As a journalist, I'm no fan of quoting my friends. It's something I abhor and further, stains your work with a smudge of nepotism.
But Mick McCabe's article in today's Detroit Free Press shed some light on an issue many basketball officials know to be true: Officiating girls basketball and boys basketball is, in many respects, officiating two completely different games. This admission was courtesy of Mike Dempsey (one of McCabe's very best friends), who lives outside of Detroit in one of its' swanky suburbs and is part of the old guard within Detroit's officiating community.
In 2006 I wrote as much in this same space. I admitted that working a girls game wasn't as enjoyable as a boys game for me for a few blunt reasons. The speed and physicality of a girls' game is completely different to what you might find in a high-level boys' contest, and because of that, your decision-making as an official changes drastically.
I also pointed out that in Michigan, sometimes the coach with lesser experience or success was relegated to the girls' position. It wasn't always the case but for a few schools, but for one metro Detroit school district, it took a court order to tender the more-experienced coach with the boys' job. My writing didn't garner much opposition until I was working on an Super Bowl article for Referee Magazine and editor Bill Topp blew his top when he found the post in my blog's catalog. As a punishment for my opinion, Referee killed my article.
Maybe the truth hurt more than I knew. What Referee failed to acknowledge from my post is I have a soft spot for girls basketball. It gave me my start as an official and for that, I'm forever grateful. Because of that, I still work girls basketball today, although I'm certain a few coaches wish I would reconsider.
Regardless, Dempsey observes that while the rules, timing and floor surfaces are the same for boys and girls, that's where the similarity ends: "In the old season, you had girls in the fall, you could get in that mindset. Now going back and forth, it affects your decision-making. You're going to do a worse job on one of them because they're not the same game."
I never imagined I would concur more until I moved to Maryland. Here, the overwhelming majority of games statewide are staffed by two officials. In metro Detroit, it's news when a game only has two officials. Additionally, prep girls in the blue crab state play with a 30-second shot clock, whereas the boys do not. Naturally, a few select moments have found me starting a backcourt count simply out of habit, drawing snickers and questions from the coaches, and in one instance, an outright declaration from a coach to my partner that, "...maybe boys' officials shouldn't be working girls' games."
Perhaps that's a revealing insight into why high schools struggle to find and keep good officials more than anything else. But perhaps there's some truth in that statement, too.
I covered the Army-Navy women's basketball game for The Capital Saturday afternoon, played in Annapolis after the Midshipmen men played Army in the same arena. Is there a collegiate rivalry more revered than Army-Navy?Both sets of officials did an admirable job of letting players play through contact when appropriate and stopping the clock for fouls as needed in kind.
But it would have been unfair to ask either set of officials to apply the same judgment from one game to the next, because they were two different games. The women's game was staffed by Bryan Brunette, Diana DePaul and Shannon Feck, while Mike McCloskey, Gregg Durrah and Brandon Cruz preceded them during the men's contest. Two games between two service institutions in the same arena that were completely different simultaneously.
The bottom line is officiating basketball at any level -- and any gender -- is much like a good plasterer or drywaller. It might not seem like the most palpable skill, but it's much more of an art that we all would admit and you can usually tell the good from the bad rather quickly.
Regards...
T.C. Cameron is a writer and referee living along the Chesapeake Bay.
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