Earning Their Stripes : Women Officials Make the Grade in Man’s Sport

Linda Wilcox ran up and down the sidelines at a high school football game, never hesitating to blow her whistle or throw a yellow flag or break up a scuffle between aggressive players.

Crenshaw Coach R.J. Garrett yelled at Wilcox, the only woman on the field, as he watched his team lose to Taft: “Damned! What’s a lady doing out here? No lady can keep up with those boys!. . . . Geez!. . . . Damn!”

He taunted her all night, and throughout most of the game referred to Wilcox as “Mr. Ref.” Garrett challenged many of her calls by whining, stomping and mumbling sarcastic comments directed at Wilcox.

Just another Friday night in the life of Linda Wilcox.

A graduate of Sylmar High and Cal State Northridge, the 34-year-old Wilcox has officiated high school football for 11 years. She is the only female City Section official in the area.

The only other woman referee in the area is 36-year-old Denise Forlizzi, who is in her 13th season and works Southern Section games.

Wilcox may be a veteran of the job, but she’s hardly treated like one of the guys. She says she encounters as much adversity today--mostly from coaches and some from colleagues--as she did a decade ago.

The snide remarks and condescension are as prevalent as they were when she first took the field in 1983.

“Some coaches still live in the dark ages,” she said before a game at Sylmar earlier this season. “It’s actually gotten worse for me because the higher you get, and the better games you ref, the worse it gets with the coaches. They just can’t seem to handle a woman out there.”

But Joe Forlizzi, a fellow referee and Denise’s brother who has been on the job 14 years, says most coaches treat Wilcox well because she has proven through the years to be efficient and knowledgeable.

“She does a great job,” he said of Wilcox. “She’s just one of the group. I guess the first couple of years coaches tried to rouse her up so they said a lot of stuff. But they really don’t do much of that anymore.”

The comments are not confined to coaches and colleagues. She also gets an earful, she says, from spectators, statisticians, players, coaches’ wives, the chain crew. . . . The list goes on and on.

Early in the Sylmar-Canoga Park game, two young men on the Canoga Park sideline directed obscenities at Wilcox following what they felt was a bad call.

Wilcox ruled that Canoga Park was inches short of a first down after a running play. The men, who had already made jokes about a woman football official, moaned and shook their heads then made the comments.

“I just laugh,” Wilcox said. “None of that bothers me. I can’t let it because it goes on all the time.”

Wilcox says a coach once told her to “go home and make dinner for your old man.” Another said: “How come they sent a woman out there to do a man’s job?”

All that abuse for only $48 a game. That brings up a simple but logical question. Why ?

“I guess because girls can’t play football and I’ve never shied away from a challenge,” Wilcox said. “I kind of like the excitement and bucking the system. But I still say anyone would have to have their head examined if they wanted to do this.

“Believe me there have been times where I’ve said, ‘I’m never coming back. I hate everything and everybody!’ But I keep coming back. For some reason I have a good time.”

Denise Forlizzi shares the sentiment, saying, “I’m certainly not doing it for the money. I guess I just enjoy being out on the field and I really like the challenge.”

Players, Wilcox says, tend to be the most respectful. She rarely hears snide remarks from them.

“They’re pretty good,” Wilcox said. “Though one time I was breaking up a fight on the field and when I pulled the top guy off the bottom guy, they both stopped and looked up and one of them said, ‘Oh God, it’s a broad!’ I said, ‘That’s lady to you, buddy!’ ”

During a recent junior varsity game at Sylmar, Wilcox ejected several players because they used foul language. Each left without saying another word.

“She’s good and she’s tough,” said Selvyn Cobos, a Canoga Park sophomore tackle. “It’s just a person out there as far as I’m concerned. As long as she makes the right calls, and she has been, I don’t see any problems.”

Wilcox umpired high school baseball and softball for 10 years. She also has officiated basketball and volleyball. She added football when a friend who served as the coordinator of local high school officials suggested she try it.

This year Wilcox gave up all sports except football because she is busy writing a novel and teaching a pilot class on conflict resolution at Chatsworth High. She also does some acting and has appeared in several television commercials.

Forlizzi, a regional sales manager for Alta-Dena Dairy, became an official because her father and brother did it. She believes attitudes have improved though she still encounters some difficulties.

“Recently I was at a meeting of Los Angeles unit refs and when I walked in they looked at me like I just came out of a science-fiction movie,” Forlizzi said.

“There were about 60 refs there and I was the only woman. There’s still surprise and skepticism. I still feel like I have to work extra hard to get the same recognition as males.”

But if more than a decade of being treated like an outsider hasn’t discouraged Forlizzi and Wilcox, nothing apparently will. Both said they expect to be on the sidelines for years to come.