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Former Raiders exec Amy Trask wants new ref Sarah Thomas to be booed

Former Raiders exec Amy Trask wants new ref Sarah Thomas to be booed

The NFL received some good press when it hired Sarah Thomas as its first female game official back in April, but there were some people worried about the extra attention, both good and bad, she might receive.

Not Amy Trask — in fact, she hopes Thomas hears a chorus of boos. You know, just like any other ref.

Trask, the former Oakland Raiders CEO, wrote a piece for The MMQB in which she hopes for — and expects — Thomas to be treated no differently than anyone else wearing the stripes. And that it would be a good thing if that happened.

Trask writes:

I also hope that Sarah Thomas is booed.

When Sarah Thomas throws a flag she shouldn’t have thrown — which she will, as all officials do — she should be booed. When Sarah Thomas fails to throw a flag she should have — which she will, as all officials do — she should be booed. Sarah Thomas should be booed as loudly and as resoundingly as her male colleagues are booed.

Gender equality means gender equality. And if gender equality is the expectation, all consequences that flow therefrom must be accepted, whether one likes them or not.

Amen. Thomas has said that she doesn't consider herself a trailblazer and doesn't want special treatment because she is a woman. She has worked at her craft and comes with excellent credentials to become a terrific referee in the NFL. But Trask is right: Even the best ones get booed, and it's not a job for the thin of skin. These guys get trashed on coaches, in bars and on the web every week during the season (search the name Jeff Triplette for a primer on this), and the good ones rarely are recognized properly.

Trask knows what it's like to be a trailblazer in a male-dominated NFL as the first female chief executive in league history, and she earns double points for dealing with the headstrong Al Davis all those years in Oakland. But she did it, she said, while receiving little "gender-based resistance" from players or game officials and expects Thomas to face a similar road as Trask did: difficult, but not because of her sex.

That's all Trask is hoping for, and it would appear to be what Thomas should want, too.

We're not going to make a joke about Thomas getting booed making her one of the guys, but ... well, yeah. It just makes her a ref, and one at the highest level of professional football, an achievement in and of itself.

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Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at edholm@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!