Officials Appreciation Week: Shortage of Officials is Real
Feature story originally ran in the Vail Daily on Aug. 18, 2024
Read the full feature on the Vail Daily: Is the high school sports officials shortage hitting a breaking point in Eagle County?
If you’re interested in becoming a high school official in Colorado, please fill out this form and CHSAA will contact you. More information on officiating can be found on CHSAA’s Officials website.
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Bill Beasley decided to become a referee while watching a basketball game almost three decades ago.
“I told myself, ‘I can do that,’” the lifetime Eagle County resident said. “I’m the kind of person that, instead of complaining about it, I just join.
Evidently, more people need to follow his example.
Over the last few years, an officials shortage has approached a breaking point across Colorado. The crisis is particularly troublesome in Eagle County, according to Chuck Nissen, the Colorado High School Athletic Association assignor for Western Slope officials.
“We’re really needing people to understand the issue we have and we need some help,” said Nissen, who lives in Grand Junction. “There’s a really big need that would help save the schools money because they’re ultimately having to pay for people to come from Grand Junction, Montrose and Delta. The shortage is truly costing your schools and kids money that they could be using for something else.”
Eagle Valley High School athletic director Ryan Lynch said he spent 28% more for officials last year compared to past seasons.
“The travel costs quite a bit and it has definitely put a strain on our budget,” he stated in an email. “We have some really good veteran officials near us but we’re in dire need of more.”
Nissen said the cause is clear.
“The biggest thing is young people are not getting into it,” he said. “And the biggest thing I hear is: ‘I don’t want to get yelled at.’”
If you want to have stars, you have to have stripes
McKayla Williams knows what it’s like to go from hearing fans cheer for you to having them heckle. The 22-year-old former Eagle Valley athlete is entering her third year as an official this fall.
“People aren’t very fond of officials,” she said. “You hear everything and you kind of have to learn to push it off to the side and not let it get to you. And remember you’re doing it for the kids.”
Williams — who typically works a couple volleyball games and three to four basketball contests a week — joined because she wanted to give back to her local sporting community. While she already grasped most of the basic rules of both sports, shouldering specific technicalities and making quick, decisive calls was an adjustment
“It happens so fast, too. So just the more practice you get, the better,” she said. “I know I’m very young at it and I’m learning.”
The shortage has given her — and Beasley — plenty of practice opportunities. Beasley said he officiated over 70 basketball games last winter. The 70-year-old also worked 63 baseball games, 35 softball games and a football game every Monday and Friday all fall. That’s on top of his full-time job as supervisor of the buildings and grounds crews for Eagle County.
Beasley and George Hudspeth — both of whom officiated Williams’ games while she was a player — now serve as her mentors. She’s a sponge during halftime and post-game debriefs, soaking in reviews of close calls and conversations on controversial moments.
“That helps a lot,” Williams said. “Getting the advice from officials who have been doing it for a long time who I look up to — their advice is really great.”
Williams said Beasley and Hudspeth are encouraging, “especially when they know a parent or fan is giving me a hard time.”
“They will step up,” she said. “And they have my back.”
Athletic directors in the area do, too.
“I’ve tried to stay pretty vigilant about fans saying anything at all to a ref,” said Lynch who plans to make the topic part of his parents’ night speech this week. “I’m not sure what’s happened in the past here but that’s unacceptable at Eagle Valley High School with me here.”
Nissen said CHSAA has made an intentional shift toward focusing on sportsmanship, especially as it relates to parent-official interactions at games.
“People need to understand that if we keep berating the refs, (it) makes officials uncomfortable,” Nissen said. “The more we do that, the less people we have.”
Beasley said his main advice to young refs hopping into the fire is to focus on one play at a time.
“Ok, so we missed something on that end, but we’re going to the other end now — forget about that,” he said in describing his in-game mindset. “Do we discuss it halftime or the end of the game? Absolutely. But you can’t dwell on that kind of stuff.”
Williams’ primary goals going into every game are to keep kids safe and make sure “everything is clean.” She wishes fans and athletes understood that refs don’t have any secret agendas or vendettas — they just want to call a good game.
“That’s probably one of the most important things,” she said. “We’re all there to have a good game. We’re not against them, we’re just trying to help them out.”
But parental pressure on refs can be exasperated in a small community, where officials might run into a disagreeable coach or fan in the grocery store the day after a game.
“It seems as soon as you put the striped shirt on, you’re the target,” Beasley said. “It just is what it is. The first probably five years it bothered me a little bit, but not even close anymore. You just look at them and go, ‘if you only knew.’ … So much of it is, people don’t know the rules.”
He said behavior has deteriorated, particularly from players, in the last decade.
“I’ve had several people I’ve brought on board. I’ve said, ‘come on, just work a game with me and let’s see how it goes — even a middle school game,’” he said. “After the game — two different times — they handed the shirt and whistle back and said, ‘I don’t know how you deal with it.’”
The issue isn’t unique to Colorado, either. At its second-annual Officials Consortium in Indianapolis last January, the National Federation of High School Associations (NFHS) discussed ways to tackle the nationwide shortage of officials.
“We are hoping to see results in terms of how officials are treated at events by spectators and in terms of the overall tenor about officials in the media and on social media,” said Dana Pappas, NFHS director of officiating services.
Both Williams and Beasley know they can’t be perfect.
“I’ll be the first to admit that the best seat in the house is in the grandstands,” Beasley said. “You can see the whole game.”
