Eddie F. Rush (born September 19, 1961) is a

professional basketball In professional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, participants receive payment for their performance. Professionalism in sport has come to the fore through a combination of developments. Mass media and increased leisure have brought larger a ...

referee A referee is an official, in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The official tasked with this job may be known by a variety of other title ...

in the

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada). The NBA is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Ca ...

(NBA). As of the

2006–07 NBA season The 2006–07 NBA season was the 61st season of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The San Antonio Spurs were crowned the champions after sweeping the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals. Notable occurrences *The first NBA draft und ...

, he had officiated 1,245 regular season, and 140 playoff games, including nine NBA Finals games.

Early life

Rush attended W.H. Spencer High School in

Columbus, Georgia Columbus is a consolidated city-county located on the west-central border of the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. Columbus lies on the Chattahoochee River directly across from Phenix City, Alabama. It is the county seat of Muscogee ...

. At Spencer, he played basketball and baseball. Following high school, he attended college and graduated from

Georgia State University Georgia State University (Georgia State, State, or GSU) is a Public university, public research university in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Founded in 1913, it is one of the University System of Georgia's four research universities. It is al ...

in 1983.

Officiating career

Prior to joining the NBA, Rush worked high school games for ten years before progressing to college and professional basketball leagues. At the collegiate level, he officiated for eight years in the

Big Ten The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference, among others) is a collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives in 1 ...

and

Southeastern Conference The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference whose member institutions are located primarily in the South Central United States, South Central and Southeastern United States. Its 16 members in ...

s, as well as

Conference USA Conference USA (CUSA) is a collegiate athletic conference of member institutions in the Southern and Western United States. The conference participates in the NCAA's Division I in all sports. CUSA's offices are located in Dallas, Texas. Mem ...

. He worked First Round games in the 1991 and 1992 NCAA Tournaments. Later he officiated for five years of

Continental Basketball Association The Continental Basketball Association (CBA), originally known as the Eastern Pennsylvania Basketball League, and later as the Eastern Professional Basketball League and the Eastern Basketball Association, was a men's professional basketball m ...

officiating experience. Rush is no relation to long-time NBA referee and former Supervisor of Officials Ed T. Rush, or to musician

Ed Rush Ben Settle, known by the stage name Ed Rush, is a drum and bass producer and DJ. Rush has been releasing records since 1992 primarily with Optical (Matt Quinn), his musical partner since 1997. Along with Optical, he is also the co-founder of ...

. Rush is the only NBA ref to have officiated the last game of the NBA Finals for four straight seasons (2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008).

References

External links

National Basketball Referees Association
Living people NBA referees Sportspeople from Columbus, Georgia 1961 births African-American referees and umpires Georgia State University alumni Continental Basketball Association referees 21st-century African-American sportsmen 20th-century African-American sportsmen {{1960s-US-basketball-bio-stub