Simone Marie Jelks (born March 9, 1986) is an American

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 larg ...

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 titl ...

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 S ...

(NBA), wearing number 81. Jelks became the seventh woman to be a full-time NBA referee. As of the

2020–21 NBA season The 2020–21 NBA season was the 75th season of the National Basketball Association (NBA), though the 75th anniversary was not celebrated until the following season. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the regular season was reduced to 72 games for ea ...

Jelks has officiated 49 regular-season games, including 16 regular-season games as a non-staff official during the

2019–20 NBA season The 2019–20 NBA season was the 74th season of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The regular season began on October 22, 2019, and originally was supposed to end on April 15, 2020. However, the season was suspended on March 11 as a resul ...

. She is in her second season as an NBA referee.

Early life

Jelks was born on March 9, 1986, in

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

. In 2004, she graduated from

Charles F. Brush High School Charles F. Brush High School is a public high school in Lyndhurst, Ohio. The school is named for Charles F. Brush, the Ohio-born inventor of the arc light. Brush has 1,334 students as of the 2017–2018 school year. The school, which is situa ...

Lyndhurst, Ohio Lyndhurst is a small city in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States, and an eastern suburb of Cleveland. The population was 14,050 at the 2020 census. A small part of Lyndhurst was originally part of Mayfield Township. History The land currently c ...

. While attending Charles F. Brush High School Jelks became the school's career leader in points, steals, rebounds and free throws. In 2015, she was inducted into the school's Athletic Hall of Fame.

College basketball career and education

Jelks played college basketball for the

USC Trojans women's basketball The USC Trojans women's basketball team, or the Women of Troy, is the collegiate women's basketball team that represents the University of Southern California, in the Pac-12 Conference. The team rose to prominence in 1976, at which time scholarsh ...

team from 2004 to 2008. She was named to the

Pac-12 The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference, that operates in the Western United States, participating in 24 sports at the NCAA Division I level. Its College football, football teams compete in the NCAA D ...

All-Defensive Team for the 2007–08 season. Jelks graduated from the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...

in 2008. She also earned a master's degree in Public Health from

Case Western Reserve University Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a private research university in Cleveland, Ohio. Case Western Reserve was established in 1967, when Western Reserve University, founded in 1826 and named for its location in the Connecticut Western Reser ...

(2011) and a master's degree in Urban Secondary Teaching from

Cleveland State University Cleveland State University (CSU) is a public research university in Cleveland, Ohio. It was established in 1964 and opened for classes in 1965 after acquiring the entirety of Fenn College, a private school that had been in operation since 1923. ...

(2013).

Officiating career

Jelks refereed three years of college basketball, officiating games for the

Mid-American Conference The Mid-American Conference (MAC) is a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I collegiate athletic conference with a membership base in the Great Lakes region that stretches from Western New York to Illinois. Nine of the twel ...

and the

Horizon League The Horizon League is an 11-school collegiate athletic conference in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I, whose members are located in and near the Great Lakes region. The Horizon League founded in 1979 as the Midw ...

. She also has three seasons of

NBA G League The NBA G League, or simply the G League, is the National Basketball Association's (NBA) official List of developmental and minor sports leagues, minor league basketball organization. The league was known as the National Basketball Development ...

officiating experience. During the 2019-20 NBA season Jelks officiated 16 regular-season games as a non-staff official. Jelks along with Andy Nagy and Suyash Mehta were promoted to the NBA officiating staff on December 23, 2020. During the 2020-21 NBA season Jelks officiated 33 regular-season games during her first season on the NBA officiating staff.

References

External links

National Basketball Referees Association bio
1986 births Living people Basketball people from Ohio Basketball players from Ohio Sportspeople from Cleveland USC Trojans women's basketball players University of Southern California alumni Case Western Reserve University alumni Cleveland State University alumni National Basketball Association referees NBA G League referees American women referees and umpires {{US-women-basketball-bio-stub