That's why I made my earlier comment regarding my BV assignor. I think every assignor will try to help people for various reasons. However at the end of the day, if they want to keep assigning they have to send competent officials to games.

Doh! No, I missed that. My bad.

I should have quoted it originally. Otherwise you were correct.

Peace

I blame Billy for my confusion.

Yeah, get in line. :D

Peace

Agreed.

And I think that was the point I was trying to make earlier. Not sure if I didn't say it well, or if tomegun just misunderstood me.

I don't understand the argument/discussion here. We seem to be nitpicking general human nature that effects all fields and functions across all walks of life. There is no solution and there will never be a consensus. This is one of those things that just is what it is. Fair and unfair is really just an opinion formed from a specific perspective relative to the one doing the observation. The same goes for right and wrong.

The ideal solution would be that all humans behave honestly and with integrity in all instances, and when called upon do their job to their best ability. Many can say they do this but in reality they don't, and they fail this tenet when they promote one, not because of ability, but because of many external factors.

I do think most things in life averages out over time and I just do my best to adapt to changing climates.

I don't want only black officials to work games with black players, or only women to work the women's game. But I agree with JRutledge and JetMet and tomegun completely. Everyone has different experiences and can relate differently to different people. Not everyone can do this. The example of that 2A game in IL is the perfect example. Those 3 officials may have been really good officials worthy of working a championship, they should not have been working that championship game, not the 3 of them together.

I am the first to admit that I was hired in my first NCAAW conference because I was female, but that wasn't the only reason, and some people would say I didn't deserve the chance. (A lot of people actually said that) But the supervisor told me that he saw potential in me. If I was male and he saw the same exact potential and the same ability would he have hired me? Maybe not. I had been officiating basketball for years - though only 2 years of actually being certified to work high school. I grew up officiating games at the boys club. I didn't have great mechanics ,I had never worked 3 man before, but I had worked some good ball and I knew the game. I took in everything I could and learned so much that first summer of going to camps and I have been very successful.

I honestly don't think that there are any conference supervisors out there hiring someone JUST because of their race or gender alone, not saying it can't give you a leg up if all things are equal but you have to bring something else to the table. I had a supervisor tell me that he would much rather hire someone with little to no officiating experience and mold them and teach them and mentor them than to hire someone with a lot of high school experience that was already set in their ways.

Well said Nikki.

Peace

I can only control the factors I can control. Whining about others isn't going to help me reach any goals.

Was someone whining somewhere in this thread? Seems to me that we were having a fairly logical conversation about things. Oh well...

See msg #3.

Sounds like whining to me.

Peace

Ahhhh...I had forgotten that that was how the thread started out.

Maybe, maybe not. There is a bit of irony. It's ironic, after being raised to believe that people should be judged on merit rather than skin color or gender, to see people defending the idea that skin color should be considered when making officiating assignments. I'm not saying the idea doesn't have any merit, but the irony is there.

Just as it doesn't do any good for me to deny the merits of the assignment practice in question, it doesn't do any good to discount the irony, either.

tomegun is right, I don't understand. I'm trying, but sometimes the irony is easier to see. I'll just say this, responding with "you have no right to question" is counter-productive to the discussion.

I've seen shades of it in this discussion, but not enough to ruin a very good discussion on a very difficult issue.