That doesn't follow. Basketball is different: boys and girls use the same rule book, and anyone qualified to ref boys BB is qualified to ref girls.

Look, people don't like Title IX. Fine. I'm not trying to convince anyone that it's a good idea. It is, however, the law, and it does apply to schools and the people schools hire. Some states have already recognized the issue here and require their officials to work both. Others haven't. :shrug:

But you're stretching it to connect the fact that some (many?) states do require it and that it is a Title IX type of issue.

Oregon only requires it with regards to post-season eligibility. And that largely stems from the fact that the post-season tournament are run as a combined boys/girls tourney and the officials selected for the tourney must be able work any of those games. In the past, they'd have an official at the tourney who hadn't worked a girls game in years...and that didn't really work all too well. So, they put in the requirement.

Does that have to do with Title IX or that fact that you have a numbers problem in those areas? In my area that is not accepted because those do not think it is fair to have the same officials on a varsity contest work two games back to back. You are not even likely to work back to back in a tournament here with the same gender playing. Our Title IX fights were over times games were being played. And when they tried to even make the girls and boys play on the same night at the same place it was a disaster. It was clear the fans only cared about the boy's teams and would leave the minute the girl's games started or would not come until the boy's games started. We have over 700 schools that play basketball in our state and we largely do not have officials that work those games on the same night. Some of the rural areas do on occasion, but not as a regular situation. And then what would you do with the X-Mas tournaments where the tournaments are not even on the same level or played at the same place. I work a tournament that has a girl's and boy's tournament held in the same town and they play the championships in the same building the last night. But most tournaments are not even run like that. Most tournaments are one school hosting one gender and would not be capable to hold more teams. So what do you do then?

Peace

It wouldn't have to be the "best"...as long as all the officials worked both....which would cover best at the same time.

The schools could schedule their games in double headers and only offer the games/contracts in a boys/girl double hearder. Not much way around that if an official wanted to work...if all schools did it.

I've got no real issues with Title IX; I just happen to be in favor of acknowledging its costs (such as the Iowa State men's baseball team).

A very good argument could be made that boys and girls are separate sports. Some states still have different governing bodies. Many states have different rules. If you're going to require a boys basketball ref to work girls ball, it's not much of a stretch to require wrestling refs to work a girls sport.

Camron, they did that already. It was a disaster. There was a lawsuit that used Title IX that complained that the girl's were playing only on week nights and never the weekend like many boy's games were. So two major and big conferences did that and it was a joke. It was clear no one wanted to see the girl's play. One year they did the girl's games first and then flipped to the girl's playing the second game and it was stunning how little people would attend the girl's games or leave after the boy's game was over. So what they did was play the girl's games either earlier in the afternoon or play them separate and they would get a few more fans. And you still would have a problem; you might have officials that would say they want to work high school if that was the case. Or you will get people that will not give as good of an effort on the girl's games which I know people have done. I do not see that changing anytime soon because it would take a major cultural change. And I do not feel that any court would do that easily considering again that they would have to convince people to work games they are not obligated to.

Peace

The did the same thing here in a couple of big conferences...with the same results.

In fact, it was actualy worse than it was before. No one liked seeing the stands empty when the girls game started or see them fill when the girls game ended. This wasn't done in conjunction with any referee issue....it was tried in response to the girls teams feeling they were not getting good turnout due to the times/days they were playing. Once they got the same schedules, they found that the result was not what they hoped for. It was better to have them on different days or sites....and most of them ultimately went back. There were also issues with F/JV/V triple headers and getting 6 games in along with the coaching staffs being at all the places they needed to be.

One league now has their league games at the same times at opposite sites...girls @ A, boys @ B. Each team has the exact same schedule but reversing home/away. The problem with that is the fans have to choose one vs. the other....and overall turnout is reduced as some people may have gone to both....but they get the same billing.

JRut, I may not have made my point clear. I do NOT think this is a Title IX issue, in fact for the same reasons you stated. What I was saying that Title IX is for those schools who take federal aid. Once you do that, you are obligated to follow any and all federal regulations.
You mentioned the case where seasons were changed. Here in VA we went from "Fall Ball" for the girls to running the seasons at the same time. If you were basing the OFFICIATING aspect of it you would say this is a bad move for the girls side as you have a more diluted 'talent' base from which to draw officials from. Whereas, in "Fall Ball" more "A" rated officials would be available to work their games. However, this was about equity in seasons/recruiting and not officiating. Attendance figures are/were not used to decide the equity merit of these cases.

South Carolina does the girl/boy double-header method. V Girls at 6:00, V Boys after, same 3-person crew. Same thing for JV and Middle School with 2-person crews. This system works fine, it certainly eliminates the "boys side" vs "girls side" division that is so common among groups of referees.

I did not say anything about seasons changing. We have always run seasons at the same time or as long as I can remember. And football is kind of big here, I do not see a lot of officials wanting to work fall ball at the high school level.

Peace

Iowa does the back-to-back thing for Varsity contests (or at least used to back in my high school days). I don't remember if it was the same officials for both or not. (It might not have been, up until the mid 1990s a lot of Iowa school still had 6-person girls basketball)

Junior high was a bit different, because girls BB was November-December, and boys was January - February.

I know they did it that way when I first started. I personally never worked in Iowa (basketball), but I lived close and had friends that worked many of those games. But that was ten years ago. I have had Iowa teams recently play Illinois teams and it is a double header with the girl's first and the boy's second.

Peace