Hallmarks : Title IX opened doors for official
Posted on Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Lisa Pitts, who recently entered the Arkansas High School Coaches Association / Arkansas Officials Association Hall of Fame, says Title IX opened a lot of doors to women in sports.
During her early days officiating basketball, opportunities in sports for women were very few, she remembers. Title IX had just come out. Modern women's college basketball (as in 5-on-5 ) in the 1970 s-80 s was in its infancy.
"I had no idea what Title IX even meant," Pitts says. "But it was always a dream of mine to play college basketball."
If she couldn't play she'd find another way, which was officiating.
She started calling junior high basketball in Missouri in the early 1980 s shortly after she started working at the Glad / Clorox manufacturing plant here, owned then by Union Carbide.
"I wanted to officiate in northwest Arkansas to be close to my job," she says. She worked the graveyard shift, midnight to 9 a. m., so she could call games.
She got an Arkansas officials license, but got few calls to work.
"Back in the'80 s, coaches selected their own officials," she says. "Nobody thought a thing about that back then. It was tough. They went with who they knew. One, I was a female and two, nobody knew me. There was doubt there."
She says she was lucky to meet some officials who "took me under their wings."
"Today they are some of the best friends I have," she says, naming Lynden Polk and Jeff Caudle. "They were very well respected, well known in the officiating world."
Caudle of Fayetteville also was inducted into the Hall of Fame along with four others.
The three of them worked as a team.
"I'd do the JV game and the varsity girls game," she recalls. "They did the boys. It didn't matter to me; I wanted to officiate because I loved it. I had a passion for the game."
Meanwhile, Mike Fox, who formed a regional officials association, was officiating men's college basketball.
"I have to give that man a lot of credit," she says. He taught her good mechanics and sent her to an officiating camp in Conway.
Glen Siler, who entered the AHSCA / AOA Hall in 1999, was with the old Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference (AIC ) at the time. He talked to Pitts about working women's college basketball; she says she'd love to.
The AIC hired her in 1989 on a probationary basis, limiting her to two games.
"I worked the whole next year and the following year the AIC was gone," Pitts says. AIC schools went Division II.
She was hired in several D-II leagues before she worked a single Southeast Conference game. At one time, by her count, she worked in seven D-II leagues. She was constantly on the go "and I loved it."
She attended another camp, in Tifton, Ga. While there, she met the Commissioner of the SEC. Arkansas simultaneously bid adieu to the defunct Southwest Conference.
"That next summer I got a phone call from him," Pitts says, beaming. "He was assigning games at Arkansas. He asked me if I wanted to go down there and work a basketball game.
"I said, ' Well, sure: let me think about that. Yes. '"
She's became involved with USA Basketball, earning her international FIBA certification in 1994. At the time she was one of just four women nationally. She worked the 2005 Asian Games in Macau, China.
She remembers the Puerto Rico Junior National Championships she worked featured some of the best college players. She's done work for the USA Olympic Committee in Colorado Springs.
"It hasn't been easy but it's been well worth it," she says. "I've had a lot of good people around me that worked with me. I wouldn't be there today if it weren't for them. I've been very lucky, very fortunate to have had the opportunity.
"To get recognition, be inducted into the Hall of Fame – I never dreamed this would happen. It wasn't one of my goals when I started."
She began cutting back three years ago in 2005. She now works D-II, NAIA and juco games Thursday through Sunday.
"I got a different job here at the plant," she says. Before she worked a rotating shift and had more flexibility.
"This is my livelihood here at Clorox," she says, noting her 30 years of service. "They've been very supportive of what I do. They never said'Yes, Lisa you can have the day off to go officiate. ' No. We were able to trade days, take vacation. They worked with me within the guidelines of the system. "A lot of women should be thankful they did.
• • • Jim Hall is a part-time sports writer for The Benton County Daily Record. He can be reached by e-mail at jimh @ nwanews. com. The opinions expressed are those of the author.
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