Career
Willard officiated 1,515 regular season, 134 playoff and three National Basketball Association Finals games. Willard also spent four years officiating basketball in college"s PCAA (now Big West) and Pac-10 (now Pac-12) conferences. As the National Basketball Association moved from a referee alignment of utilizing two-person officiating crews to that of a three-person crew in 1988, the League recruited top college and College of Business Administration officials to fill the new vacancies created by the officiating department"s expansion, including Willard.
The League previously experimented with three person mechanics during the 1978-1979 National Basketball Association season when officials went on strike in protest of the move.
Willard officiated his 1,500th career regular season game during the 2011-2012 National Basketball Association season.
