Two women in stripes - newspaper article

[Adam]

Jeff and I had a quick, cordial discussion. Apparently that seems acceptable. Now, I'm guessing anyone can see exactly how this one degenerated. Good grief.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by Rich Fronheiser

I couldn't agree more. When I hear that so-and-so has gone 6 times to a state tournament my first thought is that 5 qualified officials got passed over so this one person could go six times.

There are hundreds of officials in each state that would do themselves and their associations proud and aren't given the chance on the big stage. When I rule the world, people will get to go once per lifetime.

I disagree that people should only go one time. I think it should not be an automatic if you go one time that you must go multiple times (like seems to be the case most of the time in my state). I do not think everyone that puts on a whistle should get a shot either.

Peace

[Camron Rust]

Originally Posted by rainmaker

I disagree completely. Tournaments are competitions for the players, and should not be for the refs. Anyone who is good enough should be able to have a turn. There's no rationale for sending the "best" officials to tournaments as often as they're eligible over 20 years, when other officials who work just as hard never get to go. If there are 50 who are good enough then over the course of several years all 50 of them should get to go.

I agree to a point... The players have to earn their spot in the tourney, not by being just good enough, why not the Refs too? The teams don't get an automatic spot just because they've worked hard and haven't been for a while (or ever). Being a competitive selection process gives the officials a reason and incentive to continue to get better and work to do thier best and not just be average and wait their turn.

Plus, we are service providers to the teams. Given that some officials really are better than others, do you really think the teams want to 40th best ref since the 20th best has his/her turn last year? Don't they deserve to hire the "best" available official? Sure, There needs to be a way to address inequities in the system to ensure that those that deserve to go get a chance but simply being an average offical for X number of years is not an adequate measure.

With our old system, we would be sending approximately the top 20-30% of our varsty officials (no less than 29 different people over a two year window...~10% of our entire organization from rookies to vets). That was already a pretty good number. It's not like it was 5-10 officials going every year. Now we'll be sending approximately the top 40-45% of our varsity officials to the tourney. I doubt you'll ever find a wider distribtion of tourney assignments in any other associatoin.

[worldbefree]

Originally Posted by Old School

I care. I think it's great for women and needs to be reported. Not so much for the historic moment, but for the fact that there's progress and opportuntity. You ever wonder why there's no women officials in NCAA men's? At least the NBA has one.

Since you don't seem to know what you are talking about here is a link you should look at. Next time try to talk about things you know something about.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...52C1A9649C8B63

[Old School]

Originally Posted by worldbefree

Since you don't seem to know what you are talking about here is a link you should look at. Next time try to talk about things you know something about.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...52C1A9649C8B63

I don't quite consider the NAIA DI but you made your point. You had to go back to 2002 to get it, but the point is, it has happen. Thanks for sharing. However, I could be wrong, I don't think a woman worked an NCAA major DI men's game this season or last.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by Old School

I don't quite consider the NAIA DI but you made your point. You had to go back to 2002 to get it, but the point is, it has happen. Thanks for sharing. However, I could be wrong, I don't think a woman worked an NCAA major DI men's game this season or last.

About 4 years ago there was a woman the worked the NCAA Men's Tournament for the first time ever in the Chicago Regional (Southern Illinois and Texas Tech were in that regional, not sure she worked that game).

Peace

[Camron Rust]

Originally Posted by rockyroad

And how many qualified people have quit or moved out of the PBOA because they weren't "moving up"? The PBOA is controlled by one person, and if that one person wants someone to move up, they will - qualified or not...of course the opposite is also true.

How may have quit/moved? Don't know. How many players quit their HS teams and chose to do something else or move to a smaller school because they weren't getting the playing time they thought they deserved? For every person that thought they were qualified and should have moved up and didn't, I can show you 2 others that did stick around and move up.

A substantial majority of people is nearly any field think they are in the above average group. Studies consistently show this number to be about 80%. That means that at least 30% of any group are wrong about their relative abilities. Just because they quit due to lack of moving up doesn't mean they should have.

I didn't move up fast but I've alway felt fairly treated. Maybe I'd have liked to move faster but the longer I've worked, the more it becomes apparent that their were a lot of good officials ahead of me. I had to keep working and getting better and I've done so, I've moved up. To move everyone up faster only means that you must boot people out just as fast. Their are only so may games to be had.

All organizations are controlled by someone. Whether it be one person or a small group of people. Their job is to service the "group", not the individuals of the group. As a result, there will always be some individuals that feel shorted and some that may even feel lucky. There have been plenty enough people of all demographic groups in the PBOA that have moved up to suggest that moving up can be done (mostly by persistant hard work) and is not done in a discriminatory manner based on race/gender/age. I certainly don't dismiss that fact that a persons abilities can be misjudged and may have been in a case or two (in either direction).

[Old School]

Originally Posted by Camron Rust

I agree to a point... The players have to earn their spot in the tourney, not by being just good enough, why not the Refs too? The teams don't get an automatic spot just because they've worked hard and haven't been for a while (or ever). Being a competitive selection process gives the officials a reason and incentive to continue to get better and work to do thier best and not just be average and wait their turn.

Ya-but, the players cycle thru every 3rd or 4th year. The officials are there for life. Why not cycle the officials thru as well. The competitive selection process is not that competitive if you got the same guys working the big games every year. I think the argument here is once selected, it should not be for life. Otherwise, Ronald Reagan would have tested out the best president every year until he was unable to serve.

Originally Posted by Camron Rust

Plus, we are service providers to the teams. Given that some officials really are better than others, do you really think the teams want to 40th best ref since the 20th best has his/her turn last year? Don't they deserve to hire the "best" available official? Sure, There needs to be a way to address inequities in the system to ensure that those that deserve to go get a chance but simply being an average offical for X number of years is not an adequate measure.

Problem is, you decide what's average and you also decide to put your buddies back on the biggest games. In the current system, NCAA included, the people that have served (past tense) will always test out better than anyone that hasn't. IOW, once an official works a big game, he will always be more qualified to work the next big game than the person that hasn't. So the self-fulfilling philosophy. If I worked 4 final games, I will be more qualified then the person that has worked two. The person that has worked 2 will be more qualified than the person that hasn't worked any. If you, that's right you, the assigner don't step up and say, okay you worked two, I'm going to put someone else in this year and next, just to spread the wealth, than the system will forever be flawed. You see the reason why you need term limits. It's for the big dawgs.

[Old School]

Originally Posted by Camron Rust

I didn't move up fast but I've alway felt fairly treated. Maybe I'd have liked to move faster but the longer I've worked, the more it becomes apparent that their were a lot of good officials ahead of me. I had to keep working and getting better and I've done so, I've moved up.

I agree with this.

[rainmaker]

Originally Posted by Camron Rust

Plus, we are service providers to the teams. Given that some officials really are better than others, do you really think the teams want to 40th best ref since the 20th best has his/her turn last year? Don't they deserve to hire the "best" available official? Sure, There needs to be a way to address inequities in the system to ensure that those that deserve to go get a chance but simply being an average offical for X number of years is not an adequate measure.

What I'm saying isn't that anyone who puts in their years and is an average refs should get a shot. I don't think that. What I am saying is that our present system is basically grading on a curve and only the top 15% or so can get A's, even if 50% of the class gets 98% or better. I'm saying that anyone who is "good enough" to do a great job at the tournament should get a chance, even if there are 40 or 50 who are also good enough to do a great job at the tournament. I won't use names but in looking at who's gone to the tournament this year, and then who will be going next year (if this year's ranking holds), I can't see much difference in abilities to ref. In fact, I see some who've never gone who might actually be better than some who've gone several times.

Originally Posted by Camron Rust

With our old system, we would be sending approximately the top 20-30% of our varsty officials (no less than 29 different people over a two year window...~10% of our entire organization from rookies to vets). That was already a pretty good number. It's not like it was 5-10 officials going every year. Now we'll be sending approximately the top 40-45% of our varsity officials to the tourney. I doubt you'll ever find a wider distribtion of tourney assignments in any other associatoin.

I can't see where you're getting your numbers. Are you saying we only have 100 varsity officials? I'm 100% sure that's quite a low estimate. More like 225, I think. With the new system, we'll be sending 38 refs over a two year period, which is about 16%. I'm not sure where you get 40-45%.

[Camron Rust]

Originally Posted by Old School

Ya-but, the players cycle thru every 3rd or 4th year. The officials are there for life. Why not cycle the officials thru as well. The competitive selection process is not that competitive if you got the same guys working the big games every year. I think the argument here is once selected, it should not be for life.

Reality is that there are always several new people each and every year. Sure there are some that stay in the top and work 5-7 tourney over 10-12 years but that number is not big. Those complaining about no one else getitng a shot are simply ignoring the new people that really are geting in and focusing the fraction that do work multiple years.

[Camron Rust]

Originally Posted by rainmaker

I can't see where you're getting your numbers. Are you saying we only have 100 varsity officials? I'm 100% sure that's quite a low estimate. More like 225, I think. With the new system, we'll be sending 38 refs over a two year period, which is about 16%. I'm not sure where you get 40-45%.

Remember that all it takes to be a regular member in the PBOA is to work for 3-5 years (or as little as 1/2 season for experienced transfers) and don't make an absolute disaster of too many games. That doesn't make a person a varsity official.

We only have about 100 (maybe 110-120) "varsity" officials...officials that work mostly/exclusively varsity games. We do have 225 regular members but there are several of those that never work varsity and several that only work an occassional varsity game.

We have from 40-70 varsity games a night with the typical being about 50-60. For 2-person crews (rough approximations here), that means you need about 70-80 regular varsity officials that will work a varsity game most every Tues/Fri with another 30-40 or so that have varying proportions of JV and Varsity and another 30-40 that get an occassional Varsity game on the busiest nights.

Based on that and the new system, we're guaranteed to send at least 44 different people over a three/six/nine year period....will work out to around 50 in practice. Those numbers....44/100, 50/110, or 50/120...give a result of approximately 45%.

[Camron Rust]

Originally Posted by rainmaker

What I'm saying isn't that anyone who puts in their years and is an average refs should get a shot. I don't think that. What I am saying is that our present system is basically grading on a curve and only the top 15% or so can get A's, even if 50% of the class gets 98% or better. I'm saying that anyone who is "good enough" to do a great job at the tournament should get a chance, even if there are 40 or 50 who are also good enough to do a great job at the tournament.

If 50% get 98% or better, the test is too easy. The bar needs to be raised.

Basic statistics tell you that it is extremely unlikely to have that many people clustered at the top. Performance in nearly every field follows the basic bell curve....a few truly great/horrible ones, a few more extremely good/bad ones, a few more pretty good/bad ones, and a lot of average ones. If we're getting down to #45-50 or so in the varsity official list, we're well into the range of average varsity offiicals. Perhaps a few selections should come from the "average" range but most should come from only the better than average range.

Originally Posted by rainmaker

I won't use names but in looking at who's gone to the tournament this year, and then who will be going next year (if this year's ranking holds), I can't see much difference in abilities to ref. In fact, I see some who've never gone who might actually be better than some who've gone several times.

I don't disagree with you there....it's the 3rd year out that is the concern since some of the eligibility requirements have a three year period. Next years likely candidates do indeed look very good.

[rainmaker]

Originally Posted by Camron Rust

I don't disagree with you there....it's the 3rd year out that is the concern since some of the eligibility requirements have a three year period. Next years likely candidates do indeed look very good.

Which eligibility requirements have a three year period? I'm lost here.

[rainmaker]

Originally Posted by Camron Rust

If 50% get 98% or better, the test is too easy. The bar needs to be raised.

Why? If a class is supposed to teach a certain body of material, and everybody learns it, why is the test bad if 50% get 98% or better? THe test is supposed to demonstrate what people know. Why would it be bad for half the students in the class to have learned everything the teacher taught?

Originally Posted by Camron Rust

Basic statistics tell you that it is extremely unlikely to have that many people clustered at the top. Performance in nearly every field follows the basic bell curve....a few truly great/horrible ones, a few more extremely good/bad ones, a few more pretty good/bad ones, and a lot of average ones. If we're getting down to #45-50 or so in the varsity official list, we're well into the range of average varsity offiicals. Perhaps a few selections should come from the "average" range but most should come from only the better than average range.

It appears to me that you're mixing your lists. If you are applying the bell curve, I think you need to apply it to the entire 225 R officials in our association, not just the 100 that either made the ballot, or were within a hair's breadth of it. I'd say the 100 top officials are probably not from the top of the curve down to the very best officials, but rather from the middle of the downward slope down.

What I'm saying is that instead of giving tournament berths based on votes and popularity, I'd rather see them given on the basis of true earning, meaning that all people who are capable of doing a really good job at the tournament will get to work at the tournament. Votes simply don't represent that in a reasonable way. And it definitely shouldn't be done on the curve, which right now it is.