Red Flags: Shortage of sports officials blamed on abusive fans, coaches

ARKANSAS -- The certainties at almost any high school sports competition: One school will win; one will lose; and fans from both will complain about the officials, or worse.

The anger and intensity of that anger toward officials have enveloped amateur athletics so much in recent years that many states -- including Arkansas -- struggle to find people to officiate games. Blame the parents, coaches, school administrators and fans. Add low pay, travel requirements, conflicts with full-time jobs, constant social media scrutiny and increasing incidents of physical harm and threats. The bottom line is fewer people entering the field and more leaving early.

Sporting behavior

Who causes the most problems?

Parents^39 percent

Coaches^30 percent

Fans^18 percent

Players^10 percent

Not sure^1.5 percent

Governing bodies^0.5 percent

Schools^0.4 percent

Officials^0.2 percent

Who is most responsible for improving sportsmanship?

Coaches^54 percent

Parents^23 percent

Schools^8 percent

Players^6 percent

Governing bodies^5 percent

Officials^2 percent

Fans^1 percent

Not Sure^1 percent

Source: Survey conducted in 2017 by National Association of Sports Officials

Game requirements

Here is the number of high school varsity games officials must work at a minimum and in order to advance.

Sport Minimum Promote to D-II Promote to D-I

Football 3 15 18

Volleyball 3 21 34

Basketball 10 39 52

Wrestling 1 5 10

Baseball 6 30 45

Softball 6 30 45

Soccer 3 24 36 Track 1 2 3

Source: Arkansas Activities Association

Recommended pay

Here is the suggested minimum pay for high school officials as determined by a committee that includes Arkansas Activities Association board members, officials committee members and athletic directors:

Sport Amount

Football $65 per official

Basketball $40 per official per game

Baseball $45 per umpire per game

Softball $45 per umpire per game

Volleyball $ ( 45 best per -of official -five)

Soccer $45 for referee, $30 for assistant ref

Track $100 for referee and starter

Source: Arkansas Activities Association

"In 1970, the average age of a sports official was 22 years old," said Barry Mano, president of the National Association of Sports Officials. "Today, it's 42. We're a greying industry. People are leaving, and we're not bringing in a sufficient number of replacements."

The 17,487 officials who responded to a nationwide survey last year by the association cited the behavior of fans and coaches as the biggest problem. Parents were blamed by 39 percent and coaches by 30 percent of officials from a variety of sports who took part in the survey. The association reports more than 26,000 members who officiate games at all levels of amateur sports.

The survey also revealed nearly 80 percent of new referees quit within three years after taking the job.

"The lack of civility from fans is a big part of the problem," Mano said. "Fans are much more likely to engage nowadays with the officials than they used to be, and it's not just at the high school level; it's at the youth level with young children. A lot of our officials, who aren't being paid very much money in the first place, have decided they don't want to put up with that kind of abuse."

Don Brodell, an associate executive director with the Arkansas Activities Association, said Arkansas hasn't yet reached the point where games are in jeopardy of being canceled because of a lack of officials. Brodell said the addition of seventh-grade athletics in Northwest Arkansas middle schools this year will stretch an already thin officials group even more.

Trey Prieur, a Paris Schools administrator and an official in multiple sports, said the state is in desperate need of officials.

"But then you have a 'Catch-22' situation," he said. "We train new guys in lower-level games, yet coaches and fans still expect top-notch officiating whether it's a seventh-grade game or a 3A football game.

"Everyone wants to work the big games: Northside vs Southside in football, Fayetteville vs Bentonville, etc. ... yet there are some big games all around," Prieur said in an email.

In neighboring Oklahoma, the shortage of officials is threatening to impact high school football games this fall, said Ethan Rolen, the president of the Greater Tulsa Officials Association in a recent Tulsa World story.

"We are suffering from a shortage of officials," Rolen said in the report. "This is a nationwide problem -- there is a shortage across the country. It is difficult to recruit and retain men and women who are interested in officiating high school football. It has become difficult in the last few years to fill all the games we assign."

The Tulsa association has been actively recruiting potential officials all summer with the high school season set to start this week.

Getting heated

The vast majority of abuse toward officials is verbal, but examples of physical abuse can be found. An incident drawing national outrage involved two football players who attacked a referee from behind during a high school football game in San Antonio in 2015. The players later claimed they were told to attack the referee by an assistant football coach who resigned and received 18 months probation for his role in the assault. One of the players was later allowed to return to the team, a move which was opposed by the Texas Association of Sports Officials.

Closer to home, a referee filed a complaint against the parent of a Har-Ber High School player after a 2015 basketball game at Wildcat Arena in Springdale. The parent, who yelled at the referees and followed them into the parking lot, later apologized and was allowed to return to home games involving the Wildcats.

"The abuse by parents toward officials is as bad as ever, and it's getting worse," said Mike Fox, who is coordinator for 65 basketball officials in the 6A-West (formerly 7A-West) Conference in Arkansas. "It's really gotten out of hand, and it's not just the fans and parents. Even some coaches in junior high and junior varsity games think they have to 'work the officials' like they see college coaches doing on TV. It's made a tough job even tougher."

Mike Vann of Fort Smith is a highly respected official who has been working high school football, baseball and basketball games in Arkansas since 1983. He still enjoys working with young people but not the increasing level of abuse from the fans.

"It's really gotten worse the last 10 years, especially," said Vann, who has also officiated college games during his long career. "There's maybe 5 or 10 percent of officials who shouldn't be out there, but that percent is true with about any line of work, like bad cops compared to good cops. There are parents out there who think they know it all and think their kids are the greatest athletes around. They have to blame someone for when their kids fail and, most of the time, it's the officials calling the games."

Paul Hively, who called college games from 1993 to 2006 and now officiates only high school games, also noted the impact of social media on efforts to recruit and keep officials. The Northwest Arkansas Basketball Officials Association, to which Hively belongs, lost a member this year with the retirement of Tim Dart. Replacements have been hard to find, he said.

"Unfortunately, in the last three to five years, with instantaneous social media and critique and criticism, you know you are being videoed every night, every play, every time," he said. "And it's not necessarily from the best angle."

Jeff Sone is a former football player at Fayetteville who has spent a lot of time in the stands watching his two sons, Cooper and Carter Sone, compete in sports. He said it's up to parents to set a good example. Some of the bad behavior in the stands stems from the coarseness and rudeness that permeates social media, he said.

"The culture we are in now, I think social media is a huge contributor to all of it," said Sone, whose son, Cooper, also played football for the Razorbacks. "People think they can have an opinion, and nothing else matters. But as a parent, you're setting an example for your kid and the other kids on the team. If you get out of hand, you don't need to be there."

Aging out

Hively and Mark Gay soon will hang up their striped shirts for good. Ray Burwell knows the day will come when he can't work as many softball games as he does now.

There aren't many replacements for them.

Their respective organizations -- the Northwest Arkansas Fastpitch Umpires Association, the Northwest Arkansas Basketball Officials Association and the Northwest Arkansas Football Official Association -- could use an infusion of younger talent, they said.

"At the clinic this year, I scanned around, and there are still a bunch of old faces," Gay said. "There were very few younger guys in there, and our association is getting old, too."

Gay, one of the officials who worked last year's Bentonville High-Bentonville West football game at Tiger Stadium, has put himself on a "year-to-year" basis and is hopeful this fall won't be his last. He's had knee replacement surgery on his left knee and said it's a matter of time before his right knee needs one.

Burwell, a Pea Ridge resident, started umpiring softball games in 2006 and calls about 400 games -- from youth leagues to the collegiate levels -- over a 10-month span. That included being behind home plate for the Class 7A state championship between Bentonville and Bentonville West in May, a game Burwell calls the pinnacle of his career.

The Northwest Arkansas Fastpitch Umpires Association, however, has 28 members signed up to cover high school games and 29 schools that play high school softball, where two umpires are used in every game.

"We have three guys that are already in their 70s, and there are another four or five guys that I can list who are in their 60s," Burwell said. "Out of the 28 members we have, there is only one person in his 20s, and I can think of only one person in his 30s. I spoke to one of the guys who said he's 71 and said he hopes he has two years left.

"Today, we're not out of officials. Two years from now, we're going to need a whole bunch. We're blessed in Northwest Arkansas with quality high school softball teams, and we need to make sure we have quality high school softball officials to take care of those games."

Recruitment and retention

Dennis DeBusk of Springdale has experienced all sides of the issue as a coach, basketball referee, fan and school official. He has more than 40 years of coaching experience and has officiated games on the high school level off and on for about 20 years.

"In all the years I've been coaching or officiating, I've never seen anyone intentionally cost us a ballgame," DeBusk, an assistant athletic director for Springdale Public Schools, said of officials.

Recruiting new officials is important, but training and retaining them is key, officials said. Good training can help younger officials avoid mistakes and grow confidence.

Gay, in his 27th year of calling high school games, also works junior high matchups on Thursday nights to teach younger officials in the hope they will stick with it.

"The main reason I still officiate junior high football is to help get some of these new guys out and get them trained," he said. "You see some of these young guys work, and you know pretty quick whether they can make it or not."

Hively also sees the value in mentoring officials new to the ranks.

"If we can get new and younger officials that are still in that one-to-three-year range, once they make that, then they are much less likely to drop out. When you start talking to the really credible coaches, they want us to do well and want to see those young officials coming up and being properly trained," said Hively, 59, who hopes to work one to three more seasons.

The activities association and the Arkansas Officials Association pay people to evaluate officials and send them reports. This happens more often in football and basketball than other sports, said Prieur, who is also an evaluator.

Mark Johnson, a basketball and football official from Northwest Arkansas who began in 1979, noted a growth in clinics and training opportunities.

"When I started, you had to go get you some games -- whether that's seventh-grade or junior high or junior varsity -- and learn on the floor," said the 61-year-old Johnson.

He tries to mentor young officials. He recalled how a pair of inexperienced basketball officials got a welcome to the business. He took the two into the locker room at halftime of their first game, a seventh-grade contest at Elkins, to offer a critique.

"I wasn't worried about fouls," Johnson said. "I was worried more about them being in the right spot, and I got a chalkboard to show them where they needed to be on the floor. Then, all at once, the door opened and a young blonde woman stuck her head in and yelled 'You guys need to start calling some fouls.'

"I told her, 'We got this,' and turned to ask if they knew who that was. One of the guys said, 'Oh, that's my wife.'"

Official competition

Officials aren't getting rich, but pay has increased over the past 20 years.

"I think it was about $10 a game for junior high and maybe $12 for a high school varsity game when I started," Johnson said.

The Arkansas Activities Association suggests schools should pay a minimum of $40 a game for basketball officials, but most pay more. Rogers Public Schools pays $120 for two varsity games, which is the normal nightly workload. Pea Ridge, Farmington and even Decatur pay $110, which includes mileage.

Rogers and Pea Ridge pay baseball umpires $130 for two seven-inning games or $90 for one seven-inning game.

Brad Blew, Farmington's athletic director and a longtime basketball coach, said it's important to be competitive in the level of pay in order to get the best officials.

"It's kind of a race competing for the same officials," Blew said. "You want those 'A' officials at your place, and you want things to go smoothly for players, coaches and fans. That's the scope an AD looks at."

Prieur said more experienced officials are seeing an advantage to working all divisions with pay rates becoming more universal and some schools offering travel money.

Schools need to improve safety along with pay, Fox said. School administrators and law enforcement personnel can help officials do their jobs better by becoming more involved during the game, he said.

"When you call a game at Fort Smith Northside, for example, there are police officers on hand to escort the officials every time they step on or off the court," Fox said. "We suggest more schools do that."

DeBusk agreed school officials need to do more to control fan behavior.

"We're aware of the problem, and schools are going to have to do more," he said. "When a player or coach is ejected, he has to sit out the next game. If a fan gets thrown out, the fan should have to sit out the next game as well. There have to be some consequences for that kind of behavior."

In the end, the thing that is hurting officials is fans, Prieur said.

"As officials, we must remember that these coaches are coaching for a profession. And the student-athletes are busting their tail every day to prepare for their game. But, on the flip side, officials are working an amateur sport. We aren't calling a Friday night ballgame then flying to New England to work the Patriots and Steelers.

"In the age of replay, every call is getting scrutinized. Yet, at our level, we don't have the benefit of replay -- and probably shouldn't," he said. "Almost all officials are in it for the love of the game and to be a part of it. We don't care who wins or loses. We want to enforce the rules to the best of our ability."

Sports on 08/22/2018