Are you blind?

By Jody Norwood

I don’t know anybody that goes into officiating or a game who says ‘somebody is going to lose.’ They do it because they love the game and want to give something back.

- Jeff Doom, Lyon County

Check your phone, you missed a few calls.

Did you leave your glasses on the bus?

They make rule books in Braille.

Your mother would be ashamed.

If you’ve heard one of the above, there’s a good chance you’ve been to a youth sporting event recently. And if you’ve shouted one of the above — either during a little league or high school game — athletic directors and organizers have a message for you: knock it off.

Kentucky, like many states, is experiencing shrinking pools of referees to call a steadily increasing number of games. In 2018, the Bluegrass state had 700 fewer officials than the previous year, creating a headache for those trying to fill out a schedule. In some cases, games were canceled due to a lack of officials.

There are a handful of reasons for shrinking numbers, and some fear youth sports will suffer if the trend isn’t reversed.

Jeff Doom has seen the issue from every side possible. He’s currently Lyon County High School’s athletic director and head girls basketball coach, as well as a former softball coach.

Like most coaches, he’s expressed his opinion a time or two from the sideline. He’s also asking for fans to come to games with cooler heads.

“We’re going to be in a bind if we as coaches, parents and players don’t let the guys do their jobs and get off them,” Doom said. “We’re going to ruin our games for our kids because we won’t have the officials.”

With a smile he added, “And then I officiated. I try to stay off them as a coach now because it’s a hard job. I don’t know anybody that goes into officiating or a game who says ‘somebody is going to lose.’ They do it because they love the game and want to give something back.”

The problem isn’t just a local one. Earlier this year Karissa Niehoff of the National Federation of State High School Associations, and Julian Tackett, Commissioner of the Kentucky High School Athletic Association, came together to pen a piece calling for cooler heads.

“The time has come for everyone involved in the game to ‘pump the brakes’ as it relates to conduct at games, particularly, the parents who attend,” Niehoff said.

Niehoff cited a National Association of Sports Officials survey that found “more than 75 percent of all high school officials say ‘adult behavior’ is the primary reason they quit. And 80 percent of all young officials hang up their stripes after just two years of whistle blowing.”

Adult behavior doesn’t always describe the situations referees are put into.

Aside from the nearly constant barrage of jokes, there also seems to be more and more reports of physical confrontations. Some of the most noteworthy from 2018:

• A Kansas police officer was found guilty of misdemeanor battery for shoving a 17-year referee during a youth basketball game. The ref testified the man ignored her requests to leave the court, and instead used obscene language and shoved her out of the way.

• An AAU basketball brawl after players allegedly attacked the officiating crew for issuing a technical.

• In Texas, according to KVIA, a 17-year old official was hospitalized after being attacked by a coach during a youth soccer match.

• In March of this year, an indoor soccer crew in Wisconsin was attacked for stopping play because the match was getting too rough. According to an account by television station WISN, referee Terry From was punched by a 12-yearold player after being hit with a thrown water bottle.

Closer to home, the KHSAA cited a number of similar incidents in their piece earlier this year, including a “school Superintendent, who has a son participating and a relative coaching, sent a threatening text to the local independent contractor who assigns games.” There was also an instance of an “athletic director cursing an official during a non-varsity game and refusing to allow the official into a dressing room to retrieve his belongings after disagreeing over the handling of a fan situation.”

“I wish I could say that these incidents occurred in another state or in a different year,” Tackett said. “Unfortunately, not only were they here in our state but in the last few weeks as well. On what planet does any adult, especially a school administrator, think this type of conduct is permissible? We will, of course, issue penalties against the school for removing a team and likely issue some form of administrative penalty against the schools that failed to exercise institutional control during their recent games, but the cause is an indication of deeper, systematic problems.”

While retaining current officials falls on state administrators and athletic directors (at least, the ones not chastising crews), a bigger issue may be recruitment.

Some Days It Just Doesn’t Pay

Money isn’t a motivating factor for most officials. Still, there’s something to be said when the compensation doesn’t begin to approach the headache involved.

Salary ranges from sport to sport, and in some cases the age of participants. The average scale is between $45-$75. That fee gets chopped up between two to three hours calling most games, along with travel time. There’s also gear and sometimes costly safety equipment.

Nobody is getting rich officiating, but it’s a decent way to earn money for someone passionate about a sport. Especially for younger refs, who can make a few hundred dollars on a good weekend calling a tournament, or close to home with youth games.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the population in 1980 was north of 226 million. In 2010, it was nearly 309 million.

More people, in general, means more people playing sports.

The Aspen Institutes’s Project Play has spent the last six years tracking trends and finding ways to encourage youth to get active. According to their 2018 report, “In 2017, 56.5 percent of children played a team sport in some form at least one time during the year — more than at any point in the past six years. Over the past three years, the percentage of children falling into that category has grown in baseball, basketball, ice hockey, field hockey, wrestling, flag football, gymnastics, and swimming on a team, despite a major drop in soccer participation.”

Overall, the study found that 69 percent of students surveyed played on a team or participated in a sport as an individual in 2017.

But just how many kids are needing referees? That’s a hard number to pin down.

A 2017 Time article cited the $15 billion youth sports market as having “grown by 55 [percent] since 2010.”

I9 Sports Franchise — a for-profit company selling startup kits to recruit youth teams — cites 60 million participants annually taking part in a variety of sports.

That growing youth sports market runs headlong into school sanctioned sports, as both varieties require officials.

Requirement Barriers

Judging from comments at games, the most vocal spectator has a hard time appreciating what goes into becoming a referee.

It varies some from sport to sport, but most courses offer some combination of online and classwork. Those come after hours of self-imposed studying or years of playing. In March, Marshall County hosted a soccer referee class utilizing remote modules to go over the basics in advance of a formal one day class.

For those participating, it required a registration process that wasn’t exactly user friendly, followed by watching seven videos and correctly answering dozens of questions. The process takes roughly two hours.

From there, participants partook of an eight hour class where all the fundamentals and rules were gone over again. The class culminated in an exam, where passing meant getting at least 80 correct questions.

All in all, aspiring officials can expect to spend a couple days getting the education requirements out of the way. It takes a little longer for those who haven’t played the sport. It may not sound like much of a hurdle, but finding the time can be an obstacle for incoming officials, especially younger ones trying to balance school, family obligations and other interests.

Technology Woes

Part of the headache for officials is growing access to technology capturing mistakes — some real, some perceived — and the use of social media to compound problems. After the play images aren’t something high school officials have access to.

It’s one thing when a fan in the stands heckles a questionable call. It’s a little different when one uses four different camera angles to prove the ref was “wrong.”

“This is a game played by imperfect humans, coached by imperfect humans, and officiated by imperfect humans,” Thackett said. “I don’t know if it’s the higher levels’ insatiable desire for perfection through replays and the bloviating by announcers who think they know everything or the tone and tenor of general conversation in our country, but this cannot be allowed to continue in this level of sport and this level be maintained.”

So, Why Do It?

If the low pay, hours of training and abuse aren’t attractive, why does anyone do it?

For many, it’s a love of the sport.

Ben Noles, of Calvert City, grew up playing soccer. He was a keeper for Marshall County and played at Berea College. In March, he was one of those taking the officiating course.

Although he hasn’t officiated a game since he was 16, he said it was a desire to be around the sport again that got him back into the classroom.

“I played soccer from the time I can remember through one year of college,” Noles said. “I still love soccer and tried coaching, but I work swing shift and it was difficult to work around that schedule.

“I wanted to do something pertaining to soccer and with the lack of referee’s I felt it was a way to help out the program with the shortage.”

Many new referees cite a similar background: former or current athletes just trying to help pass along the positive experiences and benefits of participating in youth sports.

What’s Next

Tacket, Doom and others say that’s largely up to the fans. If the current hostile environment continues, it’s likely the referee shortage will continue to worsen across sports as older officials continue to retire. Their departure is likely to be hastened by the increasing incidents of parents (and coaches) behaving badly.

There’s also the concern that parent and coach behavior will be reflected by the players. Just as good role models and interactions inspire positive development in youth, hurling insults and disregarding authority creates equivalent reactions. Players ultimately are a relfection of their coaches, teammates and fans.

For those who think they can make better calls, go for it. Online resources like KHSAA.org and High- SchoolOfficials.com are good places to get started.