Let’s face it: If you’ve ever been to a sporting event, you’ve probably heckled the referees.
Sometimes, especially at college or professional events, it’s often in good fun, like criticizing an out-of-bounds call at a football game while sitting in the nosebleeds hundreds of feet away. But other times, especially at high schools and in lower-level competition, displeasure crosses the line into full-on outrage. Insults, shouting and taunting become more prevalent, more persistent and more personal.
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated an already troubling trend, referees and umpires were leaving the profession quicker than they could be replaced. Across the state of New Hampshire, the reason for departures hasn’t necessarily been because of abusive fans – most have simply aged out of it. But the perception of being abused has been a major hurdle for organizations that need to recruit younger officials to replace those who are stepping away.
“Why do you want to be on the field getting yelled at or the guy that a coach is confronting after a game?” said Kyle Scofield, a football referee who’s in charge of recruiting and training officials for the New Hampshire Football Officials Association (NHFOA). “That’s a tough sell to a 20-year-old.”
Some officiating organizations for high school sports in New Hampshire are better positioned than others, though none are necessarily in optimal situations. Soccer officials and baseball umpires are starting to see greater participation as the pandemic-era cancelations recede further into the past. Football and basketball officials are drawing in some newcomers, but not enough to return them to numbers they need to be fully staffed.
“Some of that has to do with abuse from fans and coaches and players,” Scofield said. “Some of that has to do with pay, and some of it has to be, guys were getting towards the end of their career and COVID hit. … But the big issue is a lack of interest from younger people, and that’s been a problem probably for the last 20 years, and it’s finally catching up with us.”
At 38 years old, Scofield’s younger than most of his colleagues. He’s been officiating for 20 years and has worked in New Hampshire since 2011. He previously refereed games in Arizona.
He said he understands the desire to frame the referee shortage conundrum around the horrible things that happen to officials because of crazy parents or coaches, but he emphasized that this is more an issue of older referees simply aging out. Even still, he has his stories of confrontations he’s had, many of which he said probably wouldn’t be appropriate to publish in a newspaper.
“I had a guy try to pull a gun on me,” he said, thinking back on his time working in Arizona. “He said, ‘Hey, I have a gun in my truck. I’m gonna go get it and shoot you.’”
Scofield’s also had suboptimal interactions at some local college basketball games he’s worked in New Hampshire.
“I threw a coach out of a college basketball game one day, and at this particular school, our officials’ locker room was inside their locker room, so we were locked in our locker room, and he stood outside the door and screamed about us to his team for an hour, and we couldn’t leave.”
Scrolling through Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or TikTok, it wouldn’t be hard to find videos of parents and coaches berating or even assaulting referees. But, like almost everything on social media, that’s not necessarily an accurate representation of reality.
Jeff Kleiner has umpired high school and professional baseball for over 40 years, and he’s currently the supervisor of umpires for the New Hampshire Baseball Umpires Association. He also officiates football in the fall and agrees that the perception of abuse as the main cause of the referee shortage is wrong, at least in New Hampshire.
“A lot of people talk about the sportsmanship or the behavior. I really don’t find that,” he said. “In New Hampshire, we really don’t have that problem. I think people need to understand that. The NHIAA (New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association) does a phenomenal job in creating a zero-tolerance policy for poor behavior, whether it’s a student-athlete, coaching staff or the parents. We have very, very few issues with that.”
Bob Hodsdon, who’s officiated basketball games since 1968, echoed Kleiner’s point that the NHIAA and local schools focus on sportsmanship has mitigated explosive outbursts from fans and coaches.
“30 years ago, it was as bad as anywhere else,” Hodsdon said. “But today, some of the problems we’ve heard about, seen in other parts of the country, that really doesn’t happen here very often, if at all.”
During the football season, Scofield, Kleiner and the rest of the football officials will actually fill out game reports for varsity games where they rate coaches, players and fans for sportsmanship. The winning schools for the 2022 season were announced on Saturday and received a banner from the NHFOA and a $1,000 scholarship that the school can choose to give to a student-athlete who’s most deserving. Pinkerton was the winner from D-I, Souhegan in D-II, Fall Mountain in D-III and Newport in D-IV.
This level of open communication seems to pay dividends. Kleiner said several of the schools he officiates take pride in trying to win the annual sportsmanship award.
For Ed Meyer, the apprentice director for the New Hampshire Soccer Officials Association who’s refereed soccer for 41 years, it really comes down to the basics of why they’re there.
“We try to emphasize working together with the coaches and the players so that we can have good games so that the kids are safe and they have a fair game,” he said.
Recent shortages have created several problems that have, perhaps, exacerbated the complaints from parents and coaches.
Scofield explains that it’s hard enough to officiate 11-on-11 football with four officials, so showing up to youth games with fewer than that certainly won’t help address that problem.
“If parents think we’re bad when we have four officials on the field, when we have two they’re really not gonna like the stuff we miss,” he said. “There’s no way you can watch 22 players with two guys.”
On the baseball diamond, there are similar problems.
“We’ve unfortunately had to have some of the sub-varsity games go off with one umpire,” Kleiner said. “That’s not good for safety, it’s not good for conducting the game. Just because it’s a sub-varsity game, that’s the most important game for those kids. They deserve to have umpires.”
In the past, umpires would work maybe two games a week and almost never work more than one game a day. Now, it’s multiple games a day multiple times a week. A schedule that intense can burn them out.
“It affects the guys from a mental standpoint because you’re working so many games, and it’s not fair to the kids,” Kleiner said. “If you’re on your third game or fourth game of the day, those two teams aren’t getting the best out of whoever’s umpiring the game. It’s an unfortunate situation, but it’s either that or they don’t play.”
Scofield forecasts that further scheduling changes to high school football might be necessary in the future if they cannot recruit enough new referees.
He floated the potential of having to hold games on Wednesday and Thursday nights because there aren’t enough officials to work the overlapping Friday and Saturday schedule.
Perhaps, needing to schedule games at these unconventional times will send an indirect message to parents and coaches to lay off.
“They’re not gonna like that,” he said.
The referee shortage is a problem with multiple prongs and no easy solutions. Perhaps better pay for younger referees might make it more justifiable for them to put up with any criticism that comes from working games.
But the problems that caused this shortage won’t be solved overnight. Scofield, Kleiner, Hodsdon and Meyer all mentioned that getting in front of the current high school athletes and educating them on officiating might make them interested in the job when they’re older.
Scofield, a Londonderry resident, will often go to the high school to talk to the football team.
“It’s about planting that seed,” he said. “Most of the time in college, they’re not gonna have time to officiate necessarily, but I’m 25 years old driving by a high school football field saying, ‘Man, I really miss playing,’ and saying, ‘Oh, they talked to us about officiating, maybe that’s something I can try.’ Planting that seed so it can germinate later is kind of the goal here.”
Kleiner likes to emphasize the perks of the job, beyond just staying involved with a sport you grew up playing.
“You don’t have to worry about being benched, you’re on the field for all seven or nine innings,” he said. “And you get a check for it.”
The process of becoming an official generally requires two years of training but includes plenty of practical experience out on fields officiating preseason, middle school and sub-varsity games.
One of the areas of focus during training, Kleiner said, is teaching deescalation.
“They always ask about arguments because they see the old days of the Billy Martins and all these old videos that come up, and it’s not like that,” he said. “You can’t holler and scream right back at them. You’ve got to reason with them.”
Meyer likes to have similar conversations with coaches, especially those who work with younger kids. As part of the soccer officiating training program, he and other more experienced referees will attend games that younger officials work to assess their progress. These are often youth games.
“One of the things I try to tell the coaches when I’m accessing referees at that level is that the referees are learning to referee just as 12-year-old kids are learning to play the game,” he said. “We’re not sending World Cup referees to under-12 games, so everyone’s learning. Give them a little bit of slack.”
Right now, the state has about 100 active football officials. Scofield said the optimal number is closer to 140 or 150. They’re adding roughly 13 to 15 new officials each year, but they’re also losing 10 to 12. It’s going to take a while to build back.
For baseball and soccer, there’s been some more optimism. Kleiner said he’s already had 18 new members who plan to join in 2023, and he’ll usually get several more once the season gets closer. Meyer said this past year’s class of soccer officials was the biggest one they’ve had in three or four years.
On the basketball side, Hodsdon mentioned the International Association of Approved Basketball Officials (IAABO) as a potential tool to look toward in the future. They offer online training for officials, so it might become a more convenient way for football and soccer referees who otherwise wouldn’t be able to participate in in-person basketball training, to get involved with the sport.
The hope is that through increased outreach to current high school and youth athletes, a more collaborative relationship between players and coaches with officials and more online training options, that can create a more positive environment and lead to a rebound in referee participation. If there aren’t enough referees, the high school and youth athletic experience simply won’t be sustainable in its current structure.
“The knees don’t work like they used to,” said Hodsdon, who’s officiated for over five decades. “I probably will not be doing high school games this year. And that’s what I’m seeing: Quite a few of our guys are reaching this point.”
If you’re interested in becoming an official, visit NHIAA.org, click ‘Related Links’ and ‘Officials Links’ to get more information.