After Atalanta

Need a decent-paying part-time gig? Are you a former female athlete? Try refereeing. This article from an old Baltimore Sun addresses the need for refs at the junior and high school level because of the growing number of girls playing youth sports. This piece focuses on the lack of refs in lacrosse and field hockey but the overall trend is a lack of female refs in all sports. Because the pay might be good and it's a great way to stay involved in a sport you grew up around, but the work conditions are not always ideal. The article speaks to "the increasingly hostile environment for officials at games" and related the story of one new referee who quit after a season because of all the bad language directed her way. And one has to think, and there seems to be some research to back this up, that female refs get more crap than their male counterparts. A good example was Celtics commentator Cedric Maxwell saying that NBA ref Violet Palmer should "get back in the kitchen ...

When people ask, "Why hasn't a male (currently playing) professional athlete come out yet?" I just roll my eyes and either assume one, the asker is a journalist posing a rhetorical question that s/he feels makes him/her look sensitive to gay issues or, two, the asker is extremely naive and perhaps also living in a closet--just a different type of one. And when I hear about (thanks to JB for the alert) comments like those made the other day by Lakers coach Phil Jackson , I shake my head resignedly and say "See? This is why. Now stop asking this ridiculous question and let's start doing something about it." After the Lakers beat the Spurs, in part because of great outside shooting (they made 13 3-pointers), Jackson was asked about the 39 points and responded: "We call this a 'Brokeback Mountain' game, because there's so much penetration and kickouts." GLAD issued a statement that included this "Phil Jackson's been coaching long e...