NFL hires first female official

[EmotionallyUnstable]

Hope she can hold her own in a scrum vs. the big boys. Other than that, if she can do the job, why not?

 

I'm curious about her career path

[machine gun kelly]

She'll be fine. She's done pre-season, hired to ref at training camp for NFL teams and been reffing for big name teams in college for 6-7 years. much ado about nothing. Happy for her and could care less if she is a woman if she gets the call right.

[dwight in philly]

no they just hired the first woman they saw walking out of the hair salon. seriously?

you mean break down barriers? yea I wish it weren't so obvious either.

 

....i just don't get the cynicism.

hey j-off.. i was just offering an opinion.. no need for the sarcasm .. go save the whales.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

not sure why this is a big deal. Sexism and Racism will not go away as long as this kind of attention is brought to it.

 

Welp, then, since they won't go away as long as no kind of attention is brought to them I guess we're all stuck

[machine gun kelly]

For the above poster, she's a pharma rep, and been reffing from high school up for more than a decade. She's reffed D1 for several years and my above comments.

 

No negative comments I've heard about her so she's not window dressing. She's a real line judge. For anyone who has that problem with her, you have to ask why?

 

She came up like the other male counterparts. I have a good friend doing SEC games who was a previous NFL player who is on the short list to get into the NFL as it is a heck if a side gig.

 

She may have been moved up on the whole domestic violence thing, but she is qualified. That stuff happens everyday. I'm always asked in Med Device to cast a wide net for diversity candidates which I do, but I never hire anyone but the best. I jsut work a little harder to find diversity candidates to give every chance. I don't have a problem with it as I've never been told not to hire the best person, and I;ve had very diverse regions. I'm glad they gave her a shot. It will be better when we don't care. Then we've arived.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

where do these new officials generally come from? I'm guessing college football, but there is no mention of their background.

 

College football. Background here:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2015/04/08/398317603/nfl-makes-it-official-sarah-thomas-is-first-woman-to-be-a-full-time-ref

 

More background here:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/lindseyadler/sarah-thomas-glass-field#.plYrWg16A

Edited April 8, 2015 by Hopeful

[Hapless Bills Fan]

where do these new officials generally come from? I'm guessing college football, but there is no mention of their background.

 

College.

 

Apparently also the NFL runs a ref training program which she participated in, ref'd preseason games and was on the short list to be hired last year.

[dubs]

For the above poster, she's a pharma rep, and been reffing from high school up for more than a decade. She's reffed D1 for several years and my above comments.

 

No negative comments I've heard about her so she's not window dressing. She's a real line judge. For anyone who has that problem with her, you have to ask why?

 

She came up like the other male counterparts. I have a good friend doing SEC games who was a previous NFL player who is on the short list to get into the NFL as it is a heck if a side gig.

 

She may have been moved up on the whole domestic violence thing, but she is qualified. That stuff happens everyday. I'm always asked in Med Device to cast a wide net for diversity candidates which I do, but I never hire anyone but the best. I jsut work a little harder to find diversity candidates to give every chance. I don't have a problem with it as I've never been told not to hire the best person, and I;ve had very diverse regions. I'm glad they gave her a shot. It will be better when we don't care. Then we've arived.

I don't think people question her qualifications. Rather I think most people are sick of having PC BS shoved down our throats by a progressive media and the twittersphere. The vast, overwhelming majority of people have not problem with diversity or equality. In fact most people are so past it that raising the issue comes across as forcing an agenda rather than actually living in a country that has more equality and opportunity than any on the planet or in history (thankfully)

 

To your last point. I think most people don't care. And that's fantastic. They don't care because it's not an issue. Except for the activists which only care because their livelihoods depend on it, which is obviously very irritating to the rest of the public.

Edited April 9, 2015 by dubs

[Clippers of Nfl]

i have not read a single response yet.

i will come back to them.

 

at this time my response is GREAT!!!!

 

Edit:

No one really said anything really wrong or negative, so I'll sleep good tonight.

*************************************

 

My real response is I wish all the refs were women.

Edited April 9, 2015 by Clippers of Nfl

[Hapless Bills Fan]

Hope she can hold her own in a scrum vs. the big boys. Other than that, if she can do the job, why not?

 

I'm curious about her career path

 

Can Ed Hochuli hold his own in a scrum with the big boys? He is 64 yrs old. How about some of these other refs that don't look so fit as Hochuli?

 

I don't think that's a job requirement. Commanding respect and being able to de-escalate fights with authority, yes.

 

She's from Mississippi. I don't think she'll have any trouble with that.

[gobilz]

how is she related to Kraft?

[Hapless Bills Fan]

I don't think people question her qualifications.

 

Ho, let's see what we gots here:

 

was she hired because she is a woman? does she have the background, the cred? is she this year's version of michael sam and the NFL trying to be PC?

 

 

Nice PR move.

 

 

Hmm, a lot of domestic violence cases in the NFL. What would be great PR?

 

 

As long as she doesn't power trip like female police officers this is cool.

 

 

Hope she can hold her own in a scrum vs. the big boys. Other than that, if she can do the job, why not?

 

Lessee, we got questioning if she was hired 'cuz: woman; we got 2-3 implied questionings by asserting it's a PR move, and we got a couple of implied requirements boy refs aren't held to "hope can she hold her own in a scrum" "as long as she doesn't power trip" (power trip? no, that's never an issue for male cops. Or refs).

 

Nope, nobody questioning her qualifications here.

 

Rather I think most people are sick of having PC BS shoved down our throats by a progressive media and the twittersphere. The vast, overwhelming majority of people have not problem with diversity or equality. In fact most people are so past it that raising the issue comes across as forcing an agenda rather than actually living in a country that has more equality and opportunity than any on the planet or in history (thankfully)

 

You may be right. Problem is only takes a vocal minority of people to cause problems with both (diversity and equality).

 

True story. Symphony orchestras. All about the music, so past concerns like diversity and equality, just hiring the best candidates and they happen to be predominantly male.

 

Changed to a blind audition process where the identity of the musician is hidden from the jurors assessing performance. Number of women in symphony orchestras suddenly jumped 5x. Huh.

[devldog131]

Conversation on the sideline may be strangely reminiscent of conversation in my house...

[LB3]

Good for her. I just hope she doesn't fall into the trap that I've seen before where things could be misconstrued as her overcompensating. Like letting things go others wouldn't.

 

I've only ever seen a female referee in a male sport in the UFC. My biggest gripe with her is that, and I readily admit she might just truly be a savage, she always breaks grappling up WAY too quickly. She does it to get the striking portion going again because it's what people want to see, especially the mouth breathers. Yes, it's exciting, but she'll stop things that could potentially end in a choke out a minute later if she let them work. It's like she's pandering mostly to the dbags who watch the sport. She's one of the worst because of this.

 

I know there was some issue with Chris Paul and a female ref but I don't know enough about that to comment.

[KD in CA]

I don't think people question her qualifications. Rather I think most people are sick of having PC BS shoved down our throats by a progressive media and the twittersphere. The vast, overwhelming majority of people have not problem with diversity or equality. In fact most people are so past it that raising the issue comes across as forcing an agenda rather than actually living in a country that has more equality and opportunity than any on the planet or in history (thankfully)

 

To your last point. I think most people don't care. And that's fantastic. They don't care because it's not an issue. Except for the activists which only care because their livelihoods depend on it, which is obviously very irritating to the rest of the public.

 

Bingo. And it didn't seem to be an issue here until a few of the "oh, let's trumpet the progress (aka, let's whine about our perceived 'issues' and lack of progress)" crowd chimed in.

 

I don't know anyone who will give a flying fig if the ref is a guy or girl.

[FireChan]

Good for her. I just hope she doesn't fall into the trap that I've seen before where things could be misconstrued as her overcompensating. Like letting things go others wouldn't.

 

I've only ever seen a female referee in a male sport in the UFC. My biggest gripe with her is that, and I readily admit she might just truly be a savage, she always breaks grappling up WAY too quickly. She does it to get the striking portion going again because it's what people want to see, especially the mouth breathers. Yes, it's exciting, but she'll stop things that could potentially end in a choke out a minute later if she let them work. It's like she's pandering mostly to the dbags who watch the sport. She's one of the worst because of this.

 

I know there was some issue with Chris Paul and a female ref but I don't know enough about that to comment.

He bitched about some ref, who happened to be a girl. It wasn't sexist in the slightest.

[KingRex]

The fact that a move like this is positive PR sorta demonstrates that it's unnecessary.

 

Its reaction to this positive because it is a reversal of past practices by the NFL which has resulted in ref decisions which run the gamut from normal fan whining to clear cases where the refs blew it (fortunately many of these ref mistakes are now reversed on video, but some are just stupid (like blowing the call on a coin toss).

 

 

 

We're all just human so mistakes will happen. However, the NFL has left itself open to fan complaints about legit human error by not creating the largest pool of comptent refs possible.

 

this move DOES NOT as you falsely and demonstrably came because the NFL has no record (zero, nada, none) of having slightly more than half of all humans compete for ref jobs.

 

This record in the real world raises the real question of why they have not found even one woman to compete for a ref job. I doubt that suddenly we will have a 50/50 gender balance of refs, but I also find it hard to believe there are no women out there who could even purport to learn the game, run faster and longer, have better eyesight and even better judgment than some of the current geriatric types who probably should have been retired as working NFL refs long ago.

 

How can you oppose increasing the size of thee talent pool NFL refs are drawn from.

[FireChan]

Its reaction to this positive because it is a reversal of past practices by the NFL which has resulted in ref decisions which run the gamut from normal fan whining to clear cases where the refs blew it (fortunately many of these ref mistakes are now reversed on video, but some are just stupid (like blowing the call on a coin toss).

 

 

 

We're all just human so mistakes will happen. However, the NFL has left itself open to fan complaints about legit human error by not creating the largest pool of comptent refs possible.

 

this move DOES NOT as you falsely and demonstrably came because the NFL has no record (zero, nada, none) of having slightly more than half of all humans compete for ref jobs.

 

This record in the real world raises the real question of why they have not found even one woman to compete for a ref job. I doubt that suddenly we will have a 50/50 gender balance of refs, but I also find it hard to believe there are no women out there who could even purport to learn the game, run faster and longer, have better eyesight and even better judgment than some of the current geriatric types who probably should have been retired as working NFL refs long ago.

 

How can you oppose increasing the size of thee talent pool NFL refs are drawn from.

You have zero reason to believe that there are women out there that are better than the best of the best male referees.

[ALF]

I hope she won't give Rex a penalty for colorful language

[Canadian Bills Fan]

Conversation on the sideline may be strangely reminiscent of conversation in my house...

 

 

Or...

 

"If you dont know then your in more trouble than you thought"

 

"If you have to ask then thats just sad"

 

 

 

CBF