When he was a cocksure 25-year-old, on the fast track to officiating big-time college basketball, Scott Foster was summoned for a sit-down with his dad.
They met at a bar, and his father, Dickie, brought along a family friend with experience in high-level sports. They were concerned about Foster, who was mulling a daring career move. It was 1992, and he had been offered a job in the Continental Basketball Association, then a training ground for the NBA, making $95 a game. But to do so, he would have to forgo his schedule — and career path — of officiating Division I games, which at the time were paying him $250 a game.