The school sports official shortage: The two factors contributing to it.

More and more high schools are having a difficult time finding referees and officials to officiate games as the conditions for them continue to worsen when they call games. The top reasons why officials and referees are scarce nowadays is due to the verbal and sometimes physical abuse they receive from spectators and the amount of money they get when they call a game. 

“It’s not just one or two sports, it’s basically every one of them,” said Chris Pavlik, commissioner of the Metro Athletic Conference in northeast Ohio. “We have been very creative with managing the officials for each game.” 

Finding an official for some sports is a real struggle, Pavlik said, especially in sports like soccer and volleyball. He said several soccer games are scheduled as double-headers, reducing the number of officials from 6 to 3 and the officials are paid for both games. Volleyball games, on the other hand, are a way more complicated issue. 

“We struggle at times to find just two officials for volleyball matches, and we’ve only had line judges for about 30% of our games while the other games are played without them; we just can’t find them.”

Pavlik said the reason for the lack of line judges in Volleyball is because of the amount of money they make. A line judge gets paid around $15 for standing there for about 2–2 ½ hours depending on how long the varsity volleyball match goes while the other officials there get paid more than them. 

“The volleyball and soccer shortage is a problem for everybody–not just us–but for everybody”, he said.

To secure quality officials, Pavlik raised the fees, upping the price from the league standard of $70 to $95 for football officials in particular. He is also slowly increasing the fees for other sports too for the same reason. These fees vary from league to league, but they are all still paid by the league’s administration.

“We have a very simple philosophy when it comes to officials: we want good people who are good officials, not bad people who are excellent officials,” he said.

Pavlik isn’t the only one who raised their rates; other conference and league administrations have also done the same, including Rootstown City School Athletic Director Keith Waesch, who is a part of the Portage Trail Conference in northeast Ohio. 

Waesch raised his rates not only to secure quality officials but also to attract younger officials who are just starting out. He hopes that by raising the fees, these young officials would see how much money they could make as the increased fees means they get paid more. 

Waesch also said that the wrestling officials get paid between $100 to $120, and track officials get paid between $80 to $100, both depending on how many schools and organizations are involved in a match or competition.

“We try to do the best that we can to help sweeten the pockets of these officials,” Waesch said, “but at the same time we have to maintain and balance our budget as a league”.  

The officials’ wages are certainly a factor when it comes to the referee shortage, but the other big reason is the harassment and abuse that officials receive when calling games and competitions. 

Tim Hahn, a retired highschool football official, experienced several instances of fans heckling and yelling at him, and even saw coaches flip out on the other crew members. 

“There was a hard hit on a quarterback that prompted the coach to go out during the middle of the play so he could protect his kid, as he was yelling and screaming at the ref on why it didn’t get penalized,” he said.

Hahn didn’t just automatically become an official; he had to take a class to learn how to be one. The class he took was a 3-week course that went over the mechanics and rules about being an official. He talks about the tests and systems that he went through to be a highschool official. He was a part of the Cleveland Football Official Association in Ohio.

“You first take a test to get your certificate where you become classified as a ‘2’, then you do what is called lower level officiating where you spend two years officiating elementary to JV games,” he said, “after those two years you can take the test to try to become a ‘1’ so you can officiate varsity games.”  

The test is very challenging and difficult as it goes over the rules and regulations with a lot more detail, and Hahn said that it was an open book test too. Hahn took that test over ten years ago so he doesn’t know if anything has changed with the way the test is administered. 

Even with these strict guidelines that officials must follow, Hahn still believes that people have lost interest in officiating due to the low pay and abuse they face while on the job. He said that his class had around 20 people in it but now he sees that there’s around 3 to 4 people taking it.

“It all starts with respect,” he said, “if, you know, you want respect you kinda have to earn it and it comes from handling yourself with dignity and treating other people with respect and that’s kinda what you get.” 

Hahn also said that when there are fewer officials calling a game, more calls are missed because there’s not enough professional eyes watching for potential rule violations and the integrity of the game is lost. These violations are missed by officials, but not by the fans who are constantly watching the game.

Keith Waesch sees the outrage from fans and is distraught to see how strong of a hold sports has over some people.

“It’s a shame,” Waesch said. “We’ve gotten to a point where the most important thing in coaches’ and parents’ lives is winning and losing, and they can’t control themselves as they take their frustrations out on the officials.”

Pavlik, knowing full well that he’s already short-handed on officials, implemented a very strict rule: Any person, student or adult, who becomes involved in an altercation with an official is suspended for a year away from sporting events. He and his league want to do everything they can to help out these officials.  

“The shortage is very real, we can’t afford to lose any more than we already have,” he said. 

Waesch said that, in his opinion, basketball is the toughest sport to officiate because the fans are physically close to the officials, so their harassment is more clear and audible. He also thinks that soccer and volleyball officials have it just as bad.

“Sure you’re gonna have a controversial call in a game when it’s at a critical point, but what about the other 30 or 40 minutes before then? Both teams have ample opportunities to score throughout the game, but all that’s put aside because of that ‘one call’ by the ref. Officials aren’t perfect—they make mistakes just like everyone else,” Waesch said. 

He personally knows many of the officials in his conference and said that they are not there to damage a team’s reputation or make a certain team lose on purpose, they are there to officiate and enforce the rules of the game.

“Most of these officials aren’t out there just for the money,” Waesch said, “some of them want to give these kids a chance to compete and play their favorite sport.”