Quote:
Originally Posted by BillyMac
It's not a point of pride for me personally, it's about comfort, familiarity, and belonging to a local board that is flexible in some uniform issues. Maybe it is a point of pride that I belong to a local board that allows some flexibility in it's dress guidelines, my local board realizing that, although a proper uniform is an important part of officiating, it's not necessarily just the clothes that make the official.
....
And finally, there is another reason why I keep referencing my black belted pants, because some Forum members keep making fun of those officials, like me, both Forum members, and non Forum members that they've observed, that wear belted pants, so I always respond: I wear them because I like them, and I can, and if you think that it makes me a lesser official, then you're dead wrong.
|
I've never, ever seen a guy wear a belt in a serious game in any place I've lived since the early 1990s who was a top flight official. There are a few guys here locally who are politically connected that wear belts, but an independent evaluation of their work on the court would show a difference between what those guys get in the postseason compared with their actual ability. One of those guys stubbornly wears the belted pants and then matches it with an Acme Thunderer rubber-tipped metal pea whistle and always lets everyone know he's "using the pea whistle." No clue what HE'S trying to prove, but he's the kind of guy I hope I'm never paired with.
When someone has the choice of wearing something that 100% of the officials who work at the top levels wear (on TV and elsewhere) and it's actually the standard wear for the sport, I just don't understand why you'd make a different choice.
I started working HS ball in 1987. No idea what I was wearing back then with my Byron collar. I know I've been wearing beltless pants since at least the early 90s, though, and maybe earlier. The only change has been the addition of pleats between then and now. I feel the same way about flat front pants today as I feel about belts -- why would an official buy flat fronts when all the top officials wear pleats and they've become the standard.