'A pandemic in the world of officiating:' Numbers trend downward with no obvious fix

Brad Huntley, Chuck Caskey and their officiating crew strode off the field after a 2020 playoff game between Medina and St. Ignatius. Medina had just beaten Ignatius and St. Edward's in consecutive games, a nearly unheard of accomplishment in Ohio high school football. As the officials walked past Medina's fans, they were berated with "some nice, selective names" and refrains of how "terrible" they'd been. "We actually stopped," Caskey said, "and my quote was, 'Your kids just beat Ignatius and Ed's in back-to-back weeks, and I don't think they know, because you spent the whole game yelling at us.'" Fan treatment is just one part of a bigger picture with an undeniable truth — Ohio is losing officials, in football and other sports, and there isn't an obvious fix. The men and women who spend countless hours ensuring that the state's student-athletes can play in structured, rules-driven competitions are leaving the profession, or not joining at all. If the trend continues, it's only a matter of when, not if, a game could be canceled due to lack of officials. "If it gets to the point where a school on a given night just didn't have any officials," Huntley said, "I think the fans would start looking a little closer at themselves and say maybe we should appreciate these people a little more." Locally, where the Bay Area Officials Association takes charge of many games, the crews are teetering on the edge. A few more lost officials would push the BAOA into a serious bind, said association secretary Greg Bartemes, entering his 36th year of football officiating. "There's a pandemic in the world of officiating," Huntley added. "There should be somebody chewing at the bit to take my job, but nobody is. There's nobody waiting in the wings." Click here for the Sandusky Register's full high school football preview coverage A numbers game Football isn't alone. Aside from field hockey (with total officials numbering fewer than 100) and lacrosse, which wasn't sanctioned until the 2016-17 school year, every OHSAA sport has fewer officials now than it did in 2010-11. That means baseball, softball, basketball, volleyball, wrestling, soccer, track and field, swimming, gymnastics and ice hockey are all down. Across the state since 2010, the total number of officials has dropped from 16,629 to 13,585, an 18.3-percent decrease. The COVID-19 pandemic didn't help matters — some officials left and never came back. All the sports mentioned above, aside from swimming, had fewer officials in 2020-21 than 2019-20. "With the way officials are portrayed on professional sports broadcasts and other things, it's not something that's very attractive to people," Bartemes said. "Would you like to become an official? … These high schools have such large coaching staffs that guys who are young, athletic and know the game, they'd rather go coach than become officials." Football's just one part of that larger trend. In 2010-11, there were 3,723 football officials in the OHSAA. A decade later, that number had fallen to 2,965, a decline of more than 20 percent. The Bay Area Officials Association managed to stay essentially even during the pandemic, losing a couple officials but picking up a couple others. Football, though, adds the difficulty of needing a five-man crew for a varsity game, including someone capable and confident enough to be the referee. The decline in officials has only made such crews harder to assemble. So far, SBC assigning secretary Mark King hasn't struggled assembling varsity crews, which are often locked in a year or more in advance. But at the sub-varsity levels, there have been gaps in crews, King said. "When I got into assigning, which was probably 25 years ago, assigning was people knocking on your door just begging, wanting games," King said. "I can tell you now it's me in my office on my computer, on my phone making sure that we put the proper product on the SBC fields." "It's a hurting profession right now," Caskey added. "Not enough people want to do it." Finding solutions Huntley, who has officiated football for 28 years, called a potential solution the "silver bullet" — how to reverse the downward trend. There's no simple answer, a number of local officials explained. Think about the factors. Pay is one, for sure. When Huntley first began officiating, he didn't even know he'd be getting paid. In those days in the early-1990s, pay was $25 for a varsity game. Now it's up to $65 or $75, depending on the league. Add in a major time commitment. Officials arrive two hours prior to a game that can be an hour or more drive away, often having already made similar trips during the week for games at lower levels. Then they stand out on the field and hear it from parents, coaches and whoever else might think they know more about officiating than the people who take yearly classes and tests to ensure they're able to do the job. "That's a tough job for people," Clyde coach Ryan Carter said. "It is. Fans are tough. Parents are tough. And coaches are tough on officials. It's not something that a young guy says, 'Hey man, I really want to get involved with that and take that abuse on a Friday night.'" But of course with those problems come possibilities. Pay raises could make the job more reasonable for some. More school-by-school enforcement of rowdy spectators could help, too. A few local officials pointed more to the pipeline for officiating, though. At the end of the day, people have to be trained and want to officiate enough to put up with the rest of it. "It's somewhere we need more people," Perkins coach Jalen Santoro said. "It's hard to find good refs. I give those guys credit, the ones that are there." Some districts, such as Bellevue and Old Fort, have experimented with officiating classes in school. Teenagers can start when they're 14, but they may not have a place to learn. Classrooms could become the places where growth begins. Caskey even talks to players during games, suggesting to them that they should start officiating. A high school football player could begin working junior high games, and by the time he turned 18, take the test to become a varsity official. "The schools are the ones that are benefiting from it, and in the endgame, if you don't have enough officials they're the ones that are gonna hurt," Caskey said. "If there's no officials, you're a player and they tell you we can't have a game tonight because we don't have officials, I know I wouldn't have liked it when I was a kid." Why they do it Caskey, at 58 years old and entering his 30th year of football officiating, walks each morning to get ready for the season. Officiating makes him sore, but he has his method for making it through each game, just like players might. "The pain that's associated with it, I'm like any other player," Caskey said. "I'll be in pain tomorrow when I wake up, but by tomorrow night, I'll take some Aleve and make it through." The people who continue to officiate, who've done it for a decade or more, love it. They love football. They love the service they're performing for the community. And much like they may have in their own athletic careers, they love the motivation it provides them to get better. "You want to be the best you can be at it," said Ryan Bowers, the head linesman on Bartemes' crew. "You look at different officials and you're like, what makes them great? Usually it's the preparation, it's the rule knowledge, it's just that little bit extra they're doing each and every game, each and every play, that just separates them and puts them apart." And in some ways, for experienced officials, the fans bring them closer together. Caskey said that if his crew is spotted laughing during the game, it's because of the verbal barrage they're taking. Such experiences also create "lifelong" friendships, Bowers said. Caskey and his crew spend time together year round. Huntley added that all his best friends have come through his football officiating. So it may not be glamorous, or a full-time job, or the best way to avoid the wrath of others. But officiating, to those who do it, is about relationships and community and a game that connects generations. They just wish more people joined them in their passion. "When you're in the trenches with somebody and you've got people screaming at you and different stuff like that," Bowers said, "there's something about that bond that you can't experience anywhere else." ---- How to become a local official Contact Greg Bartemes, 419-366-2532 For more details, go to BayAreaOfficials.com --- OHSAA officiating trends The total number of officials under the OHSAA umbrella has decreased by 18% since 2010. Here are the trends in six high-profile sports: Year Football Baseball Softball Volleyball Soccer Basketball 2010-11 3,723 4,248 3,117 2,156 1,424 6,122 2011-12 3,661 4,169 3,011 2,129 1,410 5,982 2012-13 3,554 3,933 2,838 2,015 1,370 5,618 2013-14 3,493 3,641 2,634 1,931 1,366 5,711 2014-15 3,451 3,821 2,710 1,911 1,406 5,766 2015-16 3,452 3,362 2,399 1,898 1,476 5,714 2016-17 3,372 3,587 2,434 1,863 1,425 5,731 2017-18 3,309 3,495 2,351 1,834 1,345 5,577 2018-19 3,221 3,410 2,269 1,806 1,343 5,628 2019-20 3,203 3,369 2,191 1,830 1,296 5,644 2020-21 2,965 3,201 2,055 1,767 1,212 5,250 Source: OHSAA