Officiating Youth and High School Sports

     It is well-known across the United States that the number of officials for all sports has dramatically decreased in people who want to become officials. The truth about it is the job isn't fun for anyone anymore as you have to hear the constant complaining from fans and coaches and a lot of the time they have no clue what they are talking about. In baseball, constantly complaining about the strike zone or out and safe calls has set a bad example for the youth who also seem to complain a lot to officials. The scary part of the situation is the track we are on sports will not have enough officials which will make it more difficult for games to be played. This could cause major trouble for youth and high school sports as they literally won't be able to find officials to referee games. I believe this issue can be fixed though if some action steps are taken to create change. 

    I would first implement a no-tolerance policy for fans to argue or yell anything at the officials. People should be coming to games to cheer teams or individual players on but not to berate the refs. This no-tolerance policy would remove any fans from the games immediately by an administrator if they are heard arguing with the officials. This would cause fewer headaches for officials as they can just focus on the people that are actually a part of the game, not anyone who is watching from the crowd. The coaches and players are a different story because they are part of the competition you have to be able to argue because it is just part of the competitive nature of any sport. I think that you can argue while also making sure you have a healthy respect for the official and know how tough the job is that they are trying to do. Coaches need to be able to have conversations with officials without being disrespectful because it's not an easy job that anyone could do. 

The last thing that needs to be changed is the training for officials and the pay will both have to be better. In the world we live in people will need to be paid more to officiate because there is such a limited amount and such a need for younger officials. There needs to be better training to prepare these officials to do their job at a high level whether doing simulated games or starting out at a younger level. The recruiting effort needs to be done by veteran officials who go out and talk about the pros of their jobs and why the younger generation should get into officiating. The start of a person's career is so big because if they have something negative happen to them they may never officiate again. This is a problem that needs to be addressed right not even though there are no easy solutions but the lack of officials could ruin sports in the future if things don't change. 

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