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Texas facing football referee shortage

Around the country, high school athletic associations are seeing a sharp decline in officials for high school football. The two main reasons? Verbal abuse from fans and retirements.

TYLER — There has been much discussion about the declining amount of players signing up to play football on the youth level. But there is a startling decline of a different kind on the high school level that also poses a threat to the sport.

Texas, like other states around the country, is seeing less people sign up as high school referees each season. While the problem is not as widely talked about as a decline in player participation, it is trend that has been going on for a period of several years.

"Last year we were down," Greg Parham, Varsity Assignment Secretary for Tyler Football Officials Chapter said. "This year, I'm told already that we're thousand down from what we were at last year statewide."

Parham has been a football official for nearly four decades. Year in and year out, many of the same faces travel around the state to officiate games under the Friday night lights. However, some of those faces are hanging up their cleats for retirement.

"We've got to have somebody to come in and take our place," Parham said. "And we're just not getting those younger officials to come in and stay for years and years and years like many of us have."

Officiating football is a high pressure job, especially in Texas where high school football can be argued as the state's most popular form of entertainment.

"A lot of it is going over rules that they need to know. The majority of the new officials' training is mechanics. In other words, where are you supposed to be on the field when a certain thing happens," Parham explained. "We try to pair them with people during the year that they will get the training and they will get the help that they need so that they'll come back."

The chief reason many officials say they are not returning is relentless verbal abuse from the parents and fans at the games.

Parham says the Texas Association of Sports Officials did a survey last year that found 70 percent cited verbal abuse from the stands as the reason they would not return the next year.

"They didn't like the way they were being talked to," Parham said. "They didn't like the way they were being yelled at, and not respected on the field."

Many of the older officials are used to the drowning out insults from parents and fans. Parham believes without the mentorship of experienced officials, younger officials feel vulnerable to the relentless attacks.

"They don't have the confidence that someone who may have been doing it for awhile and it just makes them feel that much worse," Parham explained.

This, coupled with the increasing number of retirements by longtime officials, has far reaching consequences that may have an effect on every level of the game.

One effect is the strain on the officials who stay on. Due to the shortage, Parham says an official may work as many as four games in a week.

"They are playing middle school games on Tuesdays now. They have Tuesday nights and then JV games on Thursday nights and then they'll do varsity games on Friday nights," Parham said. "We even have a couple of schools that have moved Friday night games to Saturday."

While that official works on a voluntary basis, the strain is still there. And when there is not enough officials, some chapters have to reach out to others.

"There were a couple of the chapters in East Texas who decided they were not able to help and work some of the sub-varsity games," Parham said. "And we were able to help, but that was because of a shortage of officials. They just didn't have enough officials."

If there continues to be a shortage of officials, Parham believes the biggest effect will be at the middle school level, where players are first developing their skills.

"If we don't continue to get officials to join and stay with us, then middle school games are going to be called by the coaches," Parham said. "That middle school game is just as important to that kid playing in that middle school game and the parent in the stands as if he was playing on that Friday night or in the Superbowl."

Like any successful football player, officials must possess intangible qualities to make them successful. Among those are devotion to the job, a thick skin and an affection for the game.

"You've got to love the game if you're going to officiate football," Parham said.

However, the rewards for longtime officials are grand knowing they are preserving a Texas's favorite pastime and making a difference in the community.

"We're just looking for someone who loves the game," Parham said. "Who wants to get out there, who enjoys kids and who wants to just make a difference."

Tyler Football Officials, the East Texas Football Chapter, and Commerce Football Officials Association all need recruits.

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