KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Michelle Campbell wants for Shannon Eastin what every official wants for every other official: wallflower status; complete anonymity; for her to fade quietly into the background at Qualcomm Stadium tonight; to lurk in the darkened wings of the stage, rather than the glare at the center.
"It's just sad that everybody pays attention to what her gender is," Campbell, a veteran high school referee from Ozawkie, Kan., says of Eastin, the first woman ever to officiate a National Football League game. "I guess we'll just have to see how many other games after the lockout that she gets. That, I guess, well be a telling tale."
Even if you don't recall Campbell's name, you may well recall her tale — and the incident that pushed her into the headlines more than four years ago. In February 2008, Campbell had been assigned to officiate a boys' basketball game at St. Mary's Academy, a private school roughly 25 miles northwest of Topeka. Just before tip-off, academy officials refused to let her work the contest, as their institutional doctrine — the school is operated by the Society of St. Pius X, which follows an older interpretation of Roman Catholicism — would not allow a woman to act as a "role model" for adolescent males.
Flabbergasted, she left. Campbell's male officiating partner walked off the floor as well; the firestorm that followed set off a national debate about gender equality and a school's religious principles, no matter how archaic may they sound in a 21st-century context. Shortly thereafter, the Kansas State High School Activities Association (KSHSAA) pushed to enact legislation that referees cannot be subject to discrimination by member schools based on their race, religion, gender or national origin.
"Apparently, (Eastin) loves the sport of football," Campbell says. "I wish her well and, you know, hope she calls it like she sees it. And with all her experience and everything, really, I have no doubt that she will do a great job. No doubt whatsoever."
Unlike Campbell, Eastin, who's called football games for 17 years, has stepped willingly into the spotlight — albeit through something of a side door. She's slated to serve as line judge for tonight's preseason game between the Green Bay Packers and San Diego Chargers, an opening created by the ongoing labor dispute between the NFL and its referees.
"I would say if she's qualified to do it, then great, kudos," Campbell notes. "It's too bad it's taken a lockout to give her the opportunity to do it. I guess sometimes that's maybe what it takes, something out of the ordinary, to give women an opportunity to break into a place that's pretty much male-dominated, male-oriented."
Campbell knows plenty about breaking barriers; she's an ex-jock herself, having walked on to the women's basketball team at Kansas State in the mid ‘70s, when Title IX was still in its infancy.
While in Manhattan, she played for legendary coach Judy Akers, who taught her not to accept second-best — or guff — from anyone. Campbell played at a pioneering, contentious era when, if the women's hoops players were using the weight room or the training facilities, they'd be shooed away the minute the stars from the men's team arrived. Today, when Wildcat fundraisers ask her to pitch in to the athletic department's capital campaign, her first question is: "How do I know, when I contribute my money, that everything's going to be equal for both men and women in those locker rooms?"
"Of course, they say a lot of that is changing now, but it's kind of like, ‘Put your money where your mouth is,'" Campbell says. "And they say it's because women don't pull in the money that the men do.
"But they do have a long way to go. And don't even get into my politics on it as a woman. I swear, if they had regulations or laws as to what a guy can do with his body, they'd be all over it … so they still have a long, long way (to go). Yes, women have made great progress and everything, but in my opinion, it's still not an equal playing field."
A park ranger by day, Campbell went on a three-year hiatus from officiating basketball contests after 2009 — "Having everybody recognize me … (that made me) decide to take a little break and separate myself from it," she says — but plans to return to both boys and girls games this fall.
"With St. Mary's and with me, I knew those boys out on the court, they had no idea what was transpiring in front of them," she says now. "It wouldn't have mattered if it was a pig officiating them, as long as they got to play their game … I think it's the adults that get all caught up in it."
In the weeks and months that followed the St. Mary's exchange, Campbell says, she got letters of support from female athletes, the relatives of female athletes, and her fellow referees. One school, she found out later, even held a moment of silence before a game in her honor.
"I've never read the blogs — I never went on to the computer to see what (people) were saying," Campbell says. "There were some I heard that were good stuff, and some were bad stuff. I didn't read any of that stuff. It was just kind of like, ‘Naw, I don't need to know what's going on.' Later, I had some other female officials come to me and say, ‘Hey, this happened to me,' and ‘I'm glad that this is now coming out into the open.'
"I still haven't done, to this day, a Google search or anything. And sometimes you can read (things) and get all mad and angry. That's not why I do this. I do it because in basketball, I love this sport. I officiate because it keeps me, it's kind of like an outside thing to keep me active, because I've always been involved in sports. I've always been a very sports-minded individual."
Campbell worked in the Albuquerque, N.M., police force for 20 years, where she refereed men's basketball games on the side — "I ejected a few guys out of the city league," she cracked — before deciding to move back to Kansas in 2005.
She didn't sign on to officiating male events to act as some kind of crusader, or to serve as the center of attention. At the same time, she says she can empathize with Eastin, and with what will probably be going through her mind as she takes the field in San Diego.
"I would assume, with her going into this line of sport, that she's very much aware of what can happen if she screws up a call," Campbell says. "And she probably has very thick skin. I would have no doubt that she can handle herself with coaches and with the fans and all of that. I wish her the best. I really do. I think it's great."
You can follow Sean Keeler on Twitter @seankeeler or email him at seanmkeeler@gmail.com
