A little perspective, anyone…?

KING5.com Story - High School Refs Could Be Penalized for Pink Whistles @ Yahoo! Video

I have to admit that I am more than a little bit puzzled over this one.

I'd like to review the highlights of the story and its background to make sure that I'm not missing anything here. If I inadvertently leave something out – particularly something that might provide a better understanding to the whole thing, please let me know…

a. In recent months there has been a great deal of awareness-raising for cancer – both the disease and the research for it
b. Cancer has yet to have been defeated by science, so the more people join in the awareness campaign, the donations campaign, etc. then the better chance we have of defeating cancer in our lifetime.
c. Fans and athletes at many sporting events on all levels – high school, college and professional have taken part in this awareness campaign by wearing pink shoes, ribbons, etc.
d. The high school football in question was also used as a major Cancer Awareness event, and the officials – on their own volition decided both to donate one game's pay to cancer research as well as to be part of the spirit of the event and the entire movement by using pink whistles for this one game.

Now – maybe it's just me, but I would think that these officials should be getting a national recognition for their willingness to see the much bigger picture than a high school football game. They understood that this particular game was being used as a platform for a very important cause, and they chose to be a part of it 2 ways – putting some money up and joining all of the fans and millions of people worldwide with the use of the color pink to heighten awareness to cancer.

If I were on the Washington Officials Association (WOA), the body that oversees officials at all sanctioned sporting events in the state, I would want to show my appreciation for the gesture these officials made – perhaps by having the WOA match their donation for cancer research; or perhaps by having officials of all sanctioned sporting events in the state use pink whistles for the next week, or whatever period of time.

Unfortunately, I'm not in the WOA, and I'm not even anyone of importance that the WOA would ever listen to or give a damn what I think.

This is especially a pity because the WOA apparently has a very different reaction to the officials' gesture than I do. Their approach is that since the uniform protocol is supposed to use black whistles, then these officials were in violation of the rules and need to be appropriately punished.- probably being prevented from officiated a couple of playoff games and therefore losing their salaries for those games (in addition to the one game salary that they have all decided to donate to cancer research!).

The WOA official interviewed says that "it sends the wrong message to kids that are playing the games. That if they (the referees) can choose to break the rules, then why can't other people do the same thing?"

Pardon my ignorance here, but are you kidding me???

The only message these officials are sending to the kids playing the game is that there are things more important than a football game, and while we're out here having a great time on the field, let's not forget some of the battles that we all have together as part of the global community.

If the WOA can't see far enough past their precious rule book to see the real message here, then perhaps the state of Washington needs to replace its overseeing body of sports officials.

And if these officials truly are punished for their actions last week, then I hope that every athletic official in the state of Washington as well as every athlete goes on strike and refuse to play or officiate a single sporting event until both the punishment is overturned and Todd Stordahl is replaced as the head of the WOA.

Personally, as someone whose mother is (thanks God) a cancer survivor, as someone who has lost other friends to cancer, and as someone who right now has a couple of friends currently fighting cancer (including one friend whi is hospitalized in Jerusalem as this is being written), I salute every one of the officials, players, fans and organizers who have managed to turn an "ordinary" high school football game into an extaordinary example of what's truly important in life.