SPARTANBURG, S.C. – The Southern Conference will partner with the Southeastern Conference to coordinate its baseball and women’s basketball officiating, SoCon Commissioner Jim Schaus announced Tuesday.
 
The SoCon will join the SEC, ASUN, Ohio Valley and Sun Belt conferences in the baseball officiating consortium and with the SEC, ASUN, Ohio Valley, Southland, Southwestern Athletic and Sun Belt conferences in the women’s basketball officiating consortium, both beginning with the upcoming seasons.
 
The SoCon has been a member of the SEC’s football officiating consortium since the 2020 season and a member of the SEC men’s basketball officiating consortium since the 2020-21 season.
 
“We are very pleased to be joining the SEC women’s basketball officiating consortium and baseball umpiring consortium,” Schaus said. “We have enjoyed our officiating consortium partnerships with the SEC in men’s basketball and football. They do an outstanding job of educating and training officials, plus provide a larger pool of quality officials due to having multiple other conferences involved in the consortium. We look forward to expanding our partnership to these important sports.”
 
The consortiums allow the conferences to collaborate on all officiating matters related to recruitment, education and training, scheduling and evaluation of officials.
 
“Having served as a commissioner on the FCS level, I appreciate the commitment to fair competition at every level of college sports,” said SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey. “We are pleased to expand our relationship with the Southern Conference to include women’s basketball and baseball in our officiating programs. Our combined resources in those sports will be mutually beneficial to the recruitment, evaluation and development of our officials.”
 
Veteran umpire Paul Guillie, who umpired 19 NCAA Regional Tournaments and 14 Super Regionals and earned four trips to the College World Series, will serve as the SoCon’s baseball coordinator of officials. Lisa Mattingly, who worked 18 Final Fours and 10 NCAA title games in addition to officiating in the WNBA for a decade, will serve as the SoCon’s women’s basketball coordinator of officials.