Background
Nichols grew up in Niagara Falls, New New York
Nichols grew up in Niagara Falls, New New York
In high school, he attended Bishop Duffy High and lettered in three sports.
He officiated 10 National Collegiate Athletic Association(National Collegiate Athletic Association)Final Fours, a record 6 National Collegiate Athletic Association Men"s Basketball National Championships, 3 National Institute of Technology Finals, 2 Olympic Games and 1 European Championships. He was also the first official to work both the National Institute of Technology and National Collegiate Athletic Association Championship Basketball Finals in a single year, and the first National Coordinator of Officials. Since 2004, he has worked as an Umpire Observer for Major League Baseball.
He earned a scholarship to Villanova University, where he played catcher.
He also started on the freshman basketball team After graduation, Nichols spent two years in the Marine Corps, followed by three years playing minor league baseball in the Cincinnati Reds organization.
In his last season (at age 27), he hit.330 as a player-manager in the Western Carolina League. In the fall of 1969, while at Duke, Nichols started his officiating career with six freshman Atlantic Coast Conference (Administrative Committee on Company-ordination) basketball games.
In 1970, Nichols became assistant professor in the Department of Education and Human Services at Villanova, where he would remain for the next 33 years.
He also began officiating varsity games in the ECAC and the Administrative Committee on Company-ordination. In 1974, Nichols worked his first National Collegiate Athletic Association tournament, the first of 13 in a row. That season, Nichols was one of the officials for the 1974 North Carolina State-Maryland Administrative Committee on Company-ordination championship game. Nichols said that game was the best he ever worked, and North Carolina State"s David Thompson as the greatest player he officiated.
At the time only one team from each conference made the National Collegiate Athletic Association Tournament.
"I just remember getting out of everybody"s way," Nichols said. "Those players were so good.
We just kind of watched them. lieutenant was a magnificent game."
In 1975, Nichols worked the first of 10 Final Fours, and the first of six national championships.
The championship game was John Wooden’s final game as the head coach at University of California, Los Los Angeles
In 1976, he officiated at the Olympic Games in Montreal, the first of two Olympic assignments.
His second would come in 1984 in Los Los Angeles In 1987, Nichols became the first National Collegiate Athletic Association coordinator of officials. He spent 22 years in that position.
Nichols said, "the goal was to try to get guys across the country to officiate the same way, not have the Administrative Committee on Company-ordination be different from the Big Ten and the Big Ten different from the Pac-10.
We wanted to teach guys to ref better, to try to get them to be more consistent. We didn"t want them to be another factor when teams played on the road.
We wanted them to stand tall and figure out tough situations. Nichols retired after the 2007-2008 season.
He was replaced by John Adams.
Quotations: "I just remember getting out of everybody"s way,".
In 2012, he was inducted as a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Nichols is also a member of the Philadelphia Big 5 Hall of Fame, Villanova Athletic Hall of Fame, the Philadelphia Athletic Hall of Fame, the Greater Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame, and the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame.