The old song lyric goes, "There are none so blind as those who will not see." A federal court here in Chicago will get a chance to test that adage in a case involving, of all things, a one-eyed football official. The plaintiff is a former Big Ten football referee who lost his eye six years ago in an accident. According to the lawsuit, the referee informed the head of Big Ten officiating about the accident and his condition and was told to press on. He was allowed to officiate games over the next six seasons, including two Orange Bowl games, apparently with no one other than the Big Ten official knowing about the referee's condition. However, when a reporter called the head coach at Michigan and told him that his games were being officiated by a ref with only one eye, the coach contacted the Commissioner of the Big Ten and asked, basically, what the heck was going on.
After the plaintiff was removed from his job, he sued alleging a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. While I can empathize with the legal aspects of this case -- after all, the guy apparently worked for six years without anyone finding out he had monocular vision -- the idea of having a referee in high-profile sporting events with only one eye creates obvious problems. Notwithstanding whatever adjustments you could train your mind to make, the bottom line is that one eye is not as good as two. Even with other officials on the field to assist with the calls, I don't know of a single coach or player willing to add new meaning to the term "judgment call" by imposing a physical limitation over the top of the normal limitations on perception. There are good reasons, for example, that the Department of Transportation does not allow drivers with only one eye to hold commercial vehicle licenses. There are plenty of situations where football officials are positioned in such a way so that only one of them has a clear view of an event on the field and has to make a call. Why program a major limitation into those situtations? Especially when there are already enough claims that refs are unable to see?
On the flipside, apparently this condition was not so problematic that it caused a consistently poor performance on the part of the official. Moreover, given the prevalence of television at Division 1 games, would it be a reasonable accommodation for the Conference to adopt some type of instant replay provision to accommodate the official's disability? While the refs may be badly positioned to see a call, it's rare that there is not a TV camera somewhere with an adequate view of the action to sustain or overturn the on-field decision. Should the conference be required to put instant replay provisions in effect for this gentleman?
One thing's for sure -- every single game this gentleman officiated over the last five years is going to be reviewed and re-reviewed and any judgment calls he makes will be examined carefully. I can see the Conference saying that it's entitled to have the very best people who are fully capable of perceiving everything around them on the field for these games. At the same time, the fact that this gentleman threw the flag and tossed the coin adequately for five years is a strong argument that he was able to perform the essential elements of his job, without an accommodation.
Stay tuned.