As Georgetown players go, no one had a longer NBA career than Jack Nies, and few ever recognized him as a Hoya.

Nies was a star guard on three St. Peter's Prep teams that won state parochial titles in New Jersey, and he was an All-State selection his senior year. Nies opted to go to Georgetown, the first St. Peter's star since Tom O'Keefe arrived a decade earlier.

A small guard with a quick release to the basket, Nies began to fill up the scoring chart during the middle of his sophomore year. He averaged 18 points per game over a four game run in January 1957 before midterm grades benched him for the remainder of the season. A similar trend followed as a junior, averaging 12.7 points per game until a second midterm stumble benched Nies for good.

Returning home to New Jersey, Nies didn't have a backup plan, but a contact at St. Mary's College of Kansas expressed interest in bringing Nies west. A world removed from Jersey City, Nies completed his basketball career at the small college in Leavenworth in 1961. (Nies has always been listed as having played at St. Mary's, as there is no mention in his official bio of having attended Georgetown.)

Nies wasn't through with basketball, however. He settled in Monmouth, NJ and worked high school games as a referee. One day in 1970, the New York Knickerbockers were at Monmouth College needed an official for a practice game.

"The athletic director tells me that you ref CYO games around here," said Knicks coach Red Holzman. "If you have sneakers, we can use a ref for our scrimmage." As relayed by Nies in an article in the Newark Star-Ledger, Holzman lobbied for Nies to get a shot in the NBA, which took another seven years before he became a full time official. Over a 31 year period, Nies became on of the NBA's longest tenured officials.

"I've only missed nine games in 30 years, so I'll do it as long as the body holds up," Nies said in 2008. "It can drain you, because you have to be so alert for 48 minutes. But it's exhilarating. You know when you had a good game."

Nies retired after the 2009 season. "Think about it," he said. "There are more astronauts than [active] NBA refs -- that's how prestigious this is."