Ohio Referee Shortage - could force games...

cincifbfan said:
That's already happening. If this gets worse they are going to need even more days to play the games.
Click to expand...
Would need to get horribly low for games other than Thursday or Saturday. Right now, you could lop off about 50% of the officials, and still have plenty for three games a weekend among them.

New York has been dealing with this much longer (and their pay is surprisingly good), but there's only a handful of Thursday and Saturday games by necessity. Many Saturday games are thanks to unlit fields, anyways. In PA, the big problem with Saturday is a lot of crews (especially the good ones) are also college officials and PA has a lot of D2 and D3 teams. So, Thursday becomes the better choice for scheduling.

I think Ohio is still well away from the event horizon. I think teams will opt for a Thursday game long before they contemplate a 4-man crew or going with accepting a first year official doing a varsity game just out of need.
 
Sykotyk said:
Would need to get horribly low for games other than Thursday or Saturday. Right now, you could lop off about 50% of the officials, and still have plenty for three games a weekend among them.

New York has been dealing with this much longer (and their pay is surprisingly good), but there's only a handful of Thursday and Saturday games by necessity. Many Saturday games are thanks to unlit fields, anyways. In PA, the big problem with Saturday is a lot of crews (especially the good ones) are also college officials and PA has a lot of D2 and D3 teams. So, Thursday becomes the better choice for scheduling.

I think Ohio is still well away from the event horizon. I think teams will opt for a Thursday game long before they contemplate a 4-man crew or going with accepting a first year official doing a varsity game just out of need.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the info. The way everyone is talking, it's like we are 5 years away.

Doesn't Ohio have more colleges with football than PA? Maybe PA has way more than I thought?
 
cincifbfan said:
A possible solution, although not ideal, is lowering the number of officials they use per crew. Again, not ideal, but we may see 3 man crews in the future. Because moving these games to other days of the week is going to hurt freshman, JV, Middle School and Youth games. And we will get to a point where those younger aged games can't happen because the officials are all working varsity games on a Tuesday or whatever it may be.

Also, in my sons' youth league, they actually did something original and hopefully beneficial for the future. They essentially started an officiating program for high school aged kids to officiate the youth games. NOW, they are NOT the only official. They must work with 2 other high school certified officials. The kids are getting paid the same as the other officials do for the youth games. It has been great so far because they are learning the ropes of officiating...... and the kids I've spoken to that are in it love it. Many of them are high school players and this allows them to make a few bucks during the football season. The goal is to have them fully certified officials with the state in 4-5 years. I'm hoping this expands to get more younger people interested in officiating which will hopefully alleviate this problem for the future.
Click to expand...
Can’t do this in my opinion, in fact it should be expanded to 7. Far too many teams running the spread nowadays to have any less than 5. The up tempo and spread out nature of the game is wearing out too many refs and forcing them out of the game
 
smurfyeah19 said:
Can’t do this in my opinion, in fact it should be expanded to 7. Far too many teams running the spread nowadays to have any less than 5. The up tempo and spread out nature of the game is wearing out too many refs and forcing them out of the game
Click to expand...
Can’t expand to 7 if you don’t have the numbers to expand to 7. Never mind the pushback you’ll receive from schools who don’t want to pay for two extra officials.
 
From the Centerville AD Twitter Account

"We attempted to find football officials for a JV football game at Elder and were unsuccessful so the JV football team will not have a game Saturday."
 
Sykotyk said:
Would need to get horribly low for games other than Thursday or Saturday. Right now, you could lop off about 50% of the officials, and still have plenty for three games a weekend among them.

New York has been dealing with this much longer (and their pay is surprisingly good), but there's only a handful of Thursday and Saturday games by necessity. Many Saturday games are thanks to unlit fields, anyways. In PA, the big problem with Saturday is a lot of crews (especially the good ones) are also college officials and PA has a lot of D2 and D3 teams. So, Thursday becomes the better choice for scheduling.

I think Ohio is still well away from the event horizon. I think teams will opt for a Thursday game long before they contemplate a 4-man crew or going with accepting a first year official doing a varsity game just out of need.
Click to expand...
If they all want to do 3 games a week. That seems like more of a commitment than most would want to give based on the money. Which I sincerely doubt the guys doing HS are in it for.
 
Talk some sense said:
If they all want to do 3 games a week. That seems like more of a commitment than most would want to give based on the money. Which I sincerely doubt the guys doing HS are in it for.
Click to expand...
That is true. But I've talked to enough that do some jv or freshman games as well. Varsity would pay better.
 
This issue is nation wide for all sports. In this instance, a pay raise would help keep current officials, but getting new officials is very tough. Also the fans i the stands are the first ones to complain about how bad the officials are and why no one is around to work the chains, but yet they just sit on their butts. It’s a societal issue
 
JackEd said:
This issue is nation wide for all sports. In this instance, a pay raise would help keep current officials, but getting new officials is very tough. Also the fans i the stands are the first ones to complain about how bad the officials are and why no one is around to work the chains, but yet they just sit on their butts. It’s a societal issue
Click to expand...
In our area, I see the same chain crew that I’ve seen for the last, sometimes, 25-years. I do think you hit the nail on the head, it’s a societal issue. Everyone thinks they are going to a NCAA or NFL game, and with the price of things, can’t blame them. $9 to get into a high school game is just stupid. Only this guys opinion.
 
ELKSONE said:
From the Centerville AD Twitter Account

"We attempted to find football officials for a JV football game at Elder and were unsuccessful so the JV football team will not have a game Saturday."
Click to expand...
When it's Thursday and you try to secure officials for a Saturday non-varsity game, it's not going to happen. Even when you offer more than $100-$120. (rumored)
 
ELKSONE said:
From the Centerville AD Twitter Account

"We attempted to find football officials for a JV football game at Elder and were unsuccessful so the JV football team will not have a game Saturday."
Click to expand...
Sounds like baseball this year.
 
Sykotyk said:
That is true. But I've talked to enough that do some jv or freshman games as well. Varsity would pay better.
Click to expand...
Like I pointed out before, I will do JV games as I need to be on the field 20 minutes before game time. If I also added a varsity game on those two days I am adding close to 2 hours per day for the game as I have to be there so early. Then if you observed it can anywhere from 15 to an hour after the game as well. Too much time for two little to pay when you have a family. I can handle one varsity game a week, if they want to cut out the wasted time before games it would be a lot easier.
 
Zeta16 said:
Like I pointed out before, I will do JV games as I need to be on the field 20 minutes before game time. If I also added a varsity game on those two days I am adding close to 2 hours per day for the game as I have to be there so early. Then if you observed it can anywhere from 15 to an hour after the game as well. Too much time for two little to pay when you have a family. I can handle one varsity game a week, if they want to cut out the wasted time before games it would be a lot easier.
Click to expand...
Curious, what are you supposedly doing so far in advance of the game and what is the reality?
 
zebrastripes said:
Can’t expand to 7 if you don’t have the numbers to expand to 7. Never mind the pushback you’ll receive from schools who don’t want to pay for two extra officials.
Click to expand...
Agreed, but still 5 is a minimum to capably do a game anymore. I’d love to ref again, but the traveling nature of my job makes it tough
 
queencitybuckeye said:
Curious, what are you supposedly doing so far in advance of the game and what is the reality?
Click to expand...
Arrive 90 minutes in advance. We have to be on the field meeting with the Coaches no later than 35 minutes before scheduled kickoff. Coin toss is 20 minutes prior to kickoff.

That gives us roughly an hour to unwind from our real lives to that point in the week, get dressed, conduct our pre-game discussion, which includes reviewing the weekly bulletin (usually 20 bullet points), talk about both teams (our own scouting report), "what if" situations (usually derived from plays around the state from prior weeks), and anything else crew related.

55 minutes blows by you in a hurry.
 
Zeta16 said:
Like I pointed out before, I will do JV games as I need to be on the field 20 minutes before game time. If I also added a varsity game on those two days I am adding close to 2 hours per day for the game as I have to be there so early. Then if you observed it can anywhere from 15 to an hour after the game as well. Too much time for two little to pay when you have a family. I can handle one varsity game a week, if they want to cut out the wasted time before games it would be a lot easier.
Click to expand...
I agree the time thing is probably a throw back to the days before internet or cell phones. A conference call or a group chat could probably handle that.

No reason to be there 90 minutes before kickoff.
 
umpire16 said:
Football, varsity especially, is traditionally only on Friday nights. Thus all crews are working. If there are not enough, then playing say 1/3 of Varsity games on Thursdays, 1/3 on Fridays, and 1/3 on Saturdays means they would work all three nights and thus get games covered. Sub-varsity and others may suffer (i.e. JH or peewee) but this is where we are at. Heck last Tuesday our community's 7th and 8th grade teams played effectively a double header on the HS field with lights and turf due to the shortage.

Other sports are also short. As an example this spring in baseball in SW Ohio many schools with lights are scheduling weeknight JV/V or JV/Freshmen doubleheaders already as its easier to have a crew do two games at one site than two crews at two sites.

Until numbers improve - which is a whole separate conversation as to why and how - this is going to continue.

I asked a DAB member if they would add a spiel to the pregame "Our officials for tonight's contest...." blurb about "If you are interested in learning more about officiating or becoming an official to help address the shortage visit OHSAA.org/officiating" and was told no. Maybe they need to say "If you are stuck on the fact Friday night lights is now Thursday night, here is why."
Click to expand...

This is happening in our area, a Catholic Central/Brooke (WV) Girls soccer match scheduled for last week was postponed on the day of the game due to lack of officials.
 
For what it's worth, Northern Kentucky (Cincy Metro area) has 9 varsity football games this Friday that will have 4 man crews.

If Ohio is in as dire straights as KY, it's going to get really bad here in a few more years.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top