A coach once told Ed Rush that he didn’t have much of a future playing basketball. But in the same breath, he told Rush that he should look into officiating basketball games – and, as it turned out, that was his future.

Born in Philadelphia, Edward T. Rush came to West Chester State University in the early 1960s to play football but soon began what would become a highly successful career in basketball. At the age of 24, fresh out of college, he was hired as a referee in the National Basketball Association while still living in West Chester. In 1973, he left for the American Basketball Association but returned to the NBA when the ABA merged with that league in 1976.

During his career, which spanned from 1966 to 1998, Rush officiated 1,990 regular season, 247 playoff, and 32 NBA Finals games, as well as five all-star games, the 1987 McDonald’s Championship in Milwaukee and the 1991 McDonald’s Championship in Paris. Rush was one of 50 people who earned the Medallion Award from the National Association of Sports Officials for giving the most back to their sport.

After so many years on the court, Rush was forced to resign because of the wear and tear on his body, the effects of being an official for such a long period of time. But in 1998, he was appointed NBA Director of Officiating, succeeding Darrell Garretson, who had served in the position since 1981. Rush held that position until 2004, supervising all of the league’s referees.

Referees are often judged harshly, and are usually noticed only when they make a bad call. But for Rush, that was a challenge he welcomed. “It was an opportunity to connect to the game in a totally different way,” he once said in an interview. “Being in the middle of the fray was exhilarating, and it was also a terrific challenge.”