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bobby dibler - inductee #181

Hall of Fame Fast Fact:

Bobby Dibler was inducted into the El Paso Athletic Hall of Fame in 2012. He also was the first recipient, in 2017, of the Bobby Dibler Award, honoring a person for perseverance and dedication to officiating.

Bobby Dibler

Dibler, went from standout basketball player at Amarillo High, Amarillo College, and Texas Western to one of the top college officials in the country.

As a 5'-11" guard at Amarillo High, he was named all-district in 1961. He averaged 15 points a game. He didn't go far to school, playing two years at Amarillo College. He led the badgers to the National Junior College tournament as a sophomore. He caught the attention of Texas Western coach, Don Haskins.

Dibler was the point guard and primarily a distributor of the ball and averaged 6.9 points. But, in the NCAA Midwest regional tournament, Haskins cut Dibler loose, and he was named all-tournament by averaging 21 points in three games as Texas Western finished 25-3.

After graduation, he started officiating high school games in El Paso in 1968, and his talent as a referee had him calling NCAA Division I games by 1973. For the next five years, he called both college and high school before going strictly with college from 1978 through 1993. He officiated in three Final Fours, and called two of the most memorable championship games - the 1982 final when Michael Jordan's late jumper lifted North Carolina over Georgetown, and one of the biggest upsets in championship history, Villanova's shocker over Georgetown in 1985.

Dibler worked more than 1,000 NCAA D1 games, and called NCAA tournament games for 14 consecutive years. He is still the coordinator for the Western Officials Consortium, which controls six D1 conferences in the West. He helps supervise and train about 170 officials for 65 schools. Dibler was inducted into the El Paso Athletic Hall of Fame in 2012.