They slip into the college gymnasiums that dot the East coast from Harvard's IAB to the fastness of Orono, Maine and Buffalo with civilian anonymity and emerge from their solitary dressing rooms as marked men.

The ECAC plunks this select breed of traffic cops on to inhospitable hardwood floors to oversee the rough and tumble of collegiate basketball, as they are buffeted up and down the court for 40 minutes by the breakneck action that dominates today's brand of play.

"Charlie's got a lot of guts out there," says referee John Hannon of his fellow official and sometime partner Charles H. Diehl, who is acknowledged by his whistle-toting peers as the premier ECAC strongman.

The men who metamorphose into traffic cops of the maelstrom in the foul land--known as slaughter alley--during the day labor at desk jobs and are often doctors, lawyers, and school teachers. There's a Jekyll and Hyde element deeply ingrained in officiating. "I'm always surprised at the high-class people who go into it and stay with it," says Diehl. Officials are often "pillars of the community who no one questions," he says, "but put on a black and white shirt and they suddenly become suspect."

Referees inhabit a closed but unstable world, based on a jesuitical hierarchy of ratings. After working each game, refs receive a secret grade on their performance from the coaches of both teams and a "brother" official on a scale from one to ten. Ratings are an official's lifeblood. Those who fall into the bottom ten per cent of the pile at the end of the year are summarily sacked and replaced by "freshmen officials," who are brought up from the snakepits of high school ball and community leagues. "The cut gives iniative to young guys who are just starting out," Diehl says. "I like to think that we're very democratic."

Split second decisions are the name of the game and mindless impartiality is an ironclad rule. Mendy Rudolph, the former chief of NBA officials turned television commentator, says "Blow with reckless abandon and let the chips fall where they may."

Diehl and Hannon adhere to Rudolph's philosophy. Neither feels it's imperative or appropriate to stick to the multitude of rococo rules. "I have a great tendency to make up my own rules for 50 occasions," Diehl says. "The object is to win it within the four black lines they have out there. The ten kids are there to play basketball and not so two clowns can blow a whistle," he says. "As soon as they think of a way to get rid of us they will, but they haven't yet."

What this adds up to is that refs must keep the action on a tight leash without intruding on the game's natural tempo with staccato bursts of foul calling. "I've yet to come against a coach who wants a lot of shoving, banging, or grabbing," says Hannon. "You just set your mind that you're going to keep on blowing your game, because you don't want a fight. Next day the fight's in all the papers and the first thing everyone does is look who worked the game."

Hannon, who looks like a trim Baretta with silvery sideburns, has hoofed both the floors of sardine-can high school gyms and gleaming, 12,000-seat civic centers in his 19 years of officiating. He works as the manager of Rand McNally's shipping and receiving warehouse and lives in Cambridge.

Hannon played high school ball and in the YMCA league, but was injured in a game when he was 27 and decided to take the mandatory written exam for entering the referee ranks. The would-be refs are also marked on a "flaw test," says Hannon, which "is pretty much cut and dried." After making the grade, refs work junior varsity ball for two years and then apply to be placed on the ECAC freshmen officials list. They are then either elected or relegated to the high schools by a vote of varsity-level officials.

The top refs case the various colleges' offensive patterns so they know what to look for in the constant bump and grind that can flare into fisticuffs unless kept under control. "It's a new game every night," Hannon says. "I know the teams that run the fast break and know that I have to get down the court." He points out that there are many teams that press and zone-press right off the bat, forcing officials to monitor swarming action at both ends of the court.

While the two teams feel themselves out at the start of a game, Diehl is asking himself "are they pressing, using a 1-3-1, or a box and one? Once you figure out the style of play," he said, "you can prepare yourself as to where the action takes place."

Reffing is a joint effort hinging on a subtle choreography between partners. One official is always stationed on the baseline policing underneath while the other scours the action on the perimeter. The two switch positions after every foul call.

With the constantly increasing height and mobility of college big men, the ref underneath has a chore tantamount to untangling gregarious octopi. "The referee on the outside is the key to the whole game" explains Hannon. "He has the best picture. He's the bailout guy."

Any tensions that may arise between partners during a game are judiciously stifled because of Hannon puts it, "you're the only two survivors on the floor."