Centennial-Beverly Hills--A Game With Real Lessons : Platform

On Oct. 20, at a football game between Compton Centennial and Beverly Hills high schools at Beverly Hills, Centennial player Kumasi Simmons punched referee Ken Smotrys, later charging that Smotrys had used a racial epithet to him and another player. The punch was videotaped and has been replayed on television news and magazine shows. Smotrys denied using the epithet.

There’s no such thing as race on the playing field.

KEN WILSON

Manhattan Beach

Assigner, South Bay Unit, Southern California Football Assn.

I think that our officials are colorblind. I don’t think that our black officials call it a bit differently if the team is white than they would if the team is black. And I don’t think that our white officials call it any differently if the players are black rather than white.

I have never heard of an official using a racial slur [prior to the current incident]. I would expect that in any game when a coach or player hears something that he considers a racial slur, he would report it. Racial incidents are so alien to officiating. You just can’t officiate if you have racial feelings.

In the Centennial-Beverly Hills game, it seems to me that if a racial slur were used, it would be equally offensive to Beverly. Most of their coaches are black. Many of their players are black.

Officiating is not a perfect science. A person who wants an official to be perfect ought to take a course in perception to see how difficult it is for any two people to see the same thing just alike. But officials strive for perfection.

All across the state, officials are governed by the code of ethics of the National Federation of State High Schools Assn. The code includes the officials’ knowing the rules of the game, carrying out the rules in a fair and unbiased manner, not using the position of official to benefit themselves and honoring their contract [to attend a particular game] regardless of inconvenience or financial loss. I don’t assign an official to a school where he graduated in the past seven years or to a school where his wife works or his children attend.

Our officials don’t use profanity in front of kids, and even in a fight between players, the officials don’t touch the kids. They let the coaches handle the players.

I taught high school for 37 years. A team can lose 35-0 and some kid will say, “Well, if it wasn’t for the officials. . .” I think that spectators and athletes and coaches and officials all have to keep in mind that the purpose of the game is competition for boys and girls. Sayings like “Winning is the main thing and the only thing” are not good things to teach high school students. We should teach kids to win with dignity and to lose with dignity.