Few females wear the stripes

NORTHWEST ARKANSAS -- Courtney Orr always wanted to be a football player. Growing up in Rogers, Orr was a standout softball pitcher who earned a full college scholarship. But her love of football remained, so she turned a connection into a career path few females tread.

"I always wanted to play, but my dad never let me be a football player," said the 33-year-old Orr. "He didn't want me out there with the boys. But I always loved it, and this was the best way to get me out there on the football field.

"Being under the Friday night lights, there's nothing like it."

The connection came through former high school softball coach Heather Monroe, whose husband is an NFL official. Monroe coached Orr at Rogers High School as a student intern.

Orr was visiting the Monroes in 2011 when Jonah Monroe cued up a football game on his DVD player to critique the officiating. They talked football the whole time, Orr recalled.

"He asked me if I ever thought about officiating football," she said. "I said, honestly, I didn't know that I could, but it sounded fun."

He made a few calls on her behalf, including one to Don Brodell with the Arkansas Activities Association. She wore the stripes for the first time a few months later after attending officiating clinics.

Sarah Thomas became the first female official in the NFL in 2015. Major League Baseball has never hired a female umpire, and the same goes for the National Hockey League. There have been few female referees in the NBA.

Brodell, an associate executive director of the activities association, estimates about five female high school football officials in the state, and five to 10 high school baseball umpires.

A mutual friend also introduced Kim Elliott Vaught, 25, to basketball officiating.

"I was hanging out with a girl I played with in high school, and she told me she was going to a reffing camp the next day, and, I was like, 'I want to go,'" Vaught said. "It was a camp in Little Rock, and I just loved it.

"Growing up, I was exposed to a lot of female officials in my career, and I wanted to have a positive impact as a female official, too."

Laurie Adkins, 54, of Farmington, has more than 30 years of experience as a sports official in volleyball, basketball and baseball. She was invited to Fort Meyers, Fla., this spring to umpire a Boston Red Sox fantasy camp as well as the USA Team trials.

Adkins has been a baseball umpire in the state for many years and has umpired state tournament and championship games.

"I got into this more out of necessity than anything else," said Adkins, who was a longtime high school and college softball coach. "We needed officials, so I would officiate other sports when I wasn't coaching."

Orr still gets a kick out of seeing the reaction from high school football players when they recognize she is not "one of the guys."

"They're like, 'Oh, dude, is that a girl? I think that's a girl.' You could hear them talking. It's an experience for sure," she said.

Orr and Adkins agree being a female in a male-dominated profession puts additional pressure on them to make good calls.

"I know that all eyes are on me at all times when they figure out I'm a woman," Orr said. "I don't ever want to make a mistake, obviously, but I do know that I'm more under the microscope."

Adkins said the atmosphere has improved since she started as a baseball umpire. She often would be immediately targeted as the weak link in the umpiring crew even when her years of experience far exceeded that of her male partners, she said.

Vaught brings a unique perspective into her officiating as the wife of former West Fork boys' basketball coach Cody Vaught. They were married in June, and Cody has since taken a position at the new Ozark Catholic High School in Tontitown.

Because Cody was coaching and she was officiating at another school, they often did not see each other until they got home after their games. The discussion around the late night dinner table often led to Cody complaining about an official's call, or Kim talking about a coach's actions in her game.

"I kind of have to bite my tongue on some things, and I'm sure he does, too," she laughed. "Of course, there's that one play that the refs missed that was a game-changer for him. And I'm like it probably was the right call. And I tell him this coach said this and did this, and he's like, 'Well, you probably missed it then,' and I'm like 'No I didn't!'

"So we've had to work on that for three years. But it has taught me a lot because I'm able to think more from the coach's perspective."

Orr and Vaught officiate college sports in addition to high school.

Away from officiating, Orr had been her grandmother's primary caregiver for five years before she died recently. Orr plans to venture into education as a substitute teacher this fall with an eye on coaching.

Vaught is a mental health therapist at Ozark Guidance focusing on children in foster care. Adkins, a former longtime coach, has a lawn care business she named Mother Mows Best.

All three agree more needs to be done to recruit females into officiating, especially in the sports long considered male-only like football and baseball.

"I know there are plenty of females out there who want to officiate, they just don't know how to get into it, how to get their foot in the door," Orr said. "I think for any sport if you are physically able and know the rules, I don't think gender should be an issue at all."

Sports on 08/22/2018