Controversy in Nebraska

[parker27]

A little FYI in case anyone cared. Chanelle Hickey is a convicted felon who has spent time in the NE State Penitentiary (not a lot of time...around a year I think) I am just wondering how other states handle this situation. Should a state activities association be concerned with who they hire?? What are other states' policy on this?

[Rich]

Originally Posted by parker27

A little FYI in case anyone cared. Chanelle Hickey is a convicted felon who has spent time in the NE State Penitentiary (not a lot of time...around a year I think) I am just wondering how other states handle this situation. Should a state activities association be concerned with who they hire?? What are other states' policy on this?

Depends what he was in for, as far as I'm concerned. I'd lean in the direction "they should be concerned," yes.

But expecting to get to the state tournament (and we're not talking about early round playoffs here) and crying racism after 10 years of service is a little ridiculous, IMO. I'm only 9 years in my current state and this is a battle I fight (because as far as the state is concerned, my first 15 years don't really exist) in all my sports.

[bob jenkins]

Originally Posted by parker27

A little FYI in case anyone cared. Chanelle Hickey is a convicted felon who has spent time in the NE State Penitentiary (not a lot of time...around a year I think) I am just wondering how other states handle this situation. Should a state activities association be concerned with who they hire?? What are other states' policy on this?

States should have some sort of background check. Assuming NE does, and Mr. Hickey answered honestly, and NE "approved" the information, I have no problem with him officiating.

[Jeremy Hohn]

We have to rank internally with our chapter a "top 25" list. Then the UIL will look at the list, and based off of either personal knowledge of ability, or feedback from coaches and evaulators they select 3 officials from each chapter to officiate first round games. From those games, the crews themselves are evaluated at the state tournament to see if they will officiate a final.
Many chapters are "one-and-done" at the state tournament due to what the evaluators feel is being called correctly.

As far as racial makeup, we are required to submit, an african-american, one anglo, and one hispanic or female. (Our chapter size didn't have a female official in our top 25, so we had a hispanic representative)