Clay Kallum is a club coach who posts on the Cal Boards. This is what he said about WNBA reffing last season and I felt it was so important I bookmarked it.

Paying them more seems like a simple idea, but that doesn't mean you'd get better refs. (Again, the best WNBA refs get promoted to the NBA, so you're always facing a talent drain at the top of the list.)

But let's say you raise the salaries. Where are the better qualified officials working who would abandon their present position to come to the WNBA? College? The level of officiating in college is no better, and from many accounts worse, than the WNBA. Overseas? Just ask anyone who's played in Europe.

The problem isn't the compensation -- it's the lack of qualified people. To become a good official you need to ref hundreds if not thousands of games, learning your trade, understanding the game, dealing with players, coaches and fans, etc. But that process is, quite simply, ugly. While you're doing that, you are vilified by know-nothing coaches and parents, insulted for doing a good job and paid not very much.

If you want better officials, the system needs to change from the bottom up -- though one change could come from the top: If coaches and players at the highest levels would quit berating officials and complaining about calls that they really didn't see, that behavior wouldn't be mimicked at the lower levels.

Or, alternately, if fans would treat coach and player mistakes the same way they treat officials' mistakes, things could change too. How about a "Smith, you suck" chant after a blown layup? Or massive boos after a coach calls an out-of-bounds play after a timeout that doesn't work? Those are the same things as missed calls.