Time Out

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — The State College High School football team is winning 27-7 at halftime, but with all the hollering parents — outraged at a missed holding call from the first quarter — you would think the home team is losing by 50.

“Open your eyes,” one spectator screams as the officials walk off the field.

“Call something!” another shouts.

The referees never break stride. They never turn to fight back. They never show their frustration. They appear desensitized to the insults, as if they’ve experienced this kind of heckling a million times. But it stings. They’re not robots who do the job without feelings.

Their training tells them to simply deal with it.

After all, handling hostile spectators has become part of the job.

Passion over civility

Jeff Fisher has officiated basketball, soccer and baseball in Centre County, Pennsylvania, since 1989. He loves sports, loves kids and enjoys giving back to his community.

But that passion has waned in recent years. Kids have grown disrespectful, parents’ disdain has heightened and leagues have become ungrateful for the sacrifices that officials make to help local sports flourish.

If you're reading this as a parent of a youth athlete, you might be part of the problem. You might be the reason Fisher, and many others like him in Pennsylvania, are quitting.

“The problem is that people don't want to officiate,” Fisher said. “The fans have become ruthless. You can't get new officials because they don't want to put up with the bullshit.”

And what stuff is that? For starters, says Fisher, the constant complaining from athletes and fans when they disagree with a foul, a called strike three or a simple clock error. Spectators allow their competitiveness to strip officials of their humanity, which results in heated exchanges over minuscule problems.

One Centre County official recalled ejecting an entire student section because they called him “fat” and “bald” after he missed a few calls during a high school basketball game. Then there was the time a buddy of Fisher’s threw out a pair of elderly grandparents because they wouldn’t stop harassing a ref about his performance.

“I hear horror stories of how officials are treated,” said Doug Dyke, a long-time athletic director at Bald Eagle High School, who works with referees regularly.

The obvious counters to these ref complaints from fans: Hasn’t it always been like this? And, “we’re just passionate.” The answers from the guys in stripes: No, it hasn’t. And, according to current officials, the backtalk goes beyond passion and into abuse.

Youth sports used to provide kids with an outlet to stay active, make friends and learn lessons translatable to everyday life. Now, they’ve become much more. The stakes are higher.

Amateur Athletic Union sports — played by roughly 700,000 young people across the country — have taken youth competition to new heights, where wins, playing time and politics outweigh everything else. Parents spend thousands of dollars on flashy gear, expensive memberships and travel so their children can play for elite teams. And because of that, they expect perfect officiating.

The problem: No official is perfect. In fact, they’re sometimes only a bit beyond volunteers.

“It's gotten worse,” Fisher said. “And I think the reason it's gotten worse is because parents are trying to take care of their kids via some type of (scholarship) at a school.”

AAU basketball tournaments feature dozens of games on the same day, with teams playing entire tournaments in a 10-hour window. Officials do the same, but they are spread thin, sometimes officiating eight games in one day.

By the end, they are exhausted, both physically and mentally. And sometimes that exhaustion shows in their performance, much to the dismay of competitive parents, players and coaches.

“The parents are traveling from Philadelphia, spending money on hotel rooms and food, and they expect to get the best officiating in the world,” Fisher said. “As a ref, you’re on your eighth game, and you don’t really give a shit.”

The crisis

The numbers tell the story: High school officials in Centre County are getting older and less active in sports. The pool is shrinking.

The average age of Centre County officials is 60, according to Jerry Zollars, whose responsibility within the local Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association is to assign umpires to high school baseball games. Zollars says that few are available.

In a county of nearly 160,000 residents, only five individuals have registered to become a baseball official in Centre County over the last decade, Zollar said. And just half of the 22 baseball officials and 43 football officials registered in Centre County are still active, Zollars says.

“In another 10 years, we won't have officials if we can't get young guys involved,” Zollars said.

Retirements and resignations have dwindled the already shrinking number of refs in Centre County, which has directly affected junior varsity sports.

Dyke from Bald Eagle, a community about 16 miles north of State College, who has served as an athletic director for over 30 years, recalled an August junior varsity soccer match that was canceled due to a lack of available officials.

Both athletic directors were informed of the shortage 24 hours before kickoff, yet couldn’t find a replacement. Dyke said that never used to happen.

Matt Grambling, who’s in his 30th year as an official in Centre County, has encountered similar issues. The long-time ref said it takes him between 10 and 20 phone calls to find a replacement official.

In the past, officials would work for several years at the junior high level before officiating varsity football games, essentially working their way through the ranks before graduating to the big leagues.

Now, Dyke says, anybody could be called upon to officiate those marquee varsity contests, no matter their age or their credentials.

“You might have someone working tonight's varsity football game, and it's their first year officiating,” Dyke said. “You used to never see that.”

Those inexperienced officials are thrown into the fire way too early, several people interviewed for this article agreed. And when parents ridicule their every call, they can’t take the heat.

“You get a young guy to go out there with you, and he’s doing the best he can. He's young and inexperienced, and when he makes a call that coaches don't like, (coaches) rip into him,” Zollars said. “And when that happens, he says, ‘I'm done. I'm never doing this again. Forget it.’ (Younger officials) can't take that abuse.”

Branden Evans experienced Zollars’ sentiment in 2021. The then-21-year-old traveled to Bellefonte High School to shadow a few senior officials. But after multiple crew members failed to report to the game, Evans’ number was called.

He ran to his car to grab his officiating gear and, in just his second month on the job, he suited up to officiate a high-stakes football contest.

“(The other officials) said, ‘Hey, do you think you can do this?’ I said, I can try. I have my stuff with me, so they put me in there,” Evans said. “There are a lot more bells and whistles that go into a Friday night game, and it was just something that caught me off guard.”

Barriers to entry

Harsh criticism from angry spectators is an obvious reason refereeing is less popular around here, but it’s not the only one. Add in steep application fees plus hours of training, and the numbers fall even further.

It costs $40 to apply to become an official in Centre County, according to the PIAA website. Once they’ve applied, officials must take a $60 test for the sport they wish to referee.

There goes $100.

Then, if they pass the test, it’s time to purchase gear, which, in sports like baseball, can run anywhere from $300 to $500. Umpires require a face mask, chest protector, leg guards, plate brush and an indicator. And that doesn’t include the collared shirt, slacks and shoes necessary to look the part.

“It is very expensive to get into these sports, especially baseball,” Zollars said. “Not only do you have to pay for the PIAA fees, but you also get hit by all the equipment you need.”

Assigning blame

Circles of blame have developed around the ref shortage.

Fans and parents make it clear from the stands that they aren’t happy with the officiating. Refs blame fans for letting themselves get out of control.

Athletic directors blame the PIAA for failing to solve the officiating shortage. The PIAA says it’s on ADs not to schedule multiple games on the same day, which stretches officials thin. The organization also seeks better protection for officials against poor fan behavior.

Major League Baseball has a fix: The Automated Ball-Strike system — a new technology that tracks pitches to determine if they are balls or strikes.

The ABS system allows teams to challenge balls and strikes they deem incorrect, which alleviates some pressure from umpires. If a batter believes a called strike was outside the strike zone, he can tap his head to initiate an ABS review to confirm or overturn the call.

No longer will games be won and lost on incorrect calls. It will inevitably take time for this system to trickle into college and eventually high school sports. But if it does, referees could benefit the most from some additional help.

And who knows. Maybe the robots will save us after all.