Coach's Question, Need Help Responding
 

I have had 2 girls varsity coaches approach me in the past week with the same question. I am not sure how to answere them fully. Let me know if you have any idea how to answer them better than I have already. The question that these 2 coaches brought up was why is it that they see top notch officials not doing Varsity Girls. I replied to them that we as officials are independent contractors. They are upset that they see top officials officiating jr. High games but these same officials will not ref girls games. The one coach even questioned how is that permitted with Title 9. I said since we are independent contractors it has nothing to do with title 9. I am sure they thought as did I that my answer was a little vague. Do you have any better way to answer this. We do have some officials that do only boys varsity, but they may pick up a jr high game here and there because it pays well. These officials refuse to take girls assignments for various reasons. What should I say to these 2 coaches that are offended by such?

The answer is simple. They do not want to work girl's basketball and they do not have to work girl's basketball. Most officials are male and they see themselves working what they played or what they watch on TV. The rating comparisons for Men’s and Women’s basketball are clear. You could find the World Championships all over the TV this past August; you could not find the Women's championships but on the NBA network. I think it is that simple.

Peace

Not that this will help you at all in answering the coach, but in KY it is a new requirement this year that to work post season an official has to work a number of girls games. I believe that number is 8 or 9, but I can't remember. I'm sure we had the same thing here where the girls coaches weren't happy with not seeing the top-ranked officials enough.

Actually, you could make a Title IX case here: if better officials do not work girls games, then it would seem that the girls have been "excluded from participation in, [been] denied the benefits of, or [been] subjected to discrimination under [an] education program." The schools and assignors could be held liable, even though officials are indeed independent contractors. The argument would be that the schools and assignors are complicit in an arrangement that effectively denies benefits to girls by denying them access to better officiating.

I'm not saying such a suit would win; indeed, it would probably never go to trial. But I think it's incorrect to claim that, because we're independent contractors, Title IX is irrelevant to us: once you step through a school's door, it's relevant, whether the check has the school's name on it or not. The fix is easy: if you want games from an assignor, you take both boys and girls.

I'm a little surprised that this suit hasn't actually been filed somewhere or other. I can't possibly be the first person to think of this argument.

If I were asked this question, I would simply tell the coach the truth: some officials don't regard the girls' game as real basketball. Some of those are "better" officials, and some are not.

Independent contractors, PERIOD! We work who we want, when we want & with whom we want.

Now you know it's not that simple. You work where your assignor tells you, at contests sanctioned by the state, wearing the proper uniform, using the correct rules and mechanics, and subject to applicable local, state, and federal laws.

Including Title IX. ;)

This isn't an issue in GA. Our association works both women's and men's games with the same crew (i.e., same 2-man for JV, same 3-man for V).

What's interesting, though, is at the camp I attended this year it was expressly stated that the quickest way to become a college official is to concentrate on the women's game. If my aspirations were such that I wanted to break into college officiating it would definitely be on the women's side for this reason. Yes I realize this perception on my part and clinicians at the camp may be mistaken but, if it isn't, it would seem concentrating on the women's game would the most efficient way of accomplishing that goal.

IDK mbyron... we have the accept/decline boxes for every game we are offered via Arbiter.

Personally, I check the accept box for any assignment offered, regardless of gender or level. Many of our Big Dawgs will not travel past certain limits or work a 2 person game or even work girls games.

Most assignors don't offer the more skilled officials girls games anyway, unless its part of a double-header.

We are required to work a certain amount of girls & lower-level games to be considered eligible for post-season.

All in all, I stick by my original comment. Lets face it unlike college & up, at the HS level they need us more than we need them.

Why is it that we don't see top notch coaches not doing Varsity Girls?

Would that be considered a smart-aleck response? :D

It might be, but it might also challenge the coach's assumption / perception that "high level" officials aren't working girl's games.

This year in Kentucky they are hitting this very thing hard for all officials! It doesn't matter how many boys games you call all season long, but if you don't get 8 varsity girls games for the season you are not eligible for POST SEASON PLAY! Not even right, I don't think I've called 8 girls games in the last 3 years. Now I have to do a mandatory 8 to be eligible to do post season...Pitiful. But this will take care of the question that was asked in this thread.

Keep in mind that Title IX is a Federal statue. Independent contractor laws are often based on state tax laws. I do not think my state would want to go there.

Peace

I don't really get it either... I'll take the first game that's offered to me by any assigner that will offer me games on any date that I have open. Girls, boys, Jr High, rec league, whatever.

But then again, I'm only a second-year basketball official, so I rather doubt that I'm considered one of the "top officials" anyway. :)

At least, not yet. But I'm working on it.

Well you obviously do not work in a system like mine. Every level and every conference has an assignor. You have to accept games from different sources and the higher you go up they do not care that you are working levels below, but if you are not available when they want you, they will find someone else. So often officials have to choose or they have to adhere to the standards of that assignor.

Peace

They were mistaken. Maybe JRut was at the camp!:D Admittedly it was the case 'back in the day' but it is hyper competitive now.
It appears each of us have different procedures about how they are assigned games. I would take what the coaches say with a grain of salt and say something like "What am I?" smile and move on. It is a no win argument.

Never went to a college camp for women's basketball. The guy I worked for assigned by the Women's and the Men's side in a D3 conference. He assigned officials to both sides and was fired as a result from that conference. That says all I need to know about that side. ;)

Peace

Excellent point - as always - Mr. Jenkins.

What criteria are these two coaches using for determining who is a "high level" official? They are making the assumption that the officials they watch do the boys games are somehow better than the officials doing their (girls) games. Why do they make that assumption?

Nope. Our association gets all of/a share of the games from a handful of conferences, at all levels from Jr High up to Varsity, and then our assigner doles them out to the officials in our association based upon experience, ability, availability, willingness to travel, how many times you've worked a game for that school already, etc.

I also do some rec league stuff, with a different assignor, and some travel-team stuff with 2 different assignors. I've told all four of them that the first assigner to schedule me for a game is the assignor whose game I will be working on that day.

I don't think you can. The independent contractor relationship allows each and every official to take or reject any specific assignment....for whatever reason. To say this is a title IX issue would essentially require that specific officials apply for jobs they do not want or to accept jobs they didn't do not want and/or didn't apply for. Those types of things can't be required of independent contractors. If we were employees, it might be different.

The assignors are just agents who are matching officials with the games....and within the constraints of independent contractor laws. While they can exert influence on officials to work game A in order to get game B, the two are really seperate.....but the assignor might not call them the next time.

+1

so basically, we reserve the right...

I've been sitting here on the sidelines litening to this discussion, but now I have to insert my 2 cents.

Jeff, I'm curious as to your comment above, and hope that you would expand a little more on it. Which "side" are you talking about? What specifically is it that you now know?

I know there was a D-3 assignor up in your area who used to assign both the women's and men's games in at least one conference, because I know several women's college officials from my area that worked for him as well. There were many times these officials would work a women's game that he assigned, and their partner(s) would be officials that primarily work on the men's side. Many times (but not all), the officials who primarily worked the men's side did not know the women's mechanics and rules, and several times expressed disappointment that they had to work a women's game. There was one NCAA tournament game where one of these men's officials showed up in the locker room before the game, and asked, "So, which mechanics are we using tonight?" He was dead serious. WTF, at a Tournament game?! So it is no wonder most of these games were called inconsistenly, and as a result, I understand the conference decided they would need to find assignors that were more in tune to the differences between the men's and women's games.

So, what it tells me is that there are still officials and assignors that look down upon the women's game, and don't consider it as important. I'm also kind of surprised some these same officials will tell me directly that they don't want to work a women's college game because it's a harder game to officiate. So, in my experience, in some cases, NCAA men's official's will look at the women's game as a lesser game, while that feeling is not returned. It is also the same at the high school level between boys and girls' officials.

I'm not here to pick a fight over which game is better, or who has more egos, or who's right. The 2 games are different, and each one takes a slightly different skill-set to officiate at the highest level. Each one of us has chosen a different game, and I have the upmost repect for those that are able to work at the highest levels, whether it's a State Tournament high school official, NCAA D-1 official, or NBA official.

Not sure what you are saying "nope" to, because your system is still not like the system that many (not all) work in. I do not get any games from an association. I get games only from assignors. I get games from places where the assignor belongs to a completely different area or association than where I am located. And the assignor that gives high school games does not refer to the guy that assigns JH games.

Good for you. But I work for about 12 different people and one does not care what the other one is doing. And when playoffs and other considerations are being made, I am not working a JH game (even in my back yard) and turn away the college game even with the travel. Not going to happen. The only thing I will not do is take a game at one level and then take another game at that same level. My goals are not to work the Men's league championship game so all levels have different priorities.

You say that this is your second year, you will learn soon enough. ;)

Peace

I am not a lawyer, but....

The Title IX responsibility is with the schools. If a player (or coach or parent...) believes a girl is not getting an "equal opportunity" because the officiating is not equal on the girls' side, it is not the assignor or official that will be sued...it will be the school district.

There is nothing that requires the school district to use assignors (and I know that in some states, they do not). And there is nothing that requires officials to work for assignors. But if such a lawsuit were to proceed...and if some court found merit in the contention, then it would be up to the school district to come up with a remedy.

I would be quite interested in hearing how school districts (or leagues) would decide who are the "better" officials. But I also believe that it can be done. One of my high school assignors has made it a priority to find better officials for a girls league. He was aggressively recruited officials who he believes are "better" and has opted not to re-hire officials that he believes are not good enough. The coaches and ADs have told him they have noticed an improvement in the quality of officials they have seen over the last few years.

As in any open market, this assignor has to compete with other assignors for the "better" officials. But it can be done.

Our state has two separate HS boards, one for boys and one for girls, each with it's own assignor. Most officials on the boy's board are also on the girl's board, but the girl's board does have a high number of officials who are on the girl's board only.

I am not going to get too much into that here. All I will say is now that conference has two separate assignors for each side of their gender assigning. I will let you conclude what that means.

What I will never understand is why if someone tells you what they want to do they are looking "down" on that level? I do not want to work Pro-Am ball or Men's league, does that mean I am looking down on that level? I just have no desire to work that game. And in the current camp system the individuals that are assigning each side you cannot work both. That is fine with me. Again I have no desire to watch a NCAAW game let alone watch one. And if there are those that feel it is a lesser game, why would anyone care? I do not begrudge those that decide not to watch the NBA. It is not enjoyable to everyone and certainly not enjoyable to all officials.

I was not taking that way. Unlike some people here I have met you. :D

But I do get a little tired of the attitude that someone has to be made to feel bad because they choose not to work girl's or woman's basketball. I like my 3 games a week normal schedule. Adding woman's ball would get me fired from my men's leagues and kept me back from working earlier because it was assumed I was doing games for that person you mentioned. And I would burn out by mid-December. I do not work all levels of football either, but no one spends their time trying to lecture officials for only working high school games. Why do we go through this on the basketball side?

Peace

This type of question all depends on who does your assigning.

Around here I take games from athletic directors (non-conference) and commissioners (conference). If I don't want to work girls games, there would be some assignors that wouldn't assign me any games. That's the choice of that assignor.

Same thing with the schools.

I choose to work both, but many around here work only boys games. It's really up to the officials and the hiring assignors. Nobody can force an official around here to work a girls game if they do not want to.

I agree. The burden is on the school district to provide equal quality officials, and if they use assignors they will pass that burden along to assignors. Either way, any school or state might feel obligated to follow Kentucky and require officials to do both.

As an independent contractor, you're free to accept the terms of the contract offered, or work somewhere else.

Right now, Ohio requires doing some number of varsity girls games to be eligible for the girls post-season, and the same number of varsity boys games to be eligible for the boys post-season.

True, but it might come to the point where those unwilling to work girls games won't be offered boys games. That doesn't constitute "force," though they will have a choice to make.

You can make a requirement all you want, that does not mean that you will automatically get the same people. What you might do is get certain people to bow out of your post season. Or they will not give the effort just to work the post season they want to. Bad policy all the way around.

Peace

Yeah, I agree about THAT side!!:p

Also, not sure how Title IX would play into the argument. This is a case, for lack of a better term, of "Serperate But Equal". On the NFHS side, so long as the officials calling the games are certified (based on whatever that criteria would be) then there is no Title IX issue. Now if a school/district/state were using "certified" officials for the one and not the other, THEN you might have a problem. On the NCAA side you have an even split on the "corporate" side in Indy, both men and women are provided the same resources and each have their own, seperate, evaluation procedures. So they are good there.

I only turn games down do to scheduling conflicts I hadn't had a chance to block on arbiter.

In CO, officials have to work a certain number of girls games and a certain number of jv games to be eligible for post season. Most try to "double dip" on the requirement by working JV girls games.

The fact that some states have this as a requirement shows that the preference is widespread. Whether it's perception or not really doesn't matter, but there are some officials who would rather work a JH boys game than a varsity girls (or even a college women) game.

The only way this would be a Title IX issue would be if schools or assigners were offering bigger incentives for the boys games (higher fees, 3-whistle vs 2-whistle, etc.)

"Nope" was supposed to mean "No, the system I work in is not like the system you work in." My apologies, I should've phrased it more clearly.

True enough, one assigner doesn't care what the other one is doing. And there's some games that I'd definitely prefer to work over others (I'd rather work a high school game then a rec league game, and I'm sure most everyone here feels the same way). Thing is, if assigner A gets me a game on Thursday night, and assigner B calls me 2 days later with a game on the same Thursday night, I don't feel that it would be right for me to accept the game from assigner B and then have to turn around to assigner A and say "sorry, something's come up, I can't do that game on Thursday". If I do that too many times, pretty soon I'm not going to get calls from assigner A anymore. Better to tell assigner B "Sorry, I'd love to do the game(s), but I'm already booked on Thursday."

Luckily, it works out without too much problem, because there's very little non-varsity high school or junior high games on weekends. My travel team assigner primarily does weekend tournaments, and my rec league assigner does almost exclusively evening games (after non-varsity high school games are finished) or weekends.

That's the plan. I'm still in the "get as much game experience as possible" mode. I'm sure that in a few years, I'll be as jaded and devoid of my idealism as the rest of you. :)

As a matter of law, that is not true. Discrimination does not have to be intentional or bigoted, but can be an "accidental" effect of apparently disparate choices. Policies that have the effect of differential treatment for men and women are routinely overturned in court, no matter what their rationale is.

There are many reasons why. Unless you know about all of them first hand, why would you even consider answering the question? If these same coaches know the assignor, which I'm sure they do, then I would direct them to contact that person. He/she is making the decision to use or not use certain officials on their games.

Who draws the line between "top notch" and the rest of the field?

Nothing about either of my suggestions is necessarily purposeful discrimination. I could easily see a push, for example, to have three officials in boys games while the girls get two. Frankly, without Title IX, we'd probably already see that.

My point was that Title IX affects schools, not privately contracted officials and their choices of which games to work. It seems to me, from my limited perspective, that the schools would only have to show they've done as much as they can to equalize the officiating.

If officials were liable, you'd see football officials forced to work volleyball.

If anything, I would simply tell the coaches that I really have no insight into that; but he's welcome to contact the assigner to find out why.

I really like the snarky reply regarding coaches, however.

That already does happen with some commissioners. And some officials simply choose not to work those conferences.

I don't really care one way or another, although I will be the first to admit that I'm forced to call a different game in 90% of my girls games than I call during the boys games. The girls are simply not athletic enough to play through what would easily be considered incidental contact in a vast majority of boys games. I consider myself able to adjust to the differences in the games, although I probably am not the best judge of how well I do that.

No, you can't. I didn't bother reading your reasoning since the conclusion you have here is absurd. We as officials don't take federal funds. There's also a number of other statute specific qualifiers that I don't recall off the top of my head.

Care to give some examples?

I do not have much of a problem with anything you said here. I am not talking about someone calling you 2 days before anything. That is always dicey unless the person asking knows the situation that you are currently in. But most assignors where I am from not only understand this, they would be glad that you are hired by someone that is put you at a higher level. And it is a lot easier to find someone for a rec. league than it is a high school game on a big night like Friday.

A lot of this discussion is local anyway. What happens in your area or my area is not likely to apply to everyone.

Peace

While I agree that Title IX is not applicaple, it actually CAN be argued that we take federal funds. School districts receive federal funds which they use to set their budget. Since athletics is a line item on the budget, which is put together based on those federal funds, and funds distributed from that line item COULD be argued to be federal funds thus required to meet federal requirements.
It is "the long arm of the law" There is no such thing as a 'free lunch" I would bring up Hillsdale College here but that is a thread hijaker!

In which case football officials would be required to work volleyball, softball, or some girls sport in order to satisfy the requirements. The slope doesn't need to be that slippery to get there.

You could try to argue anything in court if given the chance. But to do this on that law would seem to be a stretch. I am not a lawyer like TA, but not sure how anyone could make a separate group work games they are not obligated to work. Even if you assign someone a game, the people could flat out turn it down. Unless the schools control whether officials take a game or not I am not sure how they would be able to guarantee the top officials work both genders. Most of all this would be very subjective anyway. Who decides who the top officials are anyway?

Peace

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