Quote:
Originally Posted by JRutledge
So three white guys working a game with one team all white and the other team all of a completely different race sound fair to you? Well that is the American way, because that happens all the time. And when something happens, guess what is sometimes the accusation? Why would you not hire people in officiating like the participants ever? We are not talking about major college here where everything is on video and multiple angles and scrutiny are a common place. This is often youth or high school sports where people take all kinds of bias into their positions (and I am not talking about the officials BTW).
I had a coach once ask me when he had 3 African-Americans working his game when he was at a suburban school that happened to be entirely African-American and he was playing a school from the city that was entire African-American. He asked me and my partner, "Why can I not get 3 Black officials when I am playing (Fill in a team from his conference that was clearly not like his community)?" I told him, "I really cannot answer that, we do not assign anything."
The bottom line is the American way is often having officials on games that look nothing like the actual players or top teams in sight. If that is the case, there is something very wrong. There needs to be diversity when there are diversity in the participants. Just like a business does not put a staff of people that work in a place that look nothing like or talk nothing like the people they want to gain their business. Do they put non-Spanish speaking people in communities where the entire community speaks Spanish? Nope, not unless they want someone else to get their business. Why do we accept that in what we are doing?
Peace
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Jeff, you and I work many of the same schools, both HS and college, with many of the same group of officials. I agree with you, I have not worked with an official at either level that I thought was biased. I am sure there are a few of them out there, but I haven't personally worked with them.
Here is where I think your analogy to Spanish speaking communities and basketball officiating falls apart and why I disagree with your position on this issue. You are correct, it would be foolish not to have sales people who can speak Spanish working locations where the majority, if not all your potential customers will be speaking that language. However, you do not have to be of Hispanic decent to speak Spanish fluently. A person of any race or ethnicity that is capable of speaking Spanish would be able to work effectively in that area. In basketball, the thing that is analogous to language in your example is knowing the rules and mechanics. It is not being of the same race or ethnicity of the participants. Therefore, it shouldn't matter what the race or ethnicity or gender of the official is calling the game, as long as they can effectively speak the language of basketball.