The colorful Bruce Alexander was an NBA referee from 1975 through the 1999-2000 season and remains the only NBA on-court official from Tacoma. On March 10,1987, he emphatically whistled a foul on Kareem Abdul-Jabbar against Denver’s Danny Schayes that made Jabbar the all-time NBA leader in personal fouls with 4,194. He also called games in what was then the Pacific-10 Conference. Before that he played in the late 1950s at Pacific Lutheran on teams led by Chuck Curtis, Roger Iverson and Jim Van Beek and coached by Marv Harshman and Gene Lundgaard. Alexander also played with the Cheney Studs basketball team in the 1960s.
