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Old Fri Mar 27, 2009, 01:04pm
JRutledge JRutledge is offline
Do not give a damn!!
 
Join Date: Jun 2000
Location: On the border
Posts: 30,525
Quote:
Originally Posted by Camron Rust View Post
Yes, that is unacceptable. Answer this....Since Illinois is ~75% white, do you, in the name of consistency, suggest that several of those teams should have been disallowed from the tourney since they didn't match the population of the state?? ... I didn't think so.

In fact, the officials exactly matched the population of the sate. I'd say that, from looking purely at the numbers, the mix of officials was not suspect no matter how much noise someone made about it.


If 50% a team is black but only 20% of the school is black, should they kick 3 black kids off the team to make room for 3 white kids...all to make sure the team looks like those around them? (and no, I don't).

Again, the officials in your example above seem to represent the general society almost perfectly. The fact that the all-black team(s) beat the all/mostly-white team(s) from some other area doesn't imply anything about the ability of the officials and should have no influence one way or the other about who is selected to work the tourney. It should be the best 12...and in a large pool, that 12 will resemble the general population.

I can tell you that from the Portland area, the representation of minorities in the state tournament is at a level that is both greater than their proportion of the population and also greater than their proportion of basketball officials. And they're not selected by color either....they are simply getting the recognition of their peers (all officials)..who put them there based on their abilities. In other words, they earned it...it was not handed to them to make some numbers look good.
I do not think that Illinois is 75% white. For one the largest city in the state is the third largest city in the country and does not have that racial background. And if the entire city of Chicago decided to vote a certain way in an election, Downstate Illinois would be out voted. It might be closer to 50%, but I do not have all the data. But I grew up in rural Illinois and the town I currently live in has more people in that little suburb than where I grew up. Almost every big city in Illinois does not have an overwhelming white population in places like Aurora, Springfield, Peoria and even Rockford.

I do not even know what you are talking about when you say consistency, because most of the officials assigned to tournament assignments do not reflect many of the teams, and I have not been complaining or suggesting that there should be such a representation.

Maybe this is making you upset because someone is telling you that what you think is not the only voice on this topic.

Peace
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