That is not irrelevant. It is a real issue. Because around here, it would be hard to find 3 female officials that are available to work many HS games.

Peace

With all due respect, the same argument (gauging interest in a vaccuum, etc.) could be and has been made in regard to the traditionally underrepresented gender in (insert anything here). (-See pre-1972 for anti-Title IX arguments; e.g. "We'd be hard pressed to find 6 teams with enough participants to field a girls' league, therefore, this isn't really an issue in these parts.")

IMHO, it doesn't really matter if your association (or mine, or anyone's) has 3 female officials available to work a particular game in a particular place on a particular night.

What matters is the fact that one or more schools (or individual administrators in those schools) would even make this request, even "off the record." It's 2014, not 1914...

My point is it's not at all relevant to whether the request noted in the OP is reasonable, absurd, or somewhere in between. The actual availability of the officials doesn't matter to the schools making the stupid request.

On a related note, what percentage of most of our HS associations if female? This year my association has been combined with (absorbed by) a larger association. I'm not sure, but I think we have about 3 women out of a total of 90 who are available to work varsity. With that in mind, it's hard to imagine a school asking for no females, because they would get one so seldom anyway. Just put the women on the cut list if you feel they are unqualified.

I looked at the largest association I belong to and out of well over 200 officials, we only have 5 females that appear to be members. About 3 of those are college officials. I know of one that has very little experience, let alone varsity experience of any kind. And that is the highest number of female officials that I know of in any of my 3 basketball associations. There are two that attend I know of in another association. I mentioned this because it would be very hard here to send a lot of women officials to any level. When they get a college opportunity, they leave high school.

Peace

Officiating and finding officials are two different things. I run a new official's class every year and I am lucky if one women even attends the class.

Men, who did not play, who did not even have an athletic background get into officiating a lot more than a big time female athlete that might have coached, we cannot get them into the ranks. I can hardly think of 10 females in my area that work a heavy high school schedule. Almost all of them work college ball.

Peace

I understand the point JRut is trying to make. I also understand that it might not be completely relevant to the discussion. I think a more relevant point, at least where me and JRut work is that most coaches and players do not like to have officials that work both boys/mens and girls/womens sides working their games regardless of gender. On this point I happen to agree. I realize it is the norm in some areas to work both genders. That is definitely not the case here. Additionally, I think the official that can work both genders well is few and far between. Officiating like playing is a matter of practice and repetition. No matter what the political correctness police would have you believe, there is a big difference between how the mens and womens games are played, and the expectations of what is and isn't going to be called. Because of those differences, I find the few games each season I have to work with someone that does both genders (HS or college) to be the least comfortable games I have each season. I can completely understand why a coach or team would not want these officials on their games. Now if the female official works all or mostly mens games, then I do not see a problem.

It is relevant if you send female (or male) officials that do not have experience working boys basketball. And I bet that was part of the problem in this case. And that is also why many that work deep in the girls playoffs here, do not work deep in the boys playoffs (and vice versa). There are men that work the girls game and do not have respect for the game and do not call what is expected even with a lot of experience. And there are officials that have very little boys basketball experience and are in over their heads when working those games.

Peace

what is relevant in Virginia is that the head of the VHSL has made it clear that gender should not play any part in assigning boys or girls games.

And this is one of many reasons why schools shouldn't have the ability to more or less arbitrarily choose their association. It is basically a conflict of interest. It should be managed by the state or regional organization.

Here, schools are assigned by the state to each organization based on geography. Those on the bordering areas and request for a change but they have to have a good reason. New organizations can and do form but it keeps most of the underhandedness out of it.

If there is a real problem, then the schools can get a change, but they have to justify it.

Not at all relevant to whether a school could, or should, make the request in the OP.

If that was the problem, then they could easily request, in writing, to have more experienced officials. That would solve any real problems. The fact that they've gone through back channels with an implied threat of hiring a different association tells me otherwise.

We discuss a lot of things that are not just about the OP. And considering that none of us have seen the letter or the correspondence, we really should not comment at all if that is the standard.

Peace

Yes they could and unless we see the actual letter or hear the comments, we are speculating what was actually said here. I was just sharing that it would be hard to do what people suggested if they wanted to send 3 female official to a game of any kind. Just like it would be hard to get 3 male officials together unless you know they are willing to work together on a specific day.

Peace