Female Officials Officiating Boys Basketball

[OrStBballRef]

I've worked with a couple of female officials at the boys level. Our assignor has shown no qualms about putting female officials on boys games. I see a lot of them at the lower divisions and not an uncommon occurrence at the varsity level. I don't see a ton of them working at our highest classifications, but there are several who work those levels consistently, but yet are also very qualified and capable of handling those games.

I had a BV at our 4A level this year with a female official. Talked to her before the game and that was her first time at that level. We did our usual pregame and I asked her if she had any issues callings boys games before. She didn't but also did detect some uneasiness with some players and coaches. Told her for better or worse that may be a regular occurrence until they see what you can do on the court.

Did tell her because she was small'ish (5'5 like) that her mechanics and presentation need to be much 'bigger' than her stature. All the more reason to look confident, move confident, act confident etc...If she can do that and her calls are what they should be she'll be fine. To her credit she did this. Her calls were fine and she didn't appear timid at all. Now a couple of times she did get sucked in as trail and when a steal occurred she was in a horrible position and was beat down the court, but that was a product of not seeing this type of speed on a regular basis.

I have no problems calling a boys game with a female official provided they are capable of handling such a game.