Notable NBA referee announces retirement at age 43
Feb 18, 2023; Salt Lake City, UT, USA; The NBA logo on the court at Huntsman Center. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
A fairly well-known NBA referee has decided to call it an early day.
In an interview this week with Tim Reynolds of the Associated Press, veteran NBA official Lauren Holtkamp-Sterling announced that she is retiring from refereeing. Holtkamp-Sterling cited knee problems for the decision, revealing that she has suffered three total ACL tears over the years (including one that took place while she was reffing).
“My medical retirement is all about my knees,” Holtkamp-Sterling was quoted as saying. “It was really sad to me to bump up against physical limitations, truly. And I think it can be really tempting to sort of live in a space where you think everything is solvable and fixable. But truly, my knees just had reached the point where the miles on my joints, I couldn’t roll back the odometer on them.”
Holtkamp-Sterling, only 43, has been serving as an NBA referee since 2014, working over 350 regular season games. She was the third female full-time official in NBA history when she took her position, but the issues with her knees limited her to just 15 games reffed last season.
Married to fellow NBA official Jonathan Sterling, Holtkamp-Sterling made headlines back in 2015 over 12-time All-Star Chris Paul’s gripes with her. Now less than a decade later, Holtkamp-Sterling is hanging up her whistle.
