With plenty of high school sports returning, are there enough referees available?
With multiple sports seasons being squeezed in the final two months of the school year, there’s a rising concern there might not be enough officials to go around.
It’s tough enough gathering enough referees for a single sports season, let alone three coming together as restrictions tied to the pandemic are being lifted on nearly ever sport.
“We will get through this spring in hopefully relatively OK shape and cover as much as possible,” said Brian Moore, the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section’s officials assigner for the southern part of the section. “ Hopefully (with fingers crossed) we get back to more normalcy of schedules beginning with traditional fall sports next August.”
Moore said the section does have enough referees.
However, in football, the number of available officials in the southern part of the section is down by over 30% compared to last year.
To help with the shortage, Moore said referees from Contra Costa County, Fresno, and Sacramento will work games in the area.
But how the Sac-Joaquin Section plans to provide enough officials with baseball, softball, basketball, soccer, water polo and many other sports is being discussed.
Among logistics being discussed are having one-person umpiring crews for baseball, four-official crews for football, school administrators handling some of the referring duties, and much more.
Moving some football games from Fridays to Thursdays and Saturdays as also been discussed. There are already a number of area football games on Thursday, April 1, due to the next day being Good Friday.
Older referees worried about coronavirus
A few reasons for the decline Moore said include some of the older referees “not comfortable” working games because of the coronavirus pandemic and some have retired which happens every year, he said.
Multiple athletic directors the Bee reached out to said there isn’t a concern for a shortage of referees right now but they are worried about how many will be available next month when most leagues begin Season 3 (baseball and softball) sports.
One league has discussed possibly having administrators officiate games if needed but there hasn’t been a final vote.
“We probably have more football officials than any other sport,” CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Assistant Commissioner Will DeBoard said. “Some might have a baseball or softball game during the day and then go to football. For schools to get officials for all the games, it’s going to be a big juggling act.”
A lot of new referees come to the section from recreation and youth sports leagues, Moore said.
However, those leagues have been shut down for the last year so they also haven’t worked in awhile.
The Northern California Officials Association posted on its home page that it’s looking for potential referees in the following sports: Baseball, basketball, football, softball, volleyball, and wrestling.
This story was originally published March 11, 2021 at 6:50 AM.
