Two women in stripes - newspaper article
 

Here's a story from today's Oregonian newspaper:

Two women in stripes: It's a first
Saturday, March 10, 2007
RACHEL BACHMAN

A remarkable play unfolded at the Oregon girls basketball state tournament Friday in Portland, and it wasn't X's and O's.

It was all X's -- XX chromosomes.

Both officials in the Wilsonville-Glencoe game were women. It was the first time in the history of the tournament's large-class competition that both game officials were female.

Delores Krumm and Melodee Schnell worked the game at the Chiles Center, which was in the consolation bracket of the Class 5A tournament.

"That's history," said Howard Mayo, commissioner of the Portland Basketball Officials Association. "That's good."

The OSAA prohibits officials working the tournament from talking to the media.

Sixteen referee associations send officials to the girls and boys basketball state tournaments. The largest number comes from the 330-member Portland association, of which 14 are women.

This year, three of the 12 officials working the Class 5A and 6A girls basketball state tournament are women. That's the most in the 32-year history of the tournament. All three of the women -- including Lea Ann Easton -- came out of the Portland association.

As recently as 1998, only three female officials had worked Oregon's large-school girls basketball state tournament, then called Class 4A. (All 6A and many 5A schools were 4A under the old classification system.)

It's possible that two women could call another game today, which features the 5A and 6A tournaments' championship games. Officials' assignments were made late Friday night.

Kudos to the two, well deserved.;)

If HS basketball in Oregon wanted real progess, then they would go to the three-whistle system!

Seriously, I don't care what gender or race of people work the games at the state tournament. The fact that people worry about and track this stuff is actually sad.

Who cares if the officials are male or female, or white, black, asian, or hispanic? We should only care about the quality of the job that they do.

I'd say it's kind of a sad statement that it's taken this long for this to happen....

Still a great story, though.

I agree.

Ontario went through a phase (still going on maybe) where they were pushing females officials big time. Don't get me wrong - some officials that did rise to higher levels were female, and they deserved it. There were also many female officials that should not have "been there" - mostly in provincial championship tournaments.

It certainly spawned a lot of discussion. The root of the discussions often came down to not caring who was on the game, just as long as they were the best to be presented - be it male or female.

I also remember when I was coaching (and was also in my 3rd year of officiating), a tandem of officials in a town called Trenton. My team was ranked #7 in the province, so of course I'm serious about about chances of winning the provincial title. So this game in Trenton had 2 officials - one guy was cut, bald head, young, and probably didn't have much bad luck with the ladies: he was good looking. The other guy had this (my opinion) ugly hair cut and had an ugly goatee too, and was tall & skinny (and not that good looking). The two of those were awesome together. I remember thinking to myself about the stereotypes I immediately placed on the officials before the game - that one would be a good ref and the other a bad ref.

I certainly was humbled after that game. Who cares if you're male, female, ugly, colour of hair, whatever. What job can you do on the court?

Another example: there's a guy in my former local board who doesn't ref at a high level. I'd say he's competent at grade 8 and below. But, his reproire (sp?) with kids that age is awesome. The kids at that age like him, as do many coaches. He's very much in shape, if you count round as a shape. So who cares what someone looks like, as long as he gets the job done?

Although I don't know Delores, I have worked games with Melodee and she is terrific. Besides having great court presence, judgment and mechanics, she laughs at my jokes. :)

OK - some people might think that last part is a negative.

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.

The problem in Oregon isn't that females are being pushed ahead of their abilities. It's that females with real abilities have been held back by the selection process and now that the selection process has finally started to deal with reality, high quality female refs are being put into their rightful places.

I know Camron will take issue with this. I don't care. It was way past time for these three refs to be working 5A and 6A tournament games, and they were a credit to their association. Hopefully, someday I'll be as good as they are, and I"ll be able to do the job, too. I say "hopefully" because now that we are actually making it possible for refs to be chosen according to their abilities and not by their social affiliations, I may have some shot at it, when I'm good enough.

First, you have to start laughing at my jokes. :D

It's about breaking barriers. That's important whether you recognize it or not.

That is not quite true, we've sent qualified women officials to the top state tourney before...with the old process. There were two that I remember since I've been in the PBOA, one of them moved out of town and never went to the tourney again from her new area. The other is working D1 ball and gave up HS ball after going to the top girls tourney in her last year. They were good enough to overcome the main deficiency of the system (lack of votes from boys coaches).

There were a handful of others that woud have made it if they had stuck around and spent the same 10-15+ years improving and earning the repect of their peers that all other other tourney official had to do...but they didn't want to put in the time and effort.

The only thing that held Melodee back in the past was the lack of coaches votes. Since she only worked girls game, she was never going to get the vote from boys' coaches and is not likely pull enough votes from girls coaches to overcome that obstacle. She did get the 11th most votes (out of over 200 officials) from fellow officials and has consistently done so. Lea Ann was only a few spots behind that. Those two have been strongly recognized by their peers as quality officials in the vote on a regular basis. If we had only eliminated the coaches vote from our old system, these two would have gone to the tourney anyway...by the vote of a lot of men (including myself).

With our new system where the commissioner gets to pick 1/3 of the slots without regard to the vote, the obstacle of getting boy's coaches votes can be addressed by bypassing the vote altogether.

I keep trying to tell everybody that coaches have a lot to do with your career as an official but nobody wants to hear it from me, mainly because of the propaganda that JR and some of the others are allowed to do to me on this forum after I post. You go T'ing up a coach, especially a undeserved T, it could have a huge effect on how fast you move up. I hear a lot of people say that you don't call a game based on what the coach thinks, and we really shouldn't have to. However, true be told, you better listen to what they have to say.

Your statement implies that an official should expect that a "deserved" T could also have a huge effect on how fast an official moves up. Thats a flawed system.

Just as the inmates shouldn't pick their jailers, the coaches should have little, if any, say in who officiates.

My .02

The part of the new system that makes it easier for women, and other qualified men btw, move up to tournament level is the part about people only being eligible if they didn't work a tourney last year. If that had been fully implemented this year, both Melodee and Lea Ann would have been eligible by votes, and would not have needed to be "commissionered" in.

I disagree that lack of boys' coaches' votes is the primary item in not getting into the tournaments. The problem isn't who votes and who doesn't. The problem is that once someone has been to the tournament, they have a sort of name-recognition and credibility that gets them more votes next year. By extending the rotation to include refs who are actually good enough, but get squeezed down the list by those who have been to tournaments in the past, not only women refs, but also refs like you, Camron, are more likely to get into the tournament.

I think the next step is to eliminate coaches' votes altogether, but I expect that's quite a ways down the line.

And being scared to issue a deserved T will have an even bigger affect on your career. No one here advocates giving "undeserved" T's, though.

You might want to check, but I'm pretty sure your strawman is burning.

In a way, it's like the big Superbowl story about the first and second African-American head coaches getting to the big game. Should it be news? No. Did I realize it hadn't happened yet? No, but I'm not African-American, and I don't tend to pay attention to race.
However, it was going to be an issue until it happened precisely because it had taken so long.
Two women working this game was going to be a news story until it finally happened.

So in your Portland system, boys coaches are voting on who gets to go to girls tournaments? Boys coaches who never see this lady because she only does girls games get to have a say in whether she works a State tournament? That's ridiculous...

Portland has a tremendously out-dated "good old boys" system - I know quite a few people who work for the PBOA and every one of them would agree with that statement, even the ones who have benefitted from it and worked tournaments and championship games...

As for Melodee, Delores, and Lee Ann - they deserved to be there. Not because of their gender, but because of their ability.

Yes, that is true. However, the girls coaches also have a say in who goes to the boys tourney..and there are just as many officials who they'll not see. All the votes are added together and there is no distinction between thier votes. It's not perfect....in fact, I don't think the coaches voting at all is a good idea....certainly not with the weight we give them. One thing to remember is that 4 of the 6 Oregon tourneys are combined boys/girls tourneys. An official that goes to one of them will be working both. So, both the boys and girls coaches should have a say in who goes to those tourneys.

Then you have a distorted representation of the system. Call it what you will but those that work hard and continue to work hard advance. Sure, few skyrocket to the top but it does happen. There are always those who think they should be getting better games and blame it on "good old boys" when we all know that, in most cases, they're just disillusioned or merely equal to those already working the games.

There's a young guy who moved to the Portland Area last year. He's already working the top games and will likely get enough exposure in 1-3 more years to get a tourney slot....all before he's 25 and all fully deserved....certainly not the evidence of a "good old boys" system.

This might help with the burning sensation:

http://www.pfizerch.com/uploadedImag...ckspray_lg.jpg

This is a very telling statement. Because of what you are not, you do not have to pay attention to something like that. Many African-Americans paid a lot of attention to the Super Bowl and other similar situations because it is really odd when most of the players are of a certain race and you can only find one or two opportunities. This is really a concern at the college level (football coaching) where the numbers are even more abysmal. The myth that many do not understand it is about equality, not about something as simply as what race you were born with. If you give opportunity to everyone that is "qualified" and not just to a select group of people, this will not be an issue anymore.

Peace

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.

But that would still keep them at a relatively lower postion in the ranking. The coaches vote would have a larger impact....in fact both Melodee and Lea Ann would move up exactly 10 spots by eliminating the coaches part of the vote....clear indication that the coaches vote is what is pushing them down. While the eligibility part makes for more people getting a shot, it doesn't change the imbalance in coaches votes that works more against the women than the men.

If that were true, you wouldn't have 5 new people going to the tourney (not counting the women who were put in by the commissioner's picks).It's not about sending someone who is "good enough". It's about sending the best officials....with some mearsure taken to cover for a statistical margin of error.

It was meant to be telling. I really don't care about race, and was raised that way. My only concern is someone's qualifications and abilities. Understanding that an individual's "qualifications" may have been stunted in spite of his/her abilities, I struggle with how much weight to put on "qualifications."
That said, I recognize that this is in many ways a factor of my own race. I'm not forced to deal with it on a daily basis, and only have to deal with it on an abstract-let's-talk-about-it basis; and then only when I want to. I was only giving my perspective, as little worth as it has to most. :)

[QUOTE=jmaellis]Just as the inmates shouldn't pick their jailers, the coaches should have little, if any, say in who officiates.[/QUOTE]


I agree 100%. In our state, they may request that an official not work their games or gym, but they better have a good reason and tape to back it up. If not, too bad.

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 find it incredibly offensive that certain people can have the gall to get up in front of the association and claim that if certain people go to the torunament, our reputation will suffer. That person will never get my vote again.

And they are articulate and well-spoken also. :D

That was pretty funny. :D

Peace

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.

Hear Hear!!

These officials are being rewarded for figuring out who's azz they had to kiss to get there. That is where the difference lies, imo. It's these same ole assigners that keep putting these people into these games year after year after year. You can bet next year it will be the same people again. My idea of term limits for the assigners is what is truly needed. We need more transistion in the ranks of the individuals that are tasked to assign these games. It's that simple....

Rainmaker, in your system that looks for officials that didn't work last year. What do they do with the officials that did work, the senior tournament guys?

well sort of :)
 

I agree that the "good ole boy" system is not a good one to select officials, I disagree that it isn't a competition. I think the best officials should be the ones doing the state tournament. I realize the good ole boy thing has something to do with it and like I said I don't like it. We have a little of it here in Wyoming. My thought though is this, if they truly take the best and you aren't there, you need to work harder to be in that group. I for one will keep working harder, I am not in the group yet, close but not quite. I got to work a couple state tournament games this year, but not the full slate. I need to work harder and get there.

The kids deserve the very best officials, not someone who's turn it is IMHO

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

I agree with this.

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.

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%.

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.

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%.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Juulie, the other thing that Camron Rust is assuming is that the only people frustrated by the PBOA system are the people who think they should be getting play-off games but aren't, or the ones who think they deserve something they don't...you know the people from PBOA that I associate with, and you know that they don't fit either of those stereotypes. The people who I have discussed the system with are people who ARE going to State tournaments and ARE doing championship games, and they don't like the system very much at all...

Then why don't those people decline the assignments?? If they decline, it gives someone else a chance.

I do know of people doing tourneys and championship games that don't like the way things are. They think they should be in an even higher level tourney than they are or should be getting MORE of the big games that are being spread around. I've never heard anyone complain about getting too many big games.

They're not complaining about the games and they certainly are not going to complain to you. But they think the system stinks too, but are content where they are. This is consistent to what I have experienced as well.

CT Tournament
 

In Connecticut, the coaches "vote" in the state tournament officials. Believe it or not, they always select the best officials to do their games. Just to give you full disclosure, I did not get selected this year, but I've been to six or seven games over the past three weeks to watch my colleagues work, and they are considered to be the best officials on our board, by their ratings, of which 80% is based on ratings from their fellow officials. The "cream seems to rise to the top". Both coaches and officals seem to agree on who the best officials are. I know that it's hard to believe, but it's true. There's not a single official on the tournament list who would get a "Why is he or she on the tournament list?" from me.

You didn't say D-1 in your original post. This is the 1,257th time you have been wrong.

It ain't that way in northern VA.

What are you talking about now? Another hater in the forum...you really need to get out more. Now, is it possible, you have something of value to share on the topic of discussion? If not, do us all a favor and quite hating on your fellow referee's so much. Oh, and one more thing, by this time next year, I'm sure I will have made 1,275 more mistakes, by your standards of course.

You need only 1274 now, since you put an apostrophe in "referee's". :eek:

You misspelled intramural. I'm just saying....

Billy, ummm, sorry to bother you. But you've got something on your nose. :D

This is absolutely not the same as "the best officials." Well, unless the officials who worked the tourney are the only officials that you wouldn't question. But I'm pretty sure if you looked around, there are other officials in your group who could have worked the tourney also without raising any eyebrows.

I think that's kind of rainmaker's point too: If there are x number of officials from a group who would be widely considered a good choice for working the tourney, why are only a fraction of that group ever given the chance?

Nope, my post had the intended result. You made several mistakes in posting your (you would have said "you're") reply. Have a nice day. :p

From BillyMac: "There's not a single official on the tournament list who would get a "Why is he or she on the tournament list?" from me."

From Back In the Saddle: "This is absolutely not the same as "the best officials." Well, unless the officials who worked the tourney are the only officials that you wouldn't question. But I'm pretty sure if you looked around, there are other officials in your group who could have worked the tourney also without raising any eyebrows."

True, but there are only a limited number of spots to be filled. In Connecticut, only about 60% of the teams make the single elimination state tournament, thus decreasing the number of officials that need to work. The point that I was trying to make was, that in our system, those who make it seem to deserve it, i.e the coaches ratings and our peer ratings seem to agree. You are right in that there are other officials who don't make it who may not be better than those that do make it, but are certainly as good as those who do make it.

There's probably more than a correlation here, maybe a cause and effect. Those who are considered the best by our peer ratings get the most games, thus getting the most exposure, and thus getting a chance to get votes by the coaches. In other words, work a lot of games, improve your chances of getting selected by the coaches.

I can't explain in fully, but here we get very little "grumbling" about who makes or doesn't make the state tournament. We spend most of our time "grumbling" about our own peer rating system.