Bill Pucko today gets something right in comparing accredited basketball referee Michelle Campbell to suffragist Susan B. Anthony, and lauding the actions of Darin Putthof and Fred Shockey, a couple of male refs who refused to join a Kansas school’s misogyny at a recent game. Unfortunately, right after that he reverts to his normal crapheadedness with an attack on Roger Clemens.

NB: I’m a big fan of women’s basketball, and Title IX is one of the best pieces of legislation ever in my not very humble opinion. One of the things it does is make possible women’s sports in school — basketball, volleyball, tennis, track, golf, soccer, hockey. From the time I can remember, “the” game every Friday night was football — and just by the nature of the beast it was no place for girls, even though in the 1980s we had “powder puff” leagues (yeah, right.) — so I took it as a high compliment, my sophomore year, when one of our high school coaches asked me if I’d be interested in playing linebacker (this was based on my ability to navigate crowded halls with big loads of books and be on time, kinda regardless of the chaos in my wake). Fast-forward 30 years, and here we are: an accredited professional referee is being told by a bunch of religious nutjobs in Kansas that she can’t do her job, because for her to be “in authority over boys” violates their religious principles.

WTF, Over?

Religious principles say that a professional, accredited referee cannot officiate a basketball game, because she’s a woman and the players are boys?

It’s time for the Society of St. Pius X to be introduced to the 21st Century, methinks, posthaste. So good on the two male referees who refused to bow to the school’s religious principles — and I hope the Kansas athletic association investigating this travesty does yank St. Mary’s eligibility.

One of the players who starts for the wcbb team at my alma mater, Maria Moore, played two years of football as a wide receiver for her high school — not powder puff ball, either. Good for her (and yes, it leads to a rougher style of wcbb play, which I mourn; but her athletic ability is unquestionable. Her ball control, body control, and shooting ability are not so impeccable, and she gets her share of fouls.)