"Politically incorrect: A way to improve officials" - Clay Kallam

[CamrnCrz1974]

Clay Kallam offers a "politically incorrect" way to improve officials/officiating in the WNBA (and women's basketball in general):

If people are truly serious about improving the quality of officiating in the WNBA, there is one thing that must happen: The WNBA must back off its commitment to rapidly promoting female officials.

Of course, there are many outstanding female officials. There is absolutely nothing that involves gender that interferes with a person's ability to officiate at WNBA game. That is not the issue.

The issue is that there are far, far fewer females involved in officiating than males. If you want the best officials, the 99th percentile officials, then men and women should be treated exactly equally. That is not the case in the WNBA – female officials get a break.

That said, female officials are discriminated against when it comes to working men's games. It cuts both ways. Nonetheless, the math is clear. If you take the 99th percentile of 1,000 officials, you get 10. If you take the 99th percentile of 100 officials you get one.

I would maintain that nationwide the ratio of male to female officials at all levels is much much greater then 10 to 1 – probably closer to 20 to one or maybe even 30 to 1.

Approximately 33 officials are on the WNBA referee roster, and 11 are women. If the ratio is 10 to 1, there should be about three who are in the 99th percentile; if the ratio is 30 to 1, there should be around one.

Of course this is politically incorrect, and runs counter to a basic building block of the WNBA, but it's all about the numbers. And maybe if male officials felt that they would get precisely the same treatment as female officials, more of them would want to work in the WNBA.

(Just to repeat: Female officials are just as good as male officials. That's not the point.)​

 

[bags27]

I don't understand (could be me, I'm a complete math doufus) why you impose a 10:1 ratio on anything. The top 1 percentile is 1 in 100. Strikes me that, by that reasoning, the WNBA should fire all but a fraction of one male (1% of 22) and a smaller fraction of one female (1% of 11). Silly, of course. Edwards Deming revolutionized the way we think about work assessment (Quality Improvement). If you fire everyone below the top 1%, there will always be people fired. Better to work on improving whom you have. Because if you fire everyone you say you're going to fire, are you absolutely sure you'll be able to replace them with better people? And completely aside from the gender issue, a firing culture destroys morale: the beatings will continue until morale improves.

 

[OldAlum]

It seems that argument might have some merit for a total league overall referee performance, but if the best officials are chosen for the Finals, it doesn't seem to apply to the issues there. Presumably there are enough "best" referees that any female ref who might have been chosen over a more qualified male wouldn't have reffed the game. That the "best" refs missed calls that were not charge/block type judgments but enforcing concrete rules is worrying.

 

[j66kicker]

I don't understand (could be me, I'm a complete math doufus) why you impose a 10:1 ratio on anything. The top 1 percentile is 1 in 100. Strikes me that, by that reasoning, the WNBA should fire all but a fraction of one male (1% of 22) and a smaller fraction of one female (1% of 11). Silly, of course. Edwards Deming revolutionized the way we think about work assessment (Quality Improvement). If you fire everyone below the top 1%, there will always be people fired. Better to work on improving whom you have. Because if you fire everyone you say you're going to fire, are you absolutely sure you'll be able to replace them with better people? And completely aside from the gender issue, a firing culture destroys morale: the beatings will continue until morale improves.

I think the 10:1 ratio was his estimate of male to female refs over all leagues. Saying stop the affirmative action on the WNBA ( where it is only 2:1) and let men compete on a level playing field. Also don't think he was advocating firing all but the 99th percentile - just pointing out how few truly great female refs there can be since there are so few female refs overall.

I would advocate to do as GE, Danaher and some other ultra-successful companies do and fire the bottom 10% every year. You can't make greatness out of incompetence. They call it "top grading." Putting up with "C" players only weakens overall performance and drags down the morale of the "A" players.

 

[RogueDave]

I think the 10:1 ratio was his estimate of male to female refs over all leagues. Saying stop the affirmative action on the WNBA ( where it is only 2:1) and let men compete on a level playing field. Also don't think he was advocating firing all but the 99th percentile - just pointing out how few truly great female refs there can be since there are so few female refs overall.

I would advocate to do as GE, Danaher and some other ultra-successful companies do and fire the bottom 10% every year. You can't make greatness out of incompetence. They call it "top grading." Putting up with "C" players only weakens overall performance and drags down the morale of the "A" players.

I would rethink quoting GE as ultra-successful: Since Immelt took over as GE’s CEO in September 2001, GE’s stock is down 21.1 percent. The S&P 500 is up 100.8 percent in that time.

I would not emulate a Basketball Referee performance program on a losing business cultural model.

My perception for the the key to developing improved officiating is start them young...give officiating its due...underscore how essential it is to fair competition...give it cultural prestige so that more young, astute and talented people would be attracted to the profession...

When was the last time ESPN interviewed the officiating team or they were involved post game press conference reviewing the key calls they had to make during the game...build fan understanding and appreciation...

Dedicate air time to allow them to share the competency level and judgement needed by outstanding officials...Perhaps this is a new segment to be part of the standard broadcasts...

 

[j66kicker]

When was the last time ESPN interviewed the officiating team or they were involved post game press conference reviewing the key calls they had to make during the game...build fan understanding and appreciation...

Dedicate air time to allow them to share the competency level and judgement needed by outstanding officials...Perhaps this is a new segment to be part of the standard broadcasts...

The networks do use former officials as broadcast analysts (re. Mike Pereira - Fox, Mike Carey - CBS). I think this is partly because of the complexity of the NFL rules nowadays and how they are interpreted (i.e. "What's a catch?"). Hadn't thought about whether this gives the actual refs more credibility...? We certainly noticed the difference with the NFL replacement refs a few years ago - where after a few games the public basically demanded that the NFL settle their labor dispute and get the regular refs back to work.

Tough issue for the WNBA. They can't afford to pay their refs, so why would a good ref want to ref in the WNBA?

 

[RSHERMVIKES]

I think the evaluation process or lack of same is the biggest reason Officials are lousy in WBB!
If they would sit and/or fine lousy performances from refs I think the work will improve tremendously!

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

I'm not sure the problem is with female officials.

For all the comments about male officials, there is a huge pay difference between men's and women's side, so the best male officials are going to end up where they get paid the most.

I've seen only a few truly terrible officials, that in my opinion "gots to go", and some of them went, unfortunately only to the next level down. A lot of the rest presumably could get better.

I agree that there doesn't seem to be a lot of "mentoring" of younger refs. There are camp type programs where refs can go, but I don't know that the ones that think they are good actually go there.

 

[CCinCT]

June Corteau - Strange But True

No bias here - check out Kibitzers last post in the thread.

 

[ThisJustIn]

I think the evaluation process or lack of same is the biggest reason Officials are lousy in WBB!
If they would sit and/or fine lousy performances from refs I think the work will improve tremendously!

You're wrong, and exclamation points doesn't help your argument. Officials suck in EVERY sport. Just because you can't acknowledge that doesn't make it true...

 

[BroadwayVa]

I don't understand (could be me, I'm a complete math doufus) why you impose a 10:1 ratio on anything. The top 1 percentile is 1 in 100. Strikes me that, by that reasoning, the WNBA should fire all but a fraction of one male (1% of 22) and a smaller fraction of one female (1% of 11). Silly, of course. Edwards Deming revolutionized the way we think about work assessment (Quality Improvement). If you fire everyone below the top 1%, there will always be people fired. Better to work on improving whom you have. Because if you fire everyone you say you're going to fire, are you absolutely sure you'll be able to replace them with better people? And completely aside from the gender issue, a firing culture destroys morale: the beatings will continue until morale improves.

Bags ---it isn't about MATH---it's about people. Since i was a toddler raised by my Mom--i knew Women were smarter and if given the chance could do almost anything a man could do (within physical reasoning). I raised a passel of successful women thinking that way. It caused some frustration cuz the world hadn't caught up to mom.

Without testing 100 refs in the WnBA or WCBB you have no basis to determine whether 10 women or men are the best. Some attributes of humans may be quantified mathematically---but Ref--ing is about intellect, quick minded, eye to brain coordination, physical stamina, ---
Ref-ing is demanding--a lot of movement and running--the brain must be engaged/dedicated for 60 percent or more of the time they are on the job--mental exhaustion isn't easy to detect.
To do this right take all WnBA/WCBB ref's and put them through a controlled game/test of all aspects of mental and physical characteristics required--it's called psychophysiology testing--
If the Army can do it with Solder jobs Woman Ref-ing should be easier.