Official shortage threatens Newcastle sports

It’s been a developing issue, but the shortage of officials in high school sports is now bordering on a crisis with the potential to threaten the future of programs at the middle school and high school levels.

Not only are numbers dwindling, but those who continue to referee are aging and their time is becoming limited. Unfortunately, younger officials are becoming more rare, and those that decide to give reffing a try often quit after a year or two due to the abuse heaped on them by parents, fans and sometimes coaches.

Newcastle High School certainly felt the impact of the shortage this football season when two games had to be moved from the traditional Friday night contest to one on Saturday afternoon.

According to NHS Activity Director Alysha Engle, there was pushback from the public when the Homecoming game against Burns was played on Saturday afternoon. However, it was either then or the Dogies would have had to forfeit because there were no referees available to officiate the Friday contest.

“The process of lining up football officials is a nightmare,” Engle said. “Games from 1A to 4A are played on Friday nights and you need five officials for each game, so that makes finding enough refs to cover all those contests
even harder.”

Paying for officials can also be a challenge for athletic directors. Engle added that paying mileage for five football refs on top of the fee for the contest means she is limited in where she can draw from for games.

“When we had to bring in a crew from Casper for our Homecoming game because there were no other crews available, we had to pay $950 because we have to pay 72 cents a mile for travel both ways,” she said. “Football is the most expensive sport for officials, so it can get pretty pricey.”

In addition to finding officials for varsity contests, Engle noted that securing refs for sub-varsity contests is challenging as well.

“Our principals and our superintendent are great because they are willing to help us out, and we have gotten a couple of new guys in the last couple of years, so that is helpful,” Engle said. “I know our administrators would rather not have to ref games, but it’s tough in basketball because we need to have six refs when the junior varsity games are played at the same time.”

Newcastle Middle School Activity Director Carrie Manders echoed Engle’s frustration at staffing officials.

“The shortage of officials has definitely gotten worse in the four years I’ve done this job,” Manders said. “Our go-to refs aged out of doing it, and we don’t have many young people who want to fill those vacancies. I think it’s because people are apprehensive to ref, because sometimes people aren’t very nice.”

Andy Flores, a 30-year veteran basketball official from Laramie, shared his thoughts on the shortage and offered insight as to why the shortage continues to plague sports at the local and state level.

“I think there’s a shortage because the potential for verbal abuse keeps people away,” Flores said. “I don’t know if fans have changed over the years, but they have definitely gotten more vocal. They’ve always rooted for their teams and yelled at the refs, but it had gotten pretty bad.”

TJ Tavegie from Buffalo has been officiating basketball for 23 years, and he reiterated much of what Flores had to offer, with a few exceptions.

“I believe the culture and the environment of the gym has changed. I think parents have too much influence when it comes to the administration of games and are tying the administrators’ hands a little bit,” he said. “I think people just think that yelling at the refs is acceptable and that it’s part of the game — and that’s a big reason we have such a hard time getting young people to decide to ref and stick with it.”

Tavegie noted that new officials need to fight through the first three to five years, and just know that it’s going to be hard and, potentially, not a lot of fun.

“They have to gain confidence, and with experience they will get better at the job and that will make it easier,” he added. “But, something does need to be done to get control of the fans or we won’t have those young guys sticking it out long enough to get better.”

Nick Pisciotti, who is entering his seventh year of reffing basketball, is relatively new to officiating high school sports, and he voiced the concerns of younger people deciding to take on the responsibility of this vital role.

“I have a pretty thick skin, so the fans and coaches don’t really bother me, but I hear from quite a few younger guys that they quit because of the abuse they get,” he said. “The most challenging part for new officials is just learning and knowing all of the rules, and it’s tough for them to be trying to learn and then getting yelled at by the fans.”

The question of what can be done to attract young individuals to wear the stripes is one that is difficult to answer.

Newcastle High School attempts to ease the process of becoming registered or certified as an official, which is required to ref any varsity or sub-varsity contest, by offering a clinic for anyone interested in wearing the stripes.

“Mike Jennings comes in with the test from the state, they all sit down and watch the rules together, and then he goes over the test with the people, and then they take the test,” Engle explained. “We also cover the cost, which can be prohibitive for some people.”

Engle noted that the WSHAA is also pushing for high schools to start encouraging high school kids to become officials by getting them into reffing middle school games. The idea is to have a high school student work with regular officials to ref those contests and learn the ropes.

“It sounded like it might not be a bad idea, but administration said no,” Engle said. “They (the administrators) all officiate games and they refused to subject high school kids to the behavior of fans and coaches.”

Tavegie suggested bringing back the yellow card system the WHSAA used in the past. If a fan was being disruptive or behaving badly, an administrator would issue them a yellow card and if there was subsequent bad behavior, the fan would be ejected.

He also offered up a suggestion that may be helpful in mitigating the potential of bad behavior by visiting teams.

“Move the visiting fans out from behind their home bench,” Tavegie said. “Fans and coaches feed off each other and when they are together, it can create a bad situation.”

Overall, he determined that high school sports need a big culture change where bad behavior isn’t acceptable.

Flores noted that the WHSAA and the Wyoming Officials Association are trying to deal with the problem.

“At the state level, they are working on figuring out what to do to get more officials and to encourage more associations to be more proactive,” Flores said. “I saw something in other states that looked pretty cool. Anyone who got kicked out of a basketball game had to officiate two lower level games before they’d be allowed back into a varsity game.”

Pisciotti would like to see a mentorship program for officiating, in which veteran and rookie officials would be teamed up so the new people have the opportunity to learn, and hopefully not bear the brunt of fan abuse. His idea involves having the WHSAA set up a program to assign officials to games that would allow a better training program for new referees.

“Something like that would be great because, right now, it seems that you have to get in with a crew who get the contracts and hopefully they bring you along with them,” Pisciotti explained. “If you don’t get into one of those groups, you will probably get stuck with sub-varsity, or less desirable varsity games, which can be discouraging.”

Wearing the stripes is definitely not for the weak. Flores, Tavegie and Pisciotti all insisted that the reason they continue to stick with it is due to their love of the game, as well as the fulfillment they get from giving back and helping young athletes continue to have the opportunity to play.