Ernie Clark got into officiating high school football for the same reason most decide to take it up: for the love of the game.
Clark has been refereeing New Hampshire high school football since 1976 and has served as commissioner of the New Hampshire Football Officials Association for 18 years. In that time, he’s seen officiating change, adapt and evolve as faster, stronger high school athletes play a faster game than ever before. Clark’s also seen a shrinking talent pool of officials that seems to get older every year and, more alarmingly, struggles to draw new, younger recruits into its ranks.
New Hampshire has not been spared from the problems suffered by high school officials’ associations across the country, almost all of whom have had trouble pulling in new members in an attempt to meet the demand of staffing varsity, junior varsity and youth games and tournaments.
The Vermont Principals Association held a recruiting fair at the University of Vermont in the spring, its first public attempt to curb the trend before the slide became desperate. Jeff Collins, executive director of the New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association, said his organization would be following suit soon.
“It’s happening across the country,” Collins said at Thursday’s NHIAA media day. “To the extent where the NFHS (National Federation of State High School Associations) has stepped in and tried to do recruiting on a nationwide basis. … I know Vermont did a fair. In New Hampshire, we will be doing one in the springtime. We will be doing the same thing.”
Some sports have been more successful in recruiting new officials than others. Vermont has struggled to find referees for field hockey and girls lacrosse. Soccer and basketball, on the other hand, haven’t been hit nearly as hard.
Football, probably the country’s most visible sport, is still flush with referees in both New Hampshire and Vermont. Clark said his organization has about 140 officials in circulation this fall. Jon Reed, an assigner for southern Vermont and past president of the Vermont Football Officials Association, said he has about 95 — more than enough to send five officials to 16 games per week.
That doesn’t mean, however, that football officials aren’t immune to the same problems: extended commutes, longer hours and a deteriorating relationship between fans and referees that keeps a younger generation from putting on the stripes.
“We’ve always had officials in some areas. It just goes with the population of the state,” Clark said. “A lot of guys reside in the Seacoast area, and we have a pretty good number of people in Nashua and Merrimack, a good number in Manchester. It’s always been odd to me that Concord has very few officials. In the last few years, we’ve seen an increase in the Plymouth area. But over in North Conway, Kennett and Hanover, we have the same problem.
“We have some pockets in New Hampshire where we are very short of officials. In the Upper Valley, I don’t think we have a single member in our organization.”
In response, referees from southern parts of the state must be assigned to the Upper Valley for high school games. Such was the case on Tuesday at a four-team jamboree at Hanover High, where all of the assigned officials came from outside the area. Clark said things get particularly interesting when Hanover High, Lebanon High and Mascoma High have home games on the same day.
Travel, and the speed of a faster game, takes a larger toll on older refs.
“Our organization, the average age is getting older each year,” Clark said. “We used to have guys involved in their 20s and 30s. Now, guys get involved in their late 40s and 50s. We’re rather top-heavy in the 55-and-older age bracket. That will impact us at some point in the near future.”
Reed, who said he’s been involved in officiating for nearly 30 years, echoed a similar sentiment.
“You have to be able to move on the field to give the kids a proper product,” he said. “If a play comes off, you’re reading a runner or a pass, it’s instantaneous. … You have to have deep enough coverage to get a good angle.”
But Vermont, Reed said, is not as desperate for new recruits as it was two years ago.
“We could use more,” Reed said. “We’re definitely not going to turn anybody away.”
Clark said a lack of officials in certain parts of New Hampshire has made his job of assigning games harder. Football is also under particular scrutiny with concussions and severe injuries, making five-man crews a priority. But one of the biggest challenges, he said, is an understanding between spectators and referees that has become more hostile.
“I’ve worked with a lot of young officials that have come in, you put them with a veteran official, and the first time they go out there and they get verbally abused by spectators or threatened by somebody, or dressed up and down by a coach, guys say that, ‘I’m not showing up to take this kind of abuse,’ ” Clark said.
But veteran officials are used to it. Travel and criticism are worth it as a way to stay involved in the game they love.
“Officials who have done this for a long time, we do it because we enjoy it,” Clark said. “It’s a tremendous break from our everyday lives. You can’t think about anything else when you’re out there. It clears your head, you’re outdoors, you get some exercise, doing a game you love.”
Josh Weinreb can be reached at jweinreb@vnews.com or 603-727-3306.