Could the Reported Shortage of Officials in Youth Sports
Affect Your Child’s Sports Experience?

Six Things You and Your League Can Do To Solve the Shortage

Next time you begin to criticize a youth official think about the following facts that are affecting your child’s sport.

• 90% of state high school associations report an officiating shortage.
• 71% of all state high school associations list recruitment of officials as their largest challenge.
• 76% of all officials cite poor sportsmanship by spectators as a reason why they don’t continue officiating.

With these shortages your child’s program may be faced with the following problems:

• Games spread throughout a week rather than on weekends providing inconsistent schedules throughout an entire season.
• The high probability of volunteers off the sideline officiating due to officiating no-shows.
• More game cancellations at high levels of competition – 58% of high school programs “occasionally” must reschedule or cancel games due to an official’s availability.

So the next time you begin to complain about officials or openly criticize them, think about what the results may be for your child.  Without officials you won’t have your travel teams or league championships.  And maybe that’s a good thing.  Maybe officials are demonstrating through their actions that parents and coaches have lost perspective about why kids play sports.  Officials should be an important part of your child’s athletic development.  They should be respected and listened too.  If trained properly they can be another coach on the field and reinforcement for all coaches on the sideline.  Until we refocus our attention away from winning a silly youth game and begin developing our kids as athletes through skills and sportsmanship, we will by default change youth sports.  You may have a day that officials no longer want to be involved in your obsession with reenacting professional sports on a youth field, and very few kids that want to continue as well.

How do we solve this shortage of officials in youth sports?

• Stop criticizing them, it’s not the end of world, a poor official is better than no officials.  If you believe an official is so poor it’s affecting the development of your child’s skills, quietly have a conversation with your league commissioner and allow him or her to address the situation. It’s most likely a situation that can be corrected through a quiet and confidential conversation with a league administrator, not in the middle of a game embarrassing a person in front of two teams, parents and coaches.
• Recruit and train high school athletes to officiate youth competitions.  A majority of high school athletes will not advance to the next level of collegiate sports.  However many would like to stay involved, officiating is a great way to stay in the game.  Young kids look up to high school athletes.  It’s a great way for high school athletes to work with younger kids and provide their knowledge of the game.
• Require every coach in your league to be trained in officiating.  This will build respect for what an official does every game, and will also allow your league to use coaches as officials when a shortage of no-show occurs.
• Require every official in your to be trained in coaching.  This provides coaches on the sideline with someone on the field that can evaluate performance up close, and suggest corrections to athletes as something happens in competition.  It empowers referees and makes them part of the overall development process.
• Teach kids the rules of the game. In order to build respect for officials and better educate young athletes, teach them all the rules through the course of a season and all their years in youth sports.   How many youth sports programs teach kids the rules of the game, not many, we should start.
• Begin to use video games to train the next generation of officials.  In order to attract young people into officiating we must use contemporary methods that capture their attention, video games can make that happen.

If you’re interested in becoming a sport official please take a look under each sport listed on this site, we have outlined each sport’s governing body’s steps that an individual must take to get started.