Off The Beaten Record: Innovation Needed to Recruit Officials
By ROSS BISHOFF
Error, group does not exist! Check your syntax! (ID: 15)My good friend and former colleague Brandon Hannahs recently wrote an interesting story in the Zanesville Times Recorder that caught my eye.
The story is about Zanesville High School offering students a sports officiating class as an elective. This is an example of the effort from Ohio high school officials and their associations recruit more people. For years, the number of high school sports officials has been in decline and the average age of officials continues to go up as young people aren’t joining the ranks.
This isn’t just in Ohio, it’s across the nation.
Efforts like these may be paying off. The story states that the number of officials increased in Ohio this past season for the first time since 2008. But at some local levels, such as in Muskingum County, that isn’t the case, so an instructor in the Zanesville area came up with this idea.
Students in these classes learn what they would in an officials’ association class. To get a license in Ohio, an official must be 14, take 25 hours of instruction, pass an exam and pay the OHSAA a $65 for the license and insurance.
Students taking this particular class at Zanesville can become Class 3 officials, who officiate freshman and lower grades. They can also go on to pursue other sports, the class teaches football and basketball the first nine weeks, then basketball or a selection of baseball, softball or soccer depending on the interest.
Error, group does not exist! Check your syntax! (ID: 15)Students can also go on to pursue Class 2 licenses for junior varsity competition.
In recent years, the declining rate – and the rising average age – of officials is causing alarm for good reason.
In some states, it’s so bad they’ve resorted to everything from cutting sub-varsity teams to dropping certain sports entirely. On the less extreme end, the lack of officials can regularly cause cutting back on games along with constantly rescheduling games.
All of these can cause a myriad of problems for athletic programs themselves, even up to the college level, if athletes aren’t getting enough competition.
In order for other states to get this decline turned around, and for Ohio to continue to increase numbers, officials’ associations and their leadership will have to continue to get innovative in recruiting and training, such as high schools offering classes like Zanesville’s.
And if you’re a high school sports fan, you can do a few things yourself:
Go ahead and become an official (something I don’t think I could do);
Help spread the word and recruit people you think might be interested (point them to the OHSAA website for details);
And don’t be an intolerable jerk to refs.
Number of the Week: 10
The over/under on wins this upcoming football season for Ohio State, predicted by Las Vegas sports book CG Technology. Ohio State’s total was second only to Alabama’s 10.5.
Quote of the Week: “I don’t think any team tanks.”
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.
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