NFL may soon get its first female referee

NFL players may get to feel a woman's touch during games this fall, but it won’t be gentle. A labor standoff has locked the league’s refs out since June 3 and the NFL is prepping to use replacements. One of them could be the first to break through the gender gap and become the first woman to work as an on-field official at an NFL game. Shannon Eastin, who has refereed college games, was part of the first group of replacement refs who were trained on Friday in Dallas. Some comments on NFL.com were sadly predictable -- "it's going to be hard ref'ing from the kitchen," wrote one Neanderthal -- but our hope is that NFL fans treat female refs equally as badly as they do their male counterparts. [Source]