The fact that our island faces, generally speaking, a general shortage of referees is surely not a secret.

Taking my sport, basketball, as an example, it would be ideal to have a wide pool of referees from where one could choose week in, week out. However few individuals opt to come forward to referee and, better still, remain in the business and move further up the ranks.

Just this week I came across an article, authored by Greg Auman and published on the St Petersburg Times, which dealt on the subject and which I felt it appropriate to share with you.

Florida is losing officials, mostly because of mistreatment, and is searching for answers.

Ron Allen looks at the future of high school football officiating in Florida, sees referees retiring their whistles and wonders who will take their place.

“We’re desperate, quite frankly,” said Allen, the Florida High School Activities Association’s deputy commissioner. “We’re growing at such a rate statewide, and we’re trying to find more young officials to keep up with that growth.”

The shortage of young officials is not limited to football, or to Florida by any means, but the state is looking for answers. Why are not more people interested in refereeing and how can that be changed?

Pete Rodriguez, a 45-year-old referee from Spring Hill who began officiating as a 19-year-old in New York, has some ideas. He has seen some changes in the sport over the years, but more alarming for him is the change in the way officials are treated.

“If I was a rookie referee starting out, I would probably have a difficult time trying to stick with it,” Rodriguez said. “They are expected to start perfect and get better. They don’t have the respect that was there when I started. They don’t have enough time to mature while officiating. That’s why a lot of them decide this is not for them, even though they might be good officials. They don’t want to put up with it.”

Officials swap stories about parents waiting for them after games, about threats, about the fear of physical assault. Sandy Semegen who is the booking coordinator for the West Central Officials Association in Brooksville said the atmosphere surrounding an official is much more intense than it was when he started out.

“Kids are more in your face,” he said. “Years ago, if a kid ever gave an official a hard time, the first person that got into him was the coach. Right away, the coach was taking him out of the play. The second person was probably the parents. Now parents are coming to you after the game, running you down to tell you “That was a horrendous call where they never did that before.”

“At the lower levels, that’s where you get your worst coaches. The higher the level, the easier it gets. A lot of people don't want to go into the profession. Why should they take the abuse?”

Allen said the lack of respect shown to referees continues to serve as an obstacle in recruiting efforts, and if the poor treatment given to officials does not change, players and fans may really have something to complain about.

“If we don’t ease up on our referees, we won’t have any,” he said. “We don’t want to run off the ones we have. If we do, we’ll have chaos.”

“We’ve noticed something of a three-year cycle,” said Bob Still, public relations manager for the National Association of Sports Officials, which has more than 19,000 members. “For every 100 that join up, 33 will quit after one year, and another 33 will quit after two years, so we’re losing two officials for every one good one we find. There are not enough young people coming into officiating, and when you attend the clinics and conventions, you see a lot of grey hairs.”

While the state is desperate for more officials, it is not however lowering its standards. In most areas, there is at least a two-year wait from when officials start to when they see varsity action (i.e. games at a higher level), and before they do that, they must score a 75 or higher on the state's annual rules examination.

“If you don’t study, you don’t pass it,” Semegen said. “Some officials can do a whole game and never get themselves in trouble. Get them to take the test, and they’re in trouble.”

The state also gives its referees ratings, from 1 to 3, based on experience, attendance at clinics and performance on the exam. Only 22 percent of the state’s registered officials have “1” ratings, and all of them posted scores of 90 percent or higher on their tests.

One thing most officials will say with pride is that they're not in it for the money. “You have to have the incentive to want to stay,” Rodriguez said. “The money doesn’t really matter. For me, it has always been that I was out there doing something I enjoy. At one of my first clinics when I was 19, they said, “If you’re looking to get rich at this profession, you better do something else.”

“You have to have a lot of common sense. Once you know the rules, common sense takes over,” Rodriguez said. “What keeps them in depends on who they get to work with. If you don't have the right support, it can be very difficult to adjust. I’ve been blessed in that I worked with some of the best officials in the city of New York when I started. One thing I’ve learned is that I don’t know everything, and by the time I retire, there will still be a lot of things to learn.”