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Originally Posted by JugglingReferee
I agree.
Ontario went through a phase (still going on maybe) where they were pushing females officials big time. Don't get me wrong - some officials that did rise to higher levels were female, and they deserved it. There were also many female officials that should not have "been there" - mostly in provincial championship tournaments.
It certainly spawned a lot of discussion. The root of the discussions often came down to not caring who was on the game, just as long as they were the best to be presented - be it male or female.
I also remember when I was coaching (and was also in my 3rd year of officiating), a tandem of officials in a town called Trenton. My team was ranked #7 in the province, so of course I'm serious about about chances of winning the provincial title. So this game in Trenton had 2 officials - one guy was cut, bald head, young, and probably didn't have much bad luck with the ladies: he was good looking. The other guy had this (my opinion) ugly hair cut and had an ugly goatee too, and was tall & skinny (and not that good looking). The two of those were awesome together. I remember thinking to myself about the stereotypes I immediately placed on the officials before the game - that one would be a good ref and the other a bad ref.
I certainly was humbled after that game. Who cares if you're male, female, ugly, colour of hair, whatever. What job can you do on the court?
Another example: there's a guy in my former local board who doesn't ref at a high level. I'd say he's competent at grade 8 and below. But, his reproire (sp?) with kids that age is awesome. The kids at that age like him, as do many coaches. He's very much in shape, if you count round as a shape. So who cares what someone looks like, as long as he gets the job done?
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The problem in Oregon isn't that females are being pushed ahead of their abilities. It's that females with real abilities have been held back by the selection process and now that the selection process has finally started to deal with reality, high quality female refs are being put into their rightful places.
I know Camron will take issue with this. I don't care. It was way past time for these three refs to be working 5A and 6A tournament games, and they were a credit to their association. Hopefully, someday I'll be as good as they are, and I"ll be able to do the job, too. I say "hopefully" because now that we are actually making it possible for refs to be chosen according to their abilities and not by their social affiliations, I may have some shot at it, when I'm good enough.