NCAA women's basketball official Marcy Weston has witnessed a lot of games in which an important player is taken out at the end for a standing ovation.

She'll get that experience herself in about six months.

The longtime NCAA coordinator of women's basketball officials has announced that this year -- the 25th anniversary of NCAA women's play -- will be her last. After 21 years of NCAA administrative service, the venerable senior associate athletics director at Central Michigan University, who has helped build women's basketball to its current lofty plateau, said she is retiring from her coordinator position, effective after this year's set of fall clinics, though she will stay on as a consultant through the 2005-06 season.

"This is a good time to let someone else take the reins," Weston said. "The game and its officiating components are in good shape, we're very organized, and officiating has taken on a look of enhanced professionalism, as it should."

Much of that can be attributed to Weston's influence. While NCAA women's basketball has flourished long enough to have in its limelight a number of significant on-court and on-screen icons, Weston built her image as a pillar of the game largely from behind the scenes.

After officiating women's games for two decades, including the first Division I championship game in 1982 and another in 1984 (she likely would have called the 1983 championship as well, had it not been for an emergency appendectomy at the regional the week before), she broke into the administrative ranks as supervisor of women's officials for the Big Ten Conference and as secretary-rules editor for the NCAA's newly established Women's Basketball Rules Committee.

She was just the third conference supervisor of officials in 1985 (the Southeastern and Pacific-10 Conferences also employed a person in that role) and was in on the ground floor of what would later become, in Weston's words, "an industry." Before the emergence of league coordinators, head coaches served as assignors of officials, a situation that these days, Weston said, "would be laughable."

"But that's the way it was then," she said. "Now we have 31 conferences and 24 coordinators."

As the NCAA's first women's basketball secretary-rules editor, Weston helped guide rules-makers through the adoption of the smaller ball, the three-point shot and the 30-second shot clock.

But perhaps her most influential role has been as national coordinator of women's basketball officiating, duties that she performed unofficially from 1984 until 1996, when she was given the official title to go along with the tasks. Initially, the fledgling officiating improvement program consisted of five fall clinics, and not much attention was paid to officiating after that until March when the tournament began. "It was four weeks in October and four more in March," Weston said.

"Now," she said, "a week doesn't go by that I don't hear from someone at the NCAA national office on what we're doing next. But that's OK because it means that the women's officiating improvement program has become a focal point."

Indeed it has. Under Weston's watch, the officiating improvement program has evolved into a year-long emphasis on education, development and evaluation. Not only has the number of conference coordinators increased, so has the technology used to instruct officials about the proper calls and the process by which referees are evaluated. Weston also cited the NCAA national office and conference commitments to staffing the officiating improvement program on a national and regional level as evidence of positive growth.

While Weston calls herself merely "a facilitator" in the exponential growth of women's basketball and its officiating component, others put Weston on a higher pedestal.

"For many years, Marcy has given of herself, her time, her energy and her passion to our great game," said Sue Donohoe, NCAA vice-president for Division I women's basketball. "Our game is a better game today because of Marcy's commitment and work throughout the years."

Hank Nichols, Weston's counterpart for men's officiating, said, "There is not enough ink to express on paper the value Marcy Weston has brought to the game of basketball. She was the premier official of her time, she was the premier secretary-rules editor, and she is the premier coordinator.

"When we worked together as national coordinators, I couldn't have gotten anywhere, nor done the job that was asked of me, without her guidance. Marcy was the best, is the best, and I love her to death."

Weston, who will retain her position at Central Michigan, said she is proud of having been able to add consistency and continuity to the officiating improvement program. "The increased scrutiny from the basketball community also has improved accountability in officiating -- and I like accountability," she said. "We've also implemented a more sophisticated evaluation process that has improved officiating immensely. Are there still calls that are not correct? Absolutely. But when you look at the tapes, you see that the vast majority are the correct calls."

She said while the challenge continues to be identifying and matriculating new officials into the profession, the commitments from conferences to build the administrative infrastructure for officiating has helped attract new faces.

She said conferences always want the top officials to work their games, but leagues have realized that the best way to increase the pool of top officials is to offer programs that mold them. "That's why mentoring and training programs in conferences are so important," Weston said.

But perhaps the best indicator of the industry's growth to Weston is the fact that, as she said, women's basketball officiating is no longer just an avocation.

"We've come to where we have a lot of full-time officials now. They don't have a day job anymore. This is their job, their profession. It's an industry now," she said. "People complain that some officials work every night -- well, that's their job. It's just that it's a night job. They call a game, fly out the next morning, get to the hotel, review some tape and call another game. To me, that's awesome because they're focused on it all the time."

Donohoe said the shift from avocation to profession is in large part because of Weston's advocacy for the enterprise.

"Marcy has served as a mentor for many young officials," she said. "Her willingness to educate and mentor young officials will be Marcy's legacy to the game of women's basketball for many years to come."

And that's probably why when the women's game celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, Marcy Weston will be one of many to receive a standing ovation.

The Weston file

• 1964-84: Served as an AIAW and NCAA official, including the 1982 and 1984 Women's Final Fours. Also worked the AIAW Division II finals in 1980 and the AIAW Division III championship game in 1981.

• 1985-98: Served as NCAA secretary-rules editor for the NCAA Women's Basketball Rules Committee. Also worked with the Division I Women's Basketball Committee on tournament officiating.

• 1996-present: Was given the title of national coordinator of women's basketball officiating, though she served unofficially in that role since 1984.

• 1989-present: Senior associate director of athletics at Central Michigan University. Administers eight sports and supervises sports medicine, academic services and student employment, among other duties.

• Women's Basketball and Central Michigan Athletics Hall of Fame member.

• Former chair of the National Association of Sports Officials board of directors.

• Former volleyball coach at Central Michigan. Weston's 1981 team set a school record for wins (54).