NBA Officials - Research Topic

[JRutledge]

Originally posted by xxssmen
Since we are on the topic of race, why is it that all you see is white and black officials. Basketball is grown to be an international sports but yet the officiating is black and white only at least thats all I have seen.
I was told that most evaluator look for tall white or black athletic people to officiate, which is probably true since most black and white grew up playing the sports or have a better understanding of the game than those of Hispanic or Asian culture. I have talk to many Hispanic and Asian who try to officiate but was told that its very hard to officiate at a high level meaning High school Varsity and up because they are from a diferrent culture, and also they have heard fans who made comment about there ethnic background how they need to stick to soccer and other popular international sports and they don't have a clue about american sports, comments like that probably has hurt the minority in comming out to officiate but I also believed that most evaluator do judge people by their ethnic background also instead of by there ability.

Basketball may be in the process of becoming a much more of an international sport, but it is not that way in this country right now. I know if you talk about the amount of officials in soccer in my state, you can find people from all kinds of backgrounds that officiate soccer.

If comments are holding back officials, then shame on them for letting comments from idiots hinder their opportunities. I have been called many things over the years and that has never hindered me from trying to officiate. I have even officiated in towns where white supremacy groups have held rallies to recruit and intimidate many people of color and other people they do not like.

At least where I live it is not that people from different countries are not given opportunities, I just do not know many that even try. Soccer tends to be king amongst people that are not originally from this country. Or baseball for those that come from the Spanish speaking countries. When I look around as a baseball umpire, there are not many that look like me. There are not many that play baseball either that have my background either. You cannot control everything.

Peace