Ken Mauer Jr. (born April 23, 1955 in St. Paul, Minnesota) is a former official in the

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

(NBA) from the

1986–87 NBA season The 1986–87 NBA season was the 41st season of the National Basketball Association. The season ended with the Los Angeles Lakers winning their fourth championship of the decade, beating the Boston Celtics 4 games to 2 in the NBA Finals. Notabl ...

to the 2021-22 NBA season. As of the beginning of the

2017–18 NBA season The 2017–18 NBA season was the 72nd season of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The regular season began on October 17, 2017, earlier than previous seasons to reduce the number of "back-to-back" games teams were scheduled to play, with t ...

, Mauer officiated in 1,717 regular season and 229 playoff games. Mauer wore uniform number 41.

Personal life

Mauer attended Harding Senior High School in St. Paul and later attended and graduated from the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...

in 1977. At Minnesota, Mauer played

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

and was named an All-

Big Ten The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference) is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representati ...

player. Mauer comes from a family heavily involved in athletics. Ken's cousins include

Joe Mauer Joseph Patrick Mauer (born April 19, 1983) is an American former professional baseball catcher and first baseman, who spent his entire 15-year Major League Baseball (MLB) career with the Minnesota Twins. A six-time All-Star, Mauer is the only c ...

and

Jake Mauer Donald Charles "Jake" Mauer (born December 20, 1978) is a former Minor League Baseball player, and former NCAA Division III baseball standout. He is a coach in the Minnesota Twins system. As a senior in , he set the University of St. Thomas seas ...

. Ken's father and four brothers were all referees, including his brother Tom Mauer, a referee in the

Women's National Basketball Association The Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) is an American professional basketball league. It is composed of twelve teams, all based in the United States. The league was founded on April 22, 1996, as the women's counterpart to the Natio ...

. Outside of officiating, Mauer is a

guest speaker Public speaking, also called oratory or oration, has traditionally meant the act of speaking face to face to a live audience. Today it includes any form of speaking (formally and informally) to an audience, including pre-recorded speech deliver ...

at basketball officiating camps and clinics and charitable and social groups. Mauer's hobbies include

cars A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, Car seat, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport private transport#Personal transport, people in ...

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

theater Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...

movies A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...

, and

traveling Travel is the movement of people between distant geographical locations. Travel can be done by foot, bicycle, automobile, train, boat, bus, airplane, ship or other means, with or without luggage, and can be one way or round trip. Travel can ...

. Mauer resides in Fort Myers, Florida.

NBA officiating career

Early career

Mauer officiated for 12 years in the state of

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

, nine years at the collegiate level, and later six years in the Continental Basketball Association before being hired by the NBA prior to the 1986–87 season. In 1993, Mauer was selected to officiate the NBA Europe Tour in

London, England London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major s ...

Airline ticket income investigation

In 2000, Mauer was convicted of a felony, three counts of tax evasion, and one count of obstruction of justice for not reporting downgraded airline tickets as income to the Internal Revenue Service. Mauer failed to pay taxes on $26,500 of additional income over a three-year period. Mauer was one of two NBA referees who chose not to plea bargain his case, believing that there was an injustice done against him. Mauer stated that he never intended to commit a criminal act, that his accountants signed off on his tax returns, and that he was not told of any issues. In April 2001, Mauer was sentenced to five months in jail, five months of

home detention In justice and law, house arrest (also called home confinement, home detention, or, in modern times, electronic monitoring) is a measure by which a person is confined by the authorities to their residence. Travel is usually restricted, if allo ...

, three years of supervised release, and 800 hours of community service. At the conclusion of the trial, Mauer said, "I'm proud that I stood up for myself. At the same time, I'm relieved that it turned out this way. This is the first decent day I've had in a year and a half. This summer is going to be hard, serving my sentence. But I'm going to turn it into a positive thing. I'm going to help the kids, I'll get into shape."

NBA Finals debut

Mauer was one of 12 referees selected to work the

2006 NBA Finals The 2006 NBA Finals was the championship series of the 2005–06 NBA season and the conclusion of the season's playoffs. The Dallas Mavericks were favored to win the championship over the Miami Heat. Despite these odds, the Heat won the title in ...

between the Dallas Mavericks and

Miami Heat The Miami Heat are an American professional basketball team based in Miami. The Heat compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Southeast Division. The club plays its home games at FT ...

, the first Finals of his career. Mauer's first game in the championship series was Game 3. During the 2010–11 season Mauer called five

technical foul In basketball, a technical foul (colloquially known as a "T" or a "tech") is any infraction of the rules penalized as a foul which does not involve physical contact during the course of play between opposing players on the court, or is a foul by a ...

s over the course of ten seconds during a game between the

Minnesota Timberwolves The Minnesota Timberwolves are an American professional basketball team based in Minneapolis. The Timberwolves compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference Northwest Division. Founded in 19 ...

and

San Antonio Spurs The San Antonio Spurs are an American professional basketball team based in San Antonio. The Spurs compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference Southwest Division. The team plays its home ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mauer, Ken 1955 births Living people Continental Basketball Association referees Minnesota Golden Gophers baseball players National Basketball Association referees Sportspeople from Saint Paul, Minnesota Baseball players from Saint Paul, Minnesota