It’s not normally particularly interesting sports news when a new official is hired. This is a little bit different.
Burt Likko is the pseudonym of an attorney in Southern California and the managing editor of Ordinary Times. His interests include Constitutional law with a special interest in law relating to the concept of separation of church and state, cooking, good wine, and bad science fiction movies. Follow his sporadic Tweets at @burtlikko, and his Flipboard at Burt Likko.
1) Your link is dead.
2) Based on context clues, I am assuming you are referring to the hiring of Sarah Thomas.
3) The NFL generally doesn’t play the first Sunday in September.Report
#1 — I’ll fix that, thank you.
#2 — Yes.
#3 — Sorry, I couldn’t think of a better play off of the movie First Monday in October.Report
I never heard of that movie.
I had heard the phrase “First Monday” because of the TV show.
But yes, I was nitpicking.Report
Can we hate her because she’s a scab, as well as a pharmaceutical representative?Report
Yes on 2, but I don’t think she is a scab.
There was a female scab during the last strike, but it wasn’t her.Report
Oh, I misread the article, I thought she was the replacement ref as both the first names started with an “S”Report
Sarah Thomas did not work as a scab ref. That was Shannon Eastin.
I’m not normally all that upset about people who work scab, but NFL officials who have worked scab will have to overcome a substantial prejudice in my book based not so much on crossing the union line as performing incompetently after having done so.Report
Can we hate her because she’s a scab, as well as a pharmaceutical representative?
Sure! Just don’t hate her because she’s beautiful.Report
It will be interesting to see how this goes with fans and sports writers.
I still remember how sports writers, ex-players and so many fans argued so strongly that the hiring of Violet Palmer would destroy the NBA, and that doing so was needlessly putting her and players at risk.Report
There was the recent kerfuffle between Chris Paul and Lauren Holtkamp, which was illuminated with a gender lens (but notably, not a racial one)Report
There was, but it was really blown out of proportion by the media. Paul was clearly not questioning her overall competence, but just reacting as players do to calls they don’t like, during the course of which he referenced her gender. If that’s the extent of the kind of “problem” that the NFL ends up having with Sarah Tomas, then the experiment (hopefully they’re more committed to this than just to regard it as an experiment, but…) will be going swimmingly.
If that kind of thing is seen as an unacceptably big problem, then by that metric there will be issues. But it shouldn’t be. Players in male sports leagues are going to make isolated reference to the gender of pioneer female officials. So long as it’s not more widespread among players, and so long as coaches, teams, and the League stay thoroughly away from such comments, you’ll be doing as well as you can possibly expect to. There will be isolated references to officials’ gender by players within games.Report
The same kerfluffle happened in the English Premier League with Sian Massey-Ellis, and if anything the post-hooligan culture there is (despite progress) still even more toxic with respect to race and sex than the NBA or NFL. The worst fallout of her tenure has been that a couple of fossilized commentators managed to get themselves put to pasture a few years earlier than expected. There has been a singular lack of riots, even when she has been involved in extremely controversial decisions.
As Ms. Thomas has said, referees (with the exception of Ed Hochuli’s choice of sleeves) try to stay /out/ of the spotlight. So in principle, no one even notices them at all, much less what plumbing they might have.Report
Just to be clear about the last paragraph, the snark about Hochuli was inserted by me. The general intent about “not being seen” was what I got from the interview I heard. She was very diplomatic regarding her expectations for how she would be received by her colleagues and by the fans, and didn’t have a bad word for anyone.Report
Im curious what the hyperbole “the nfl moves into the 20th century” adds to the discussion or how it is even relevant.Report
I’m curious as to why you find the comment hyperbolic.Report
It would be hyperbolic to discuss one man, not one woman.Report
Because XY = 1 is a hyperbola. XX = 1 is two vertical lines. (Everyone got it, right?)Report
with a slice of lime.Report
“the nfl moves into the 20th century”
Who said that?Report
It’s in the front-page excerpt.Report
Ah, thanks. I even searched on the page and didn’t see it before.Report
When a person is not allowed hyperbole in a blog post, well, then sir, that signifies the downfall of our civilization! Hyperbole is not only protected by the very Constitution that guarantees the rights of the citizens of the greatest state in the history of Civilization, but it is downright encouraged! If you take away our right to hyperbole, you might as well take away our children, because there is no future for them anyway…Report
The liberty to indulge in hyperbole is the very best thing about being an American, isn’t it?
(FTR I thought I was being sarcastic, not hyperbolic.)Report