Quote:
Originally Posted by JRutledge
Never went to a college camp for women's basketball. The guy I worked for assigned by the Women's and the Men's side in a D3 conference. He assigned officials to both sides and was fired as a result from that conference. That says all I need to know about that side. 
Peace |
I've been sitting here on the sidelines litening to this discussion, but now I have to insert my 2 cents.
Jeff,
I'm curious as to your comment above, and hope that you would expand a little more on it. Which "side" are you talking about? What specifically is it that you now know?
I know there was a D-3 assignor up in your area who used to assign both the women's and men's games in at least one conference, because I know several women's college officials from my area that worked for him as well. There were many times these officials would work a women's game that he assigned, and their partner(s) would be officials that primarily work on the men's side. Many times (but not all), the officials who primarily worked the men's side did not know the women's mechanics and rules, and several times expressed disappointment that they had to work a women's game. There was one NCAA tournament game where one of these men's officials showed up in the locker room before the game, and asked, "So, which mechanics are we using tonight?" He was dead serious. WTF, at a Tournament game?! So it is no wonder most of these games were called inconsistenly, and as a result, I understand the conference decided they would need to find assignors that were more in tune to the differences between the men's and women's games.
So, what it tells me is that there are still officials and assignors that look down upon the women's game, and don't consider it as important. I'm also kind of surprised some these same officials will tell me directly that they don't want to work a women's college game because it's a harder game to officiate. So, in my experience, in some cases, NCAA men's official's will look at the women's game as a lesser game, while that feeling is not returned. It is also the same at the high school level between boys and girls' officials.
I'm not here to pick a fight over which game is better, or who has more egos, or who's right. The 2 games are different, and each one takes a slightly different skill-set to officiate at the highest level. Each one of us has chosen a different game, and I have the upmost repect for those that are able to work at the highest levels, whether it's a State Tournament high school official, NCAA D-1 official, or NBA official.