Changing our stripes

It should come as no surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention to high school sports over the last few years, but we officially have a problem with officials.

Before the “pro-referee’ crowd throws a flag on that lede, I don’t mean to insinuate that the officials we have doing high school contests aren’t qualified; I’m just saying there clearly aren’t enough bodies to go around.

The dwindling number of athletic officials is a topic that has been widely discussed recently, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen the effects of understaffing quite so vividly until this last week. In the span of five days, I saw three games that I was set to cover—in a wide array of sports—delayed due to a lack of available referees. 4:30 start times turned into 7:15 tip-offs to allow refs doing an early afternoon game to come back and pull double duty in a nightcap.

And while I applaud those referees willing to take on the extra work, I have to ask; why is this even necessary in the first place?

There’s not one good answer to explain the ref shortages. Instead, there are a host of factors at play. Parent/fan behavior is clearly one, as fewer and fewer potential officials feel the need to put on the whistle and subject themselves to the derision of a growing group of out-of-control spectators. But it’s certainly not the only factor.

I’ve heard from Section 1 athletic directors that many of the top officials are choosing to turn back public school games in favor of accepting events between private schools. The pay may be less, they say, but private schools offer cash payments on the field— as opposed to officials’ paychecks going through BOCES—making an Iona Prep vs. Stepinac a potentially more attractive proposition than Ardsley vs. Pleasantville.

So what can we do to correct this disturbing trend?

Well, in the arena of fan behavior, New York State is taking some steps, unveiling a new spectator rule that sets up a three-warning system for unruly onlookers that would require any fan removed from the premises to attend an online course on fan behavior or serve a one-game attendance suspension.

Sure, this is a step in the right direction, but most believe that it’s an ultimately toothless measure; difficult to enforce and lacking the significant penalties that might make someone think twice about acting up.

As for losing referees to private schools, that’s a tougher nut to crack entirely. I don’t know enough about the intricacies of Southern Westchester BOCES to offer any sort of solution to entice more officials to keep their

Section I games.

But we better find some solutions soon, otherwise we’re going to see more of these “false starts” in the future.

Follow Mike on Twitter @LiveMike_Sports