Article pointing finger at Racist Referees

[Juulie Downs]

Originally Posted by GoodwillRef

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!

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

Originally Posted by Juulie Downs

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.

[dbking]

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.

[Da Official]

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

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......

[Kelvin green]

[QUOTE=Da Official;591614]"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)."

QUOTE]

What utter nonsense... ..2 fouls more per player per ball game. that is so statistically insignificant ... 1 foul difference in a game? Give me a break

" Mr. Wolfers and Mr. Price also report a statistically significant correlation with decreases in points, rebounds and assists, and a rise in turnovers, when players performed before primarily opposite-race officials.

“Player-performance appears to deteriorate at every margin when officiated by a larger fraction of opposite-race referees,” they write. The paper later notes no change in free-throw percentage. “We emphasize this result because this is the one on-court behavior that we expect to be unaffected by referee behavior.”


They blamed a decrease in scoring, rebounds and assists and increased number of turnovers on the officiating crew...

They never did look at whether the call was right or not.

Even this study's raw data says.

compared to white players, black players play more minutes per game (weighted means—30.7 minutes vs 27.2 minutes; while the unweighted means among those with positive playing time are 25.0 vs 20.5).

Black players receive about the same number of fouls per game (2.55 vs 2.53) as white players, but receive fewer fouls per 48 minutes played (4.33 vs. 4.97).
The differences in foul rates largely reflect the fact that white players tend to be taller, heavier, and more likely to play center than black players. (wasnt their a movie with a name that told us that?)

They create some foul rate and break it down by crews...

Their conclusion in their study

We find that players earn up to 4% fewer fouls and score up to 2½% more points on nights in which their race matches that of the refereeing crew. Player statistics that one might think are unaffected by referee behavior are uncorrelated with referee race. The bias in foul-calling is large enough that the probability of a team winning is noticeably affected by the racial composition of the refereeing crew assigned to the game.

Non sense because it is team effort... A team's probablitity of winning is effected by their numbers....Just dont think so.

Break this down (even assuming this is true)..They do a whole bunch of math and economic wizardry Kobe Bryant scores (assuming scores 40 points per game) scores 1 point more in a game when he has an all black crew as opposed to an all white crew.. The authors claim that since so may games are decided in OT or by one point that this is statistically significant...

They try to equate dynamics in games but how do you deal with the home court versus away. LA playing in Boston as opposed to Oklahoma. Teams with better players, players with higher salaries? Teams with better benches, points scored per minues, who is in the gameat the end.... (ad nauseum)

they also state In addition, it is generally believed that coaches have some influence over the decision of referees. If the own-race bias of the referees extends to the race of the coach then we would expect a coach of a particular race to have more influence when a larger fraction of their referees are of his race, especially when facing a coach of the opposite race. ... shows some weakly suggestive evidence of bias against opposite-race coaches; the magnitude of the coach effect is equal roughly equivalent to the effect of the race of a single player, but quite imprecisely estimated

I could do some sort of regression model that shows that when the full moon is out there are more points, or defense are better on thursdays than Fridays, There may be some bias out there but I think most of it is more percieved than not...

They still never do tell us out of the 600,000 foul calls how many were wrong or right. Nor do they analyze the no call and how many were made (go figure no data from a box score they used)... I wonder how they would do that study, or how about the one that superstars get less calls than the rookie? or that subs get more fouls than starters. I know how about fouls ber dollar earned? (Bill Lambier would have been the lowest paid player in the league)