What if Michael Phelps was black? What if Phelps was a two-time Olympic gold medalist for Team USA's men's basketball team and was caught taking a hit off a glass lettuce burner?

Are we ready to be honest? Before you answer, name the last time a black athlete was pardoned in public for owning a scandalous photo similar to the one that Phelps recently cop'd to?

I'm not taking up 'The Cause' -- whatever that is -- because there are a ton of instances that offer no rhyme or reason for why they occur within our media's obsession with the instantaneous crucifixion and subsequent resurrection of the subjects pushed in front of our collective conscience in the same knee-jerk fashion most of us would like to push our in-laws out in front of rush hour traffic. Bill Clinton was crucified for banging a not-so-very-hot intern; George Bush was ignored for purposed war crimes. Go figure. Why do Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmerio get a virtual pass for their suspected roles in baseball's performance-enhancing scandal when compared to the outright vicious response Barry Bonds has elicited from media and fans? Please don't tell me it's just because he owns baseball's most famous mark, because to do so would be an outright admission you're living with your head in the sand.

That said, I find it somewhat amusing that Phelps gets a pass on this photo in the manner I've witnessed. In the Detroit Free Press Monday, the the Off Beat column penned by Krista Jahnke was titled "So Michael Phelps Is Human After All". Nationally-syndicated radioman Jim Rome was quoted as saying with a DUI on his slate already, he's not human, he's building a body of work. Today's edition of The Detroit News featured columnist Bob Wojnowski pleading for calm and reason in relation to the mistake Phelps made.

It makes me remember Detroit Southwestern High grad Jalen Rose being arrested during his first year at Michigan (1992-93) for playing video games in a Detroit house that doubled as a drug den. I was on the desk at The Ann Arbor News on the Saturday night a story came hurdling down the wire almost a year after the actual arrest just minutes before the morning edition's 1:00 am deadline. As you can imagine, we held production and made room for the story on the front page above the fold. We told ourselves we were being responsible journalists. Today I look back and cringe.

Rose wasn't smoking, wasn't selling and wasn't buying. He was playing video games, but he played a brash, in-your-face style of basketball. Rose played the 'City Game', and White America wasn't ready for Rose's style of talk-you-down, break-you-down, drive you down on your ass and shout you down the court while wearing shorts with a foot more material than any player in America. After Mick McCabe, the Detroit Free Press prep writer, discovered and published news of the October 4, 1992 arrest on March 9, 1993, six months after it happened, Rose was crucified for weeks and painted as a ghetto gangbanger. Fans and pundits alike called for his suspension. Wire services crackled with updates.

Phelps was inhaling from a glass stanchion the size of an exhaust pipe from a certified used Mini Cooper. He admitted to it. America's response? The mainstream media and sponsors alike call him human.

For the record, I have no problem with Phelps. I think the public backlash is punishment enough, and any prosecuting attorney willing to prosecute this as a criminal offense needs to just open a Facebook page like the rest of us if he really needs the attention that bad.

If nothing else, I hope you enjoy reading the paper in the morning all the more with eyes wide open.

~T.C. Cameron is the author of Metro Detroit's High School Football Rivalries. Cameron's 2nd title, Metro Detroit's High School Basketball Rivalries, is due in August this year!

This morning Detroit Free Press preps writer Mick McCabe grabbed the attention of every official in the metro Detroit area, and probably many statewide, too.

McCabe wrote about the standard to bear for a game official to be assigned the tournament finals, including the way an official receives a rating, a lack of accountability if an official makes a mistake and finally, why the best officials aren't always on the biggest games because the state has a five-year respite rule for officials between finals' assignments.

A great read and a good snapshot of the officiating culture in the MHSAA footprint, except for one missing point, a large point of contention if you ask me and many others, and it has to do with why officials who work the finals can't receive the same assignment for another five seasons.

The five-year respite rule is in place because the same officials from the same zones got the same championship assignments for years and years and years under former leadership. Why did that happen? One, there was no such rule to prohibit the practice. Second, every officiating association is asked to submit a list of 10 names for the annual, championship tournaments. Many years the favorite sons of the power brokers in these associations were penned in at the expense of other deserving officials, sometimes under an erase-and-replace scenario. I know -- it's happened to me and many others.

That's politics, to make it short and sweet. Give MHSAA Associate Director Mark Uyl and the MHSAA credit for trying to share the playoff experience by expanding the field of qualified officials. This motivates more officials to work harder to polish their craft and helps extinguish the belief that the playoffs are an exclusive club for a select few officials. McCabe points out a handful of mistakes in last week's games as evidence that this policy is misguided. That's a fair complaint. There's a few growing pains, but expanding the pool of qualified playoff officials won't come without a few bumps and bruises. No one wants to see a mistake impact a game, and no athletic director wants to have that mistake happen in their school's game, but how do you expand that pool and expect perfection? Something's got to give.

I used to wonder how I can work three sports collegiately, one at the Division-I level, and not get past the quarterfinal in every state tournament since I became eligible except one. Then I got a good look at the nomination process, and the truth is, being a good politician goes a lot further than being a good official. I'm not saying good officials don't get good assignments, but I am saying I'm not the first official to feel this way. On the other hand, it's always easy to feel slighted because every good official feels they're not moving up the ladder the way they should. I've made some mistakes in my officiating career, so I'm humble enough to be thankful for what I have been assigned and not lament what I haven't been assigned.

McCabe points out a fairly accurate number of flaws in the ratings system but there's a caveat to the coaches' ratings that was overlooked. A lot of officials pass on the right call, the tough call and sometimes, the call that is both of those things to keep a good rating in tact. That's not wrong, that's simply playing by the rules. That McCabe has never seen a flagged waved off all year could be a possible example of this. Most qualified officials know some coaches don't know the rules or don't recognize all the indicators of a good official, so they protect themselves from a bad rating from the coaches. That's simply insulating yourself from a bad mark from those who have the most influence.

Is that any different than any other workplace culture in America? No.

The MHSAA represents the schools, so ultimately, it's the schools that are comfortable with these decisions. The flaws in the ratings system that McCabe illustrated are correct. Trust me when I say the schools, the MHSAA, the coaches and officials across the state know the rating system is flawed when it comes to giving an accurate picture of an official's true acumen. But there's little resource to offer anything else at the high school level. It's not a perfect world.

I think the MHSAA is doing the right thing, slowly but surely, in expanding the pool of qualified officials. It will take some time. The officials will make some mistakes. The MHSAA will make an assignment or two they regret. Mistakes will happen. There's some conflict-of-interest issues and some repetitive assignment issues to still be ironed out. It takes a long time to change long-held beliefs and cultures. Be patient.

The MHSAA and the schools they represent can't expect their best officials to be able to officiate forever. Officiating isn't a growth industry and the MHSAA is doing what they can to change that, so you can't expect progress without a few mistakes.

Prep sports is ultimately about doing your best, working hard to improve yourself and your team and being a good representative of your community. The MHSAA's officiating platform has to be allowed to expand under the same guidelines.

~ T.C. Cameron is the author of Metro Detroit's High School Basketball Rivalries, due August 2009 from Arcadia Publishing