Before March 20, 2010, Kentucky had staged 92 boys’ high school state championship basketball games. Many features of this year’s title tilt were no different than those in the past. Ballard High School was making its seventh appearance in the championship game, and it was being held in Rupp Arena for the 16th straight year. However, there were a few differences in this year’s state finals, and it wasn’t only Shelby Valley High School making its first ever appearance.

While the teams playing for the title have varied through the years, one thing has always remained the same. Those officiating the championship game have always been – men.

That changed this year. When Ballard and Shelby Valley took to the court for the state finals, one of the folks wearing black and white stripes was former Eastern Kentucky University women’s basketball player Marla Gearhart. When the former Lady Colonel stepped on the court for the opening tip, she became the first female to officiate the Kentucky Boys’ Sweet Sixteen championship game.

“It is definitely so far in my officiating career the absolutely top one or two of things I’ve been able to do,” Gearhart said. “It’s just phenomenal.”

The entire Sweet Sixteen left an impression on Gearhart. “You really don’t realize the importance [of the Sweet Sixteen] to Kentucky basketball fans,” she said. “I’ve been down before to the tournament and stayed a day or two, or my father and I have just gone down for the finals. I had never been there the entire week. The people who love basketball in the state of Kentucky are amazing, and you really don’t know unless you attend the boys’ state tournament.”

After working Ballard’s quarterfinal victory over Warren Central, which tipped at noon on Friday, Gearhart had to wait late into the night to learn her next assignment. Unlike many other tournaments, the Sweet Sixteen semifinals and finals are played on the same day. For an official, having Saturday morning off is a good thing. The officials that work the semifinal games in the morning won’t be on the court in the evening for the championship game.

“I found out really late Friday, it was like 11:30 at night,” Gearhart said. “I was so very fortunate to be selected to call the final.”

Gearhart’s officiating career began during the 2005-06 season when she started officiating middle school and junior varsity girls’ games. Before taking to the court in a striped shirt herself, she remembers watching her sister play and thinking to herself that she could do a better job than the officials she was watching. She didn’t always keep her opinion to herself though.

“I was horrible in the stands before I started officiating, now I rarely say anything,” said Gearhart with a laugh. “I made several comments that I can do better than that, but I’ve been paid back.”

A year later she had already worked her way up to girls’ varsity games and NAIA women’s college games. She capped her second season as an official by being selected to work the KHSAA Girls’ Sweet Sixteen championship game at Diddle Arena in Bowling Green.

In only her third year as an official, 2007-08, Gearhart was selected to work the NAIA Division II national tournament championship game in Sioux City, Iowa. That same year, Gearhart officiated her first boys’ varsity game. At the end of the high school season, she was chosen as the KHSAA Basketball Official of the Year.

It didn’t take long for Gearhart to acclimate herself to the boys’ game.

“The speed and strength is on a different level than girls, what I had been used to officiating,” she said. “I tend to have a patient whistle and tend to let them play through more stuff. So really my officiating catered better to the boys. Sometimes in the girls’ games I would let them play too much, and I’d have to tell myself—‘Marla you need to tighten this game up.’ There’s a lot of things that the girls couldn’t play through that I was expecting them to play through. Now with the boys, my whistle catered more to them because they can play through so much more. They can deal with a little push or a little hit on the arm and go ahead and finish it.”

During the 2008-09 season, Gearhart continued officiating boys and girls varsity games and NAIA women’s games. She was selected once again to work the NAIA championship contest in Sioux City. In addition, Gearhart began officiating NCAA Division II games that season.

This past season, Gearhart made the jump to NCAA Division I. She officiated women’s games for the Atlantic Sun Conference, the Horizon League and the Ohio Valley Conference. In addition she worked her third straight NAIA national championship game. She continued working both girls’ and boys’ varsity games and was rewarded with a spot in the Sweet Sixteen title game.

“Officiating is a lot of work. Some people might not understand that,” said Gearhart. “They think you put a striped shirt on and a whistle and you’re ready to officiate. It has been a lot of work. I’ve given up my vacation days to go to camps and work four to six games a day in non-air conditioned gyms trying to get better, trying to improve. I am a prime example of hard work paying off.”

Her hard work has paid off, and it has done so quickly. In her first season officiating girls’ varsity games, not only was Gearhart chosen to work the Girls’ Sweet Sixteen, she was also selected for the championship game. She accomplished a similar feat this season. After first being picked to officiate the Boys’ Sweet Sixteen for the first time, her hard work resulted again in a spot in the title game.

While her short career has been filled with highlights, Gearhart hopes that her hard work will one day result in a trip to the NCAA Women’s Final Four.

“You always think of that. People say they don’t, but they do,” Gearhart said. “That would be the ultimate opportunity and reward. It is definitely something I’ll work towards. If I get the opportunity that would be wonderful, but if I don’t, I’ll be happy with what I’ve accomplished and the opportunity to officiate some higher end games.”

Gearhart will take it one step at a time for now. “I’m trying to build my schedule up to where I can get picked up in a couple more Division I leagues,” she said. “My goal this summer is to really work hard, attend camps and work on my officiating.”

As a Lady Colonel, Gearhart is one of 20 members of EKU’s 1,000-Point Club. She reached the 1,000-point plateau despite playing in only eight games her junior season after suffering a knee injury. She rebounded from her injury to conclude her career with an outstanding senior season. She earned first team All-Ohio Valley Conference recognition after leading the team in scoring (19.6 points per game) and assists (3.75 assists per game). She ranked second and sixth in the OVC in those two categories respectively.

Gearhart was a member of the Lady Colonel squad that reached the NCAA tournament for the first time in program history in 1997, and a part of Eastern Kentucky’s back-to-back regular season OVC championship teams in 1996-97 and 1997-98. She graduated from EKU with a bachelor’s degree in recreational therapy.

“I was never disrespectful to officials,” Gearhart said of her playing days. “But sometimes I was critical of them after the game. Once you become one, your whole outlook changes, that is for sure. You see the other side.”

In addition to her officiating career, Gearhart has worked as the program director at the Ashland Area YMCA for seven years.