. On Tuesday night, the Roanoke native was in Harrisonburg as the keynote speaker for WHSV’s Student Athlete of the Week banquet. The drive up Interstate 81 brought back memories from his early days as a referee.
“Traveling up here tonight reminded me of going to Bridgewater with Bill Leatherman, who used to coach there,” Ayers said. “He wore me out long before Mike Krzyzewski ever got a hold of me.”
Long before he stepped on the prestigious floors of Cameron Indoor Stadium or the Dean Smith Center, Ayers got his start officiating games in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference.
But Ayers had a bigger dream: to officiate in the ACC.
In 1998, during a trip to Indianapolis, he secured a tryout for the conference. However, the test began before he even stepped on the court—at the hotel check-in desk.
“Fortunately, the lady at the front desk played her part well and said, ‘Your room is not ready,’” Ayers said. “People were yelling at her and screaming, and I was like, ‘I’m just a Southwest Virginia guy.’ I said, ‘Yes, ma’am, I understand. No problem.’ The next thing you know, they said, ‘We’re going to hire you because we can trust you when the lights are off and nobody’s watching.’”
Ayers has now been officiating in the ACC for 28 years. He works more than 100 college basketball games each season and continues to officiate at the sport’s highest level.
In the offseason, Ayers dedicates his time to mentoring the next generation of officials, running camps across The Commonwealth.
Jamie Eberly, a respected high school official in the Shenandoah Valley, considers Ayers a role model.
“You scroll through college basketball games any night of the week from November to March, and you’re going to see Roger Ayers,” Eberly said. “One of his biggest things he says at camps is: communicate with coaches, communicate with players. He always tells each team, ‘Hey, I got you tonight. Let me know if you have any problems.’ I try to do that with our kids and our games—to let them know I’m there to work for them that night.”
Ayers has earned the respect not only of his fellow officials but also from some of the sport’s most legendary coaches.
“I actually have a photo on my desk that [Mike Krzyzewski] sent me,” Ayers said. “I had to call a technical foul on him one year, and he sent me a framed photo of that moment. It says, ‘One of the best, Roger Ayers.’ I’ll take that any day of the week from him.”
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