[JRutledge]

Originally posted by Mark Padgett
OK, I've stayed out of this because it was getting really personal and nasty. But - let's try to get back to the original question, which I think is a valid one. Is the quality of men's officiating higher than that of women's officiating?

Of course, any answer to this would be a broad generalization (and Juulie, I mean "broad" in the dictionary definition sense of the word, not slang).

I think it's fair to say that in many associations, there are a lot of experienced officials who will not accept or ask for assignments to girl's games. It seems to be some kind of "image" thing. These officials feel that they will be "downgrading" or something like that if they do girl's games. Because they will not do them, and because these groups consist of many very good officials, it naturally follows that there is a higher percentage of top officials doing boy's and men's games than girl's and women's games.

Now, does this mean that there aren't any great officials doing girl's and women's games? Of course not. Does this mean that all officials doing boy's and men's games are great? Again, of course not. It doesn't even mean that on any given game night, the quality of officials doing boy's and men's games is higher than the quality of officials doing girl's and women's games.

It just means that in general, better officials are more likely to be working boy's and men's games by choice.

There - I hope I contributed without any personal attacks or getting nasty. Plus - I made sure I didn't offend my buddy, Juulie. I should get double points for that.

Good Lord, Finally a person of reason. This is what I was asking for. This is a constant debate with many officials that I know. And this is why I asked the "stupid" question to begin with. I wanted to see what "intelligent" people would thought. Especially when commentators are ranting about how bad Women's Officials were. And since many of us that move up are told to choose, I wanted to see if others felt the same way.

Peace