Agreed Tomegun!!! Amen

People can "Claim" anything they want. Claims in and of themselves do not inherently contain ANY truth what-so-ever. Talk is cheap so I could give a rip what any person says. This (imo ignorant, irresponsible and inflammatory) journalist can right as much ridiculous crap as he wants. If we give it any attention what so ever we give him exactly what he wants... a reaction. Its like my 5 year old son doing something to irritate his 8 yr old sister... he does if for the reaction. If she pays it no attention he stops. If this guy gets no reaction, he has submitted a totally useless article.

Lastly... race has absolutely ZERO to do with capability in the officiating ranks. Luckily most assignors recognize this.

Unless I missed something in the article posted, there was not claim of "racism." I think that was the "perception" of the people reading this article and posted it here.

Also this to me is just like any other discussion we have about perception. We get all upset if people claim we are bias based on where we live, who we know and how we know them. I can tell you that in many cases assignors and our state assign people to situations based on race and how the perceptions of the contest is officiating by the people working the games. It is a backdrop of many games. And it is taken completely away by putting on diverse crews which this article seemed to be about. And when you make an effort to have diversity in crews, then it is funny how that claim goes away.

This is no different than other seen biases and like many others biases this is probably not fair either.

I have no idea if what the author is claiming is remotely true and honestly do not care. This is no different than someone giving their opinion and this topic happens to be from another point of view. How many articles have we read here where the motives of the officials are called into question. And how many times have people here been the people calling those individuals motives or actions into questions. The difference is most of us here do not know the individuals or the actual situation involved.

No, it is about race, so let us completely dismiss all claims when we sometimes embrace other claims. :D

Peace

"Year after year, children's dreams are deferred by questionable calls that appear to be biased" (Original article in question.)

The original author did not use the word racism. He did use the word biased, and he says in the rest of the article that the risk of bias increases without diversity. I wonder what the author would deem acceptable diversity in the following situations? If we have two mostly African-American schools? Two all whiite schools? Two schools with sizeable Native American populations? Asian? Gay? Transgender? Muslim? Hispanic?

I know there is racism. I know there are racist people in basketball. I think we should encourage all sorts of people to become refs. But who will decide what is a diverse crew?

On a more general point, are we ever going to come to the place that Dr. King talked about?

It doesn't matter what race or gender you are if you can referee you can referee. People are always going to point fingers at us and find a way not to hold the players and coaches responsible. I hate the race card!

I Forgot, They Walk In With A Duck, That Talks ...
 

And then after the game, a doctor, a lawyer, and an Indian chief, walk into a bar. I'll let Mark Padgett finish the story.

If Mark is gonna finish the story, let's make it something practical. A doctor, an Indian Chief, and a chemist walk into a bar......

I would like to beat Mark to the punch, but I'll reserve for him because he has the best zingers! :)

My take on the article: HOGWASH! (yes, I watched MASH a lot when I was growing up!) This ucking fidiot of a writer needs to come to my area, where I work with several African-Americans at various levels. I can tell you, racism never enters our minds when we work. One time, I was the only white guy on a 3-man crew headed to a small town where the only non-whites were my partners. I was the "token white guy" (crew joke!), but you know what? After the game, as we were leaving the building, many parents who were still around waiting for their kids complimented us, saying we were the best crew they've seen in recent memory, and we were very impartial. The visiting coach was standing outside his bus waiting, and he said the same thing. Matter of fact, he had been fearful that we would be so strict that the kids wouldn't play, but after watching us work, he said he would take us any day over the crews he'd seen, and he's been coaching nearly 30 years now. This writer has his blind man's glasses on and needs to take them off, and if he needs help, I'll just be glad to take them off myself! :mad:

Rant off...soapbox stored till the next ucking fidiot deserving of a rant comes along (and it's not me despite the signature!).

My take on the Article: I think it's very sad and unfortunate that we are reading and discussing this subject as it relates to our "profession".

I have never experienced or heard of any type of prejudice or racism on the court during my time officiating and I hope it stays that way.

Yes, I am saying that. They were heard talking about it, and it was reported. I could give you a reference to a person (highly respected and trusted in the Oregon reffing community) who will tell you that that is exactly what happened.

However, I'm not agreeing with the person who wrote the article cited in the OP. There are biased refs, and there are bad calls made on the basis of racial prejudice. It happens. We on this board who try as hard as we can to do a great job, tend to forget that there are the lowlifes out there who don't have the best possible attitude.

And Jeff is right that the best way to avoid the appearance would be to work to actively move the best refs of color up to the various levels in all associations and in all areas. (I'd say the same thing for female refs, but that's another subject).

Still, it does "the cause" no good for someone to write an article blaming the loss of one game on the fact that all three refs were white. And then to claim that it's a pattern that ruins the dreams of kids. That's just baloney.

There is a place for the "race card" ( I hate that term, frankly). But I don't think this article was it.

The "race card" did come back to bite OJ. :eek:

In all of the hype, the author of the article failed to state that the FW Wayne team missed the front end of two one and one's in the final 15 seconds with a one point lead.

The foul shots were on a 3 point shot attempt and Peru team hit 2 of three.

Not that any of this matters as pertains to the article but thought you all should know.

If you want 50 million opinions on something, then bring up the word "RACE". :rolleyes:

After reading the posts, it appears a few officials are taking this personally. I read the initial editorial and while I didn't put much credence into the actual calls that were made or missed in the championship game I still could understand and agree with the main argument: Since sports (players and coaches) are diverse we should consider having diverse officials for these games.

Why? Its simple if we open our eyes...we as individuals (even with or without the referee hat) identify with others who LOOK like we do or THINK like we think. It's the simple truth for the majority of people walking this earth. Do we try to be biased? In most cases NO, but it still happens. Blame the unconscious mind...I don't know but it happens.

I believe people feel better about a game called when A) the officials either don't look like either team (i.e. 2 Hispanic teams playing with 2 Caucasian refs) or B) when at least one official looks like each team (i.e. 1 African American team and 1 Hispanic team playing with 1 African American ref and 1 Hispanic ref).

Why would I say this? Well it brings balance to the floor. In A, neither official would consciously or subconsciously provide an advantage because neither team looks or thinks like them. In B, the conscious or subconcious of each officials balances out one another and should provide a balanced game.

Yes this is my opinion and the explanation may not be articulated clearly but game assignments like this would throw out the "race card" for players, coaches, and fans that so many of the majority hate to hear...

I consider myself a good/fair official, but one of my least favorite times as an official is when I walk into a gym and my partner looks like me and one team looks like me while one team doesn't. Why do you say? Because I know at some point someone is going to claim the officials are being bias. Yes we can write it off as hogwash but in reality a case can be made for at least 1 call or no call during the game even if we don't want to admit it.

For those that are still reading, what I'm saying has some merit. Just refer to Referee Magazine:

https://www.thearbiter.net/MyReferee...spx?Force=true

This was mentioned in the article:

"The NBA data, released in early May by Justin Wolfers, a public policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and Joseph Price, a Cornell University economics graduate student and doctoral candidate, concluded that black players received between 0.12 and 0.21 more fouls per 48 minutes when the number of white referees officiating a game increased from zero to three. The study reported that white players were also discriminated against in games officiated by allblack referee crews (“The News” 7/07)."

Do you think NBA officials WANT to discriminate against players because of their race? Absolutely not!!! Does it happen? Absolutely!

Bottom Line: In playoff games and above, crews should be diverse so that the field of play is balanced and players, coaches, and fans get the perception that the game is not stacked against them. If a team is all black or all white at least have 1 black official or 1 white official.

Food for thought:
A black man on a dark street at night hates to see two Caucasian cops approaching him. On the flip side I would think a Caucasion team on the road in the hood playing a black team would hate to see an all black officiating crew.

Just think about it......:rolleyes:

By what measure? Ability compared to all others? Or just race/gender? If the later, isn't that the problem that we're trying to eliminate? Or is discrimination only bad in one direction? Simply put, advancment/promotion based on anything aside from simple ability wthout regard to race/gender is morally and ethically wrong.

Also, I don't see any calls for requiring teams' rosters or starting lineups to match the demographics of the student bodies they they represent (HS and College) or the cities/regions they represent (Pro). If we're going demand equal numbers based on any demograhic stats, shouldn't that apply uniformly? :rolleyes: And, NO, I don't think it should....teams should be able to select the best players from their available pool.