After another WNBA dust-up involving the Indiana Fever over the weekend, head coach Stephanie White went in on the league’s referees in a long postgame monologue that went viral online. This week on his radio show, Doug Gottlieb (who like White is both a head coach and commentator) took the time to back up White’s comments and take them a step further.
Tensions rose between the Fever and Connecticut Sun on Tuesday night as Sun guard Marina Mabrey shoved Fever star Caitlin Clark. The two clashed throughout the game. Later, Clark’s Indiana teammate Sophie Cunningham and Connecticut sidekick Jacy Sheldon joined in and were ultimately ejected for jawing at one another into the lower-level seats.
Not only did Gottlieb call WNBA officials insecure and use the incident to show how they lose control of games, he went on to elaborate on how women refs also “really struggle to handle the men’s game” when they call NBA and men’s college basketball contests.
“What Stephanie White is saying is true,” Gottlieb said on his show Wednesday. “Here’s the quiet part out loud. We have female officials in the men’s game here. I had one last year that I thought was actually really good, but some of them are not good enough.”
The reason, according to Doug Gottlieb, is that the women refs never played at a level of athleticism on par with the basketball they are officiating. Gottlieb said he sees it men’s college hoops, and believes that is also what White was calling attention to in her postgame comments.
“If you didn’t play it at a level, especially the men’s game is at or above the rim, and the physicality is so much greater than anything you’ve experienced as a female player … it’s so much more athletic and physical that they’re calling [fouls] that, they’re just late and they don’t have great perspective on,” Gottlieb explained. “And they miss them.”
Going further, Gottlieb discussed how gender dynamics skew the way in which women refs interact with players. In Gottlieb’s mind, women refs are insecure and become “super defensive” when challenged by teams and fans.
“Men and women are wired differently,” the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay coach said.
“Women are, we can say it’s a double standard and we can talk about how unfair it is, but they’re judged differently than men are. And because of that, it breeds insecurity. And when you have some of the coaches, and a lot of the big name players saying, ‘You stink, you’re not any good,’ constantly and we all know the fans, any time your team loses, it’s the officials’ fault. They become overreactive and super defensive, and then they screw up the game by calling everything. Which is, by the way, the next step in what happens in officiating Caitlin Clark’s games.”
Certainly, WNBA refs are under a microscope when officiating Clark’s games, for a variety of reasons. First, Fever games are the most-watched around the league. There is also a constant debate about how Clark is defended by opposing teams, and they physicality with which they play her. A hard foul from star defender DiJonai Carrington last year created an entire news cycle.
At the same time, there are six full-time NBA referees who are women. One, Ashley Moyer-Gleich, was selected to officiate the 2024 NBA playoffs. NCAA men’s basketball referee Amy Bonner called two tournament games this spring.
Increasing the number of women in NBA officiating is an issue that has been raised at the highest levels of the NBA, including by Adam Silver. Perhaps Gottlieb is identifying part of the issue for women to excel in the position, but he stepped beyond the challenges they face in keeping up with the game into generalities about women’s personalities.
“I’m anti-any referee who isn’t capable of doing their job. Man, woman, I don’t care if they’re trans,” Gottlieb added. “Doesn’t matter. I just want somebody to officiate the game where a foul on one end is a foul at the other end. A violation on one end is a violation on the other. But I will tell you that, from personal experience, women really struggle to handle the men’s game because of the physicality and plays at the rim. Two things that they weren’t a part of when they played. And it’s a tough adjustment to understand how to officiate it when it’s so much more physical, so much more athletic than anything they’re used to.”
Given that White’s initial statement was focused on the game against Connecticut and ejections for Cunningham and Sheldon, she may not love the idea of Doug Gottlieb co-opting her point for a broader commentary on women referees.