All Star Officials

[Mark Padgett]

Originally posted by BktBallRef

Rut, I could care less what coaches want. What's difficult to understand is why they want a certain race or sex on the floor. If it's me, I want the best official on the floor, without regard to sex, race, creed, religion, handicap, or anything else.

Put the person available on the floor.

...and give the best qualified person the job; and give the student with the highest credentials the opening; and give the best performing employee the promotion...

Now you are getting into a discussion on the merits of the theory of affirmative action. I am not going to debate it or even state a position, I'm just saying that factors such as that sometimes enter into a coach's perception of who they want on the court. It's unfortunate that we've arrived at a place in our society where a person might perceive that an official automatically would be biased due to their race without any evidence of that particular individual being that way. And...it goes both ways. Although I have lived in Portland for the past 30 years, I grew up in the Chicago area and my high school was a real melting pot, and so were our sports teams. At the time, there was no doubt in my mind there were some prejudices on the part of some officials as to race. However, I don't think an official will be around very long if he or she exhibits those tendencies, thank goodness.

Eventually, everyone will accept the conclusions of the genome project and they will realize we're all more alike than some of us think. Maybe then, we will stop being this label or that label and start being just human beings.