After reading this story in Slate magazine, it occurred to me that I’ve never seen women officials on the court during a men’s college basketball game. The Slate article says the NBA has a couple of female officials, but nothing about the NCAA.
I do arena announcing for the local junior college, and while there are a dozen women officials that the college calls on for the women’s games, the men’s games always have men officials (this would be NJCAA, since it’s a junior college, of course, but they use NCAA rules.) If men can call women’s games, why can’t women call men’s games?
Can’t say I’d ever considered it, but now that you brought it up, I wanna know, too. Can’t really see any reason why they couldn’t. Wonder if it boils down to a union thing…you can’t ref unless you’re in the right union, and only males are in the union for men’s games?
I’m fairly certain there has never been a female official in a D1 NCAA basketball game. Wikipedia says Violet Palmer was offered a job as an official for a men’s NCAA tournament game, but I believe this is incorrect (NCAA tournament officials pay their dues officiating regular-season conference games.) She was offered a job as a Big West official in 1996 after making a name for herself officiating several women’s final four games, but backlash from the schools caused the league to rescind the offer. The NBA hired her in 1997 so I think it worked out for her.
As far as why, I can’t really think of any good reasons. I could imagine arguments like, how is she going to be able to stand up for herself and her whistles against the huge men, but I don’t think it holds water (Palmer’s been in the league for 10 years now with no issues like this.)
And I’m just talking about the juco leagues – some of the women I’ve seen calling women’s games are a damn sight sharper than some of the guys calling the men’s games.
I will say that, at the level I see it, men and women play completely different games. Women plan on the floor – the only thing flying through the air is the ball. The men, on the other hand, play a much faster game and “up in the air” (it’s the only way I can describe it.) I’ll call as many as 20 or 25 assists in a men’s game; no more than a dozen in a women’s game. So I don’t know if the pace of the game has something to do with it – female officials just don’t feel comfortable with that level of play. I dunno – seems a little weak.
Anybody want to suggest out-and-out sexual discrimination?
I think one worry is if the female ref was attracted to a male athlete on one of the teams. She may make calls in their favor.
Didn’t an NBA player say that when they started using female NBA refs?
I suppose any excuse is better than none. I can’t imagine that having any effect on how a game is called. Besides, if that’s true, wouldn’t it work the same way with men reffing women’s games?
Or men reffing men’s games and women reffing women’s games.
Sorry, I forgot my roll-eyes smiley. I remember hearing on the radio year ago that some NBA player said just that about having a woman referee NBA athletes. The radio show made fun of the guy by upping the ante:
“What if she was dating the player, then she’d try to help” or “What if an NBA player just broke up with her, then she’d judge against the team” or “What if she had PMS…”