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Old Mon Mar 12, 2007, 10:15am
rainmaker rainmaker is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Camron Rust
That is not quite true, we've sent qualified women officials to the top state tourney before...with the old process. There were two that I remember since I've been in the PBOA, one of them moved out of town and never went to the tourney again from her new area. The other is working D1 ball and gave up HS ball after going to the top girls tourney in her last year. They were good enough to overcome the main deficiency of the system (lack of votes from boys coaches).

There were a handful of others that woud have made it if they had stuck around and spent the same 10-15+ years improving and earning the repect of their peers that all other other tourney official had to do...but they didn't want to put in the time and effort.
The part of the new system that makes it easier for women, and other qualified men btw, move up to tournament level is the part about people only being eligible if they didn't work a tourney last year. If that had been fully implemented this year, both Melodee and Lea Ann would have been eligible by votes, and would not have needed to be "commissionered" in.

I disagree that lack of boys' coaches' votes is the primary item in not getting into the tournaments. The problem isn't who votes and who doesn't. The problem is that once someone has been to the tournament, they have a sort of name-recognition and credibility that gets them more votes next year. By extending the rotation to include refs who are actually good enough, but get squeezed down the list by those who have been to tournaments in the past, not only women refs, but also refs like you, Camron, are more likely to get into the tournament.

I think the next step is to eliminate coaches' votes altogether, but I expect that's quite a ways down the line.
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