White Coaches, Black Referee

[JRutledge]

I work for about 9 give or take different assignors. I used to live in an area where you get games only by the AD. I still do a few games a year at some of those schools. But now I live in an area that most, if not all the conferences assign the games thru and assignor. The best way I can explain it is like the NCAA Conferences. Each conference has their own assignment chairperson and has its own concerns. The best way to get assigned in each conference is to be seen by the assignement person or to have the right person recommend you. One of them assigns crews for his games. So I can bring who I want to when he assigns me for the most part. Rich happens to work for one of them as well.

Two of the assignment people that I work for made a point to me to hire more African-American officials for their conferences. Mainly because their suburban schools had some mostly Black schools and the coaches wanted to see more Black official in those conferences.

But everything that Juulie said and Rich said was right on. I just wanted to clarify that I am not doing games that are assigned by only schools and AD. But I have and that does bring a different level of challenges. And that story that I was referencing, happen to be a school that normally assigned their own officials. But the game this Pricipal was trying to scratch me from was assigned by another school for a conference tournament. It just happen to be hosted by the school of this Principal.

Peace