[Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.]

Dan lighten up on the "pox" word, it was literary license.

But my orginal thought stands: anybody that worked those last round of preseason games and those that will work this weekends games are scabs and are guilty of unethical and unprofessional conduct.

Let me use a personal example to put this in perspective. About five years ago during the MichiganHSAA girls' basketball season, I was assaulted by the husband of the timer just outside the dressing room after a jr. H.S. DH. The timer had been doing a poor job. She was not starting or stopping the clock because she was too busy chatting with people around here and refused to sound warning buzzers at the appropriate times during timeouts. Since it was a jr. H.S. game there was no school administrator at the game.

Needless to say the school was upset because I pressed charges against the timer's husband. Late during the MichiganHSAA boys' season, I had a varsity game at the same school. Both games were assigned by a local officials association in Michigan that I belonged to at the time.

Two weeks before the game, the school's A.D. contacted me by telephone to tell me that he had replaced me for the varsity game. When I asked when I would see my game fee check he told me that they were not going to pay me even though I had a signed contract. The LOA' assigner had replaced me at the school's request. He did not have the intestinal fortitude to tell the A.D. to take a short walk off a short pier when the appropriate thing for him to do was to have me swap games with another official.

The LOA's stand was the school had the right to demand that I be taken off of the varsity game without compensation and that the LOA did not want to upset the school by demanding that I be compensated for the game. In fact there were at least ten officials that contacted the assigner to tell him that they were available to officate the game.

I am happy to say that the type of officials described above do not exist in most of the country. In many areas of the country officials would have told the school pay the official or you will not have any officials officiate your games. I did get paid for the game though, it took a phone call from the MichiganHSAA and the threat of a lawsuit for the school to cough up the money.

The actions of the officials and LOA above are the actions of the officials would officiate the NFL games in place of members of the NFLRA.