ESPN hires former referee Dee Kantner as women’s college basketball rules analyst

Dee Kantner has seen and called it all.

The 65-year-old has been calling women’s college basketball games since 1984. Over that time, she’s officiated 26 Final Fours and 16 national championships, as well as the Olympics and the FIBA World Championships. Alongside Violet Palmer, she was one of the first two women officials in any major U.S. professional men’s sport when the NBA hired them as a full-time referee in 1997.

Kantner retired from calling games earlier this year, but she’s not stepping away from the profession. She’s just moving into the broadcasting booth.

As reported by SB Nation’s Mitchell Northam, Kantner will join ESPN as a rules analyst for their women’s college basketball coverage.

The longtime official will work alongside ESPN’s top women’s college basketball broadcast crew, play-by-play announcer Ryan Ruocco as the lead play-by-play voice, color commentator Rebecca Lobo, and courtside reporter Holly Rowe. Kantner’s first game will be Tuesday’s Louisville-UConn matchup as part of the Armed Forces Classic in Annapolis, Maryland.

Unlike rules analysts in other sports, Kantner will be on-site for most games alongside ESPN’s broadcasters, something she insisted on when she took the role.

“She felt like she would be able to help Ryan or Rebecca more off-camera, if she was actually there and could make eye contact with them and pass them notes,” Meg Aronowitz, ESPN’s senior vice president for production, told SB Nation. “That was really important to her, to be able to watch the game in real time and watch the flow of the officials and see how they’re calling the game, and to be out there on the floor. So, we’re going to try it a couple different ways. Obviously, she’ll be new to television, so we’re going to use November and December to kind of teach her the ropes.”

Aronowitz also said there’s interest in having Kantner contribute to ESPN’s WNBA game broadcasts, but any specifics around that remain TBD.