Apparently, the Washington Officials Association has reprimanded 143 football referees for wearing pink whistles during cancer awareness fundraisers.

The WOA says that the message they want to convey to kids is that rules cannot be broken. The four kids in my house, all current or recent student athletes, are of the mind that what is being conveyed is that hundreds of well-meaning individuals are being punished for supporting an exceedingly worthy cause via an obviously harmless method.

I am certain that if a straw poll were held right now, every single student athlete, parent and concerned relative involved in Washington school sports would hold no grudge toward an official for having contributed their time, effort and the wearing of pink attire to support a worthy cause such as the one for breast cancer research. This cannot be ignored. There are two kinds of calls a referee can make; a good one and a bad one. In the case of the WOA administration, this was a bad one.

Matt Weinberger, Federal Way