A New Field : Forlizzi and Wilcox Are Female Football Officials Who Throw Flags in Face of Offensive Stereotypes

A man rarely at a loss for an abrasive adjective when angry at football officials, Sylmar Coach Tom Richards searched for the proper words during a recent game. In 25 years as a football coach, this was one situation he had never encountered.

“Wonderful,” Richards grumbled. “About the last thing I need to worry about in a close ballgame is offending a female--especially a female referee .”

Richards thought about the dilemma for a moment, then realized--chivalry notwithstanding--that he had a game to win. He half-heartedly let a mild expletive fly.

Although she did not appreciate Richard’s tone, line judge Denise Forlizzi remained calm. As one of two female officials working City Section games in the Valley area, she knows abuse comes with the whistle and yellow flag.

“Four years of dealing with coaches has a way of desensitizing you to the language,” Forlizzi said. “But ideally, I want them to treat me just like they treat the other officials.”

Like Richards, most coaches and players simply don’t know how to react to the sight of a female in a striped shirt. Women don’t normally run the sidelines as a sideline.

“It’s funny,” Forlizzi said. “Some coaches treat me pretty well and others try to intimidate me. I don’t know if it’s because I’m a woman or because I’m an official. I try not to take it personally.”

In 3 1/2 seasons of officiating football from the youth leagues to the varsity level, Forlizzi has been bruised and belittled. She and Linda Wilcox, the other woman working as an official in the Valley, have been ragged from San Fernando to El Camino Real.

Both have developed thick skin. Said Wilcox, who umpires baseball in the spring: “I actually had one coach tell me that the only plate a woman should be behind is a dish plate. . . .

“That attitude is pretty common. Some coaches don’t seem to know that women have the right to vote and that Henry VIII isn’t in power anymore.”

On the field, however, it is Wilcox’s vote that counts.

“All officials have a strike against them when they walk onto the field,” she said. “But when you’re a woman, you’ve got another strike. You have to walk a very fine line. People are waiting for you to screw up.

“You don’t want to be Joe Official out there, but you almost have to be better than the rest of the crew. It can be a no-win situation. The crowd expects you to make mistakes, and if you do, you hear it.”

Forlizzi was the first to bend the imaginary gender barrier. At first, even the other referees were hesitant to accept her.

“I remember the first meeting I went to,” Forlizzi said. “I walked in and every head turned. Then they asked me if I could bring the coffee to the next meeting. I just thought ‘Yeah, won’t I.’ ”

When Wilcox joined the following season, little had changed. “I walked into the room and one of the guys asked me if I was lost or something,” she said.

Yet gradually they were accepted. Friends have also taken their hobby to heart.

“Most of my friends think it’s great,” Wilcox said. “It’s sort of a novelty to them.”

As opposed to an oddity?

“Sometimes I’m not so sure,” Wilcox said.

Some male friends don’t seem different from many of the coaches and players.

“At parties or wherever, I’ll hear guys talking about last night’s game, or some great play or something they saw on TV,” Wilcox said. “Lots of times they don’t really know what they’re talking about. But I can’t really afford to correct them too often. I want to maintain some semblance of a social life.

“I did have one guy tell me I’d have to quit if I wanted to date him. . . . I’m still officiating.”

In light of their activities from 9 to 5, neither would seem inclined toward spending Friday nights on a football field. Wilcox, 26, describes herself as a “struggling actress.” Forlizzi, 28, is a supervisor at a Los Angeles insurance firm.

At least Forlizzi has some previous experience with casualty and property battles. But acting apparently is applicable as well.

“There is a lot of acting involved in what we do,” Wilcox said. “Especially for Denise and myself. We are really on stage out there. We’re expected to be forceful. We have to sell the call.”

Even when players aren’t buying.

“A few games back I helped break up a fight on the field,” Wilcox said. “I was dragging one of the guys off the pile when he looked up and said, ‘Oh God, it’s a broad.’

“I said, ‘That’s lady to you buddy,’ and laughed,” she said. “You have to keep laughing.”

Said Wilcox, sarcastically: “Obviously the abuse is much too emotional for any female to handle.”

Sometimes, however, the game can hurt.

“I was blind-sided once last year,” said Forlizzi, who is 5-2. “I don’t know if the guy didn’t see me or if it was a cheap shot, but I got knocked around and sprained my wrist.”

All this for $36 per game, with no bonus for the hazards?

“Nobody is in this for the money,” Forlizzi said. “We do it because we like sports.”

Forlizzi’s brother and father also officiate. But her father, while encouraging her to try football officiating, had some reservations at first.

“We talked about it and figured there would be some problems,” Joe Forlizzi said. “But she has handled them. I’ve even found that some of the other referees have taken her under their wing. She does a pretty good job out there.”

While his evaluation is hardly objective, other estimations of the womens’ competence are also complimentary. Coaches file complaints against officials they feel are inferior. Neither Forlizzi nor Wilcox have received a written complaint this season.

“As far as the games they’ve worked this year, there have been no complaints,” said Dale Williams, the coordinator of athletic officials for the City Section. “But that’s not surprising. Denise has been around referees all her life and Linda’s father is a teacher. They’ve both been exposed to sports.”

Williams, who is an NFL official, believes the women are serious about officiating. “They both work very hard to be good officials,” he said. “These two are always at the clinics, putting in the extra time it takes to become a better official.”

Critics, however, believe the two would be better off in the stands, or better yet, in the kitchen. Harsh words often come from unlikely sources.

“I suffer from some of the same preconceived notions about women that a lot of the men do,” Wilcox said. “At games, I can hear women screeching at us from the stands and I find myself thinking ‘What could she possibly know about football?’

“Of all people, I should know better. They could know as much about the game as we do. But I still find myself thinking that they probably couldn’t tell a clip from clipped fingernails.”

It is surprising that anyone--male or female--would want to spend a weekend as the target of barbs.

“I don’t know why I do it,” Wilcox said. “I tend to get involved with charities and causes. Maybe this is one of them.

“But for every bad thing that happens, something good usually balances it out. Like the guy who made the crack about the plate. After the game he came up to me and told me I did a great job.”