Shortage of football officials

[Mr. Buddy Garrity]

From the DMN:

Shortage of football officials is a ‘huge concern’ as high school season approaches.

Texas Association of Sports Officials is hoping to find more than 1,000 new officials. 

 

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[navydawg31]

4 hours ago, Mr. Buddy Garrity said:

From the DMN:

Shortage of football officials is a ‘huge concern’ as high school season approaches.

Texas Association of Sports Officials is hoping to find more than 1,000 new officials. 

 

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Getting worse and worse every year 

[purpleeagle]

my oh my, who will the losing teams fans blame for the loss. 

[AggiesAreWe]

Will see many more Thursday and Saturday games because of the shortage.

[BBfan061]

It isn’t just football from what I understand either… I’m gonna get back into next year myself 

[Guest]

On 7/17/2023 at 9:00 AM, AggiesAreWe said:

Will see many more Thursday and Saturday games because of the shortage.

Do you think it will be some Wednesday games thrown in there soon, for the lower levels?  I have heard of some ISD's using monday/tuesday for lower level games, but wasn't sure if any HS's did the same to accommodate the shortage of officials?

[pine curtain]

2 hours ago, JimAdler said:

Do you think it will be some Wednesday games thrown in there soon, for the lower levels?  I have heard of some ISD's using monday/tuesday for lower level games, but wasn't sure if any HS's did the same to accommodate the shortage of officials?

Houston schools already play on every day of the week.

[Matthew328]

11 hours ago, JimAdler said:

Do you think it will be some Wednesday games thrown in there soon, for the lower levels?  I have heard of some ISD's using monday/tuesday for lower level games, but wasn't sure if any HS's did the same to accommodate the shortage of officials?

Schools that play varsity Thursday almost always play Freshman/JV on Wednesday

[Reagan]

39 minutes ago, Matthew328 said:

Schools that play varsity Thursday almost always play Freshman/JV on Wednesday

Back in the day, JV would play on Saturday mornings.  Not sure if going back to that would the situation.

[Mr. Buddy Garrity]

6 minutes ago, Reagan said:

Back in the day, JV would play on Saturday mornings.  Not sure if going back to that would the situation.

There are some schools who do that currently (freshman and JV) a few weeks in their season. Not sure if it's cause their middle schools play on Thursdays 🤷🏾‍♂️

[Mr. Buddy Garrity]

This is from BillyClydePuckett on Smoaky, he makes some damn good points here: 

 

 I can solve this problem in a heartbeat. Coaches quit being a jerk to officials ESPECIALLY in sub varsity games you are lucky to have officials. School Administrators start kicking jerk parents and fans out of games. Second time they offend ban them from schools. That silliness will stop overnight. UIL bump Minimum pay for sub varsity games to $100 / game. PLUS mileage. Bump MINIMUM pay for Varsity games to $200 PLUS mileage. And do NOT for one second tell me schools cannot afford this. I was a coach and teacher for thirty years. Every school I ever worked at threw away more money in a week than officials cost.  

 

 

Schools if you want to ensure your kids have officials make Officials WANT to come to your school by paying them in cash THAT night. If your Admin says "we can't do that" (and they can btw its just a little extra work for them god forbid people in Admin have to do that) get booster club to pay them that night. AND Feed them......WELL not a Concession Stand Hotdog either! If your Admin is too inept to pay them in cash AD;s do what it takes to make sure these guys are not waiting for their check for two and three months. And yes this is standard operating procedure for most schools. I've even seen AD'S put officials checks in their desks for weeks to "pay back" officials that they feel did not do a good job.

 

 

Trust me, officials talk to each other about schools that do a good job of taking care of them and which schools make it REALLY hard to go there. Guess which schools usually have officials and which do not.

 

 

 

When you have a shortage of workers it is because of two things. Pay is not high enough and / or the work conditions stink. Eco 101. It is amazing that schools just throw up their hands at the drop of the hat and say "there is nothing we can do" that is BS.  

 

 

 

Example: 6 Man schools have the hardest time getting officials. Many are having to play sub varsity and Varsity on the same night to address this. I know a place that has Officials FIGHTING to go call games there. Strawn, Texas. They pay in cash AND the HC feeds the Officials no matter what the sport after the games. At Mary's. He has an open tab there for officials. Take a hint.

 

 

 

Schools and the UIL better pull their head out of their fourth point of contact. If the current trend holds you will be having coaches call sub varsity games. And your Varsity Schedules will be getting rearragned around when the officials can show up.

 

 

 

To sum up show these folks some respect.