This week’s column is adapted from an interesting report found on the highly successful refereeing web site www.referee.com, which deals with what is termed as a national crisis in officiating in the USA.

Upon reading this report one can easily conclude that the shortage of referees is not just a local or European problem but one that spans the whole world, even in the USA where major sporting disciplines are multi-million dollar industries.

Here follows an extensive abridgement of the report which concludes that there are not enough officials (referees) to cover the ever-increasing number of high school games played in the USA.

NASO (National Association of Sports Officials, the world’s largest organisation for sports officials with over 16,000 members) devoted its entire national conference in Norfolk earlier this year to the subject of recruitment and retention in officiating.

The news of a national shortage was presented at a session titled “Why Aren’t There Enough Refs?” during which NASO unveiled the results of a nationwide survey of state high school association officiating leaders, the men and women largely responsible for registering and accrediting officials in every sport each state governs.

NASO also presented findings from a separate survey it conducted to find out the reasons officials have for leaving the avocation.

There was a 100 percent response to the NASO survey, yet the news was grim.

In the first question on the NASO survey, “In general, does your state have an officials’ shortage?” an astounding 90% responded yes.

The NASO survey then endeavored to determine which the bigger problem was, namely is it a lack of new recruits or a lack of retention, for the reason why a shortage exists. Seventy-one percent responded that the bigger problem was a lack of recruits while 22 percent indicated it was a lack of retention. Seven percent said both were an equal challenge.

Poor sportsmanship was the number one reason cited by state administrators for why officials do not re-register at the start of a new season. Poor sportsmanship by spectators was cited by 76% of the respondents, while poor sportsmanship by participants (players and coaches) had the second-highest response with 68%. Career demands and family were next, tied at 65% whilst difficulty in advancing was cited by 53%.

When asked what the single biggest reason is for officials not re-registering, sportsmanship again was number one. Sixteen percent said the number one reason was poor sportsmanship by spectators, 14% said it was career demands, 13% cited difficulty in advancing, 11% attributed it to family demands and another seven percent said it was poor sportsmanship by participants.

Breaking up the information by gender first, NASO noted some of the differences between the male and female respondents. “The market is great for women now in the business world so it’s no surprise career demands was the number one reason. But, time away from family and friends was also high.”

NASO then broke the information up by sport and noted the slightly different trends in the responses from sport to sport and the need to deal with different issues when trying to retain those officials.

Finally, the information was divided by experience level where it was noted how the reasons for leaving officiating evolve the longer an official stays in the avocation. For example, a one or two year official is more concerned about how much he or she is spending on licensing and equipment than on advancement.

On the other hand, a 26 year veteran gets out more often because of voluntary retirement than for a strained relationship with his or her local association.

NASO noted that at the top of nearly every demographic response was career/job demands, but it was acknowledged that to solve the retention problem, one has to attack the problems where one can make a difference.

“We can’t do a whole lot about job demands. People have to have a livelihood. But we can do something about sportsmanship; we can do something about costs; we can do something about relationships with assignors and local associations.”

Career and job demands placed as the number-one reason listed regardless of which sport the respondent had previously worked. There was a slight deviation with baseball umpires, who listed low game fees as their number 2 reason for getting out of umpiring.

Respondents in no other sport listed it any higher than fourth. Volleyball officials, too, deviated slightly from the norm, listing amount of travel involved as the third highest reason for getting out.

Money was a key factor for the new officials. Costs associated with obtaining and maintaining a license and with purchasing necessary equipment (listed as the number two and three reasons) apparently drove many first-year officials out of the avocation.

Reasons involving poor sportsmanship did not start creeping into the top five until you look at respondents with one to two years of experience and it remained a mainstay in the top five for every experience level after that.

The survey endeavored to find out the most important reasons officials have for leaving a particular sport. As part of that exit survey, respondents were given 17 potential reasons to choose from and asked to indicate the most important reason(s) for no longer officiating at the high school level.

The ranking of these 17 choices:

• Advancement to upper levels

• Amount of travel involved

• Career/job demands

• Costs associated with obtaining/maintaining a license

• Costs associated with purchasing necessary equipment

• Desire to work only other rule codes

• Desire to work only lower levels

• Difficulty in advancing

• Low game fees

• Not what I thought it would be

• Outside time needed for continuing education

• Personal health

• Poor sportsmanship by participants

• Poor sportsmanship by spectators

• Relationship with assignor or local association

• Time away from family and friends

• Voluntary retirement

Gender differences

There were some telling differences between men and women respondents. Eighty-eight percent of all the respondents were male and their responses were very similar to the top five responses among all respondents. “Time away from family and friends” was the only response that did not appear in the men’s top five.

In contrast “Time away from family and friends” was the second most-listed response among female respondents, who made up 12 percent of all respondents.