Mark Montieth: Recruiting refs

It was just a Memorial Day weekend basketball game between two fourth-grade travel teams from Michigan, played in Elgin, Illinois. Kristopher Loving refereed the game, for which he remembers being paid $20, tops. One of the teams hit a shot at the final buzzer to win by one point.

Some fans of the losing team apparently thought their team had been playing for the NCAA Championship.

“I had three or four adults come down from the stands and run up on me, get right in my face,” Loving recalls. “They were shouting, ‘You cheated us!’ Things like that. They were very aggressive. It just blew my mind.

“After that I looked in the mirror and thought: ‘Do I really want to do this?’ Working a fourth-grade game, it should be fun. It shouldn’t be a big deal. I was thinking about the young kids … what kind of example were (the adults) setting?

“Thankfully, I stuck with it.”

That all-too typical story, one that could be told in similar versions by thousands of people, summarizes one of the primary reasons for the nationwide shortage of referees in recent years. Not all of them stick with it as Loving did in 2015, when he was new to officiating and learning to deal with the harsh realities of the part-time job.

According to a report in May from the National Federation of State High School Associations, based in Indianapolis, nearly 80% of high school referees and umpires quit within three years. There are solid indications, however, the supply is beginning to catch up with the demand again, at least in Indiana, thanks to the efforts of the likes of Loving, Brian Lewis and Mark Baltz.

Loving, who moved to Noblesville in 2022, works as a linesman for Big Ten football games and will officiate high school, Division III, NAIA and junior college basketball games this winter. He worked USFL games last spring and will do so again next year.

Supporting referees

He founded a not-for-profit organization, Save Our Sports, in January that aims to recruit, support, train and retain referees and umpires. From grants and donations, it also offers financial assistance to those who need it to purchase uniforms, shoes and pay the various fees associated with becoming a licensed official. It’s payback for the help he received from a friend when he got started. He says he’s helped 25 to 30 people get started so far.

Lewis, a Jasper native, is an assistant commissioner of the Indiana State High School Athletic Association and oversees boys basketball, boys and girls cross country and boy and girls track and field. He was the starting running back on Jasper’s 2001 state championship football team and a head coach at Indiana high schools for 12 years. He’s an influencer from inside the IHSAA, which licenses more than 6,000 officials.

Baltz, who moved from Ohio to Fort Wayne in 1980 and now lives in Zionsville, officiated football and basketball games for more than 50 years, including 25 years as a head linesman in the NFL. He officiated two state high school football championship games and three in basketball, along with numerous men’s and women’s college basketball games.

He is the CFO of RefReps, which is nearing its second year of selling online training programs to prospective referees in 16 sports. He says his group has contracted with 71 high schools in Indiana and with schools in 20 states overall, with more on the way. The partner schools offer officiating courses to students for credit, and nearly 13,000 provisional licenses have been issued to students under 18. Peyton Manning recorded a video endorsement for the company’s website, and several high school athletic association officials have offered written testimonies.

All three work independently but know one another and share the same mission: Getting more people involved in officiating and then supporting them once they get started so they aren’t discouraged in the early stages by unruly fans and coaches, as Loving nearly was.

Resources and learning opportunities are now abundant from all angles. Loving received substantial help from SCORE, which offers mentors at no charge for those attempting to build businesses or organizations. He also has part-time use of free office space at CoHatch at Hamilton Town Center, thanks to a grant.

Earlier this week, Lewis and Baltz attended the Midwest Officiating Summit in Des Moines, Iowa, where assistant commissioners of 14 state high school athletic associations shared ways to improve the recruitment and retention of high school officials.

Turning the tide

“We’re cautiously optimistic we’re turning the tide again,” says Lewis, who noted the IHSAA had 6,158 officials in the 2022-23 school year, 329 more than the previous year.

Time was, Indiana had a glut of officials, at least in basketball. Surpluses tend to inspire complacency, however, so nothing was being done to prepare for a looming shortage. Over time, veteran referees and umpires retired, and programs were lacking to entice and support young people who might be interested in replacing them. Reports of abuse from fans and coaches, although relatively rare in the big picture, showed up more frequently on social media sites and television, discouraging young people from taking on the challenge. The pandemic then dealt a major blow, persuading veteran officials to retire earlier than they had planned and further discouraging new ones from getting started.

“It got crazy there for a while,” Baltz says.

The shortage is felt in all sports, at all levels from high school on down, but is most acute at the lower levels where the pay is less and the conditions are more difficult. Lewis says some referees want to work state tournament games early on in their careers and aren’t willing to work up to it gradually. Treatment such as that Loving received in 2015 doesn’t exactly promote patience.

Such negative experiences are more common in non-school events, such as in AAU competition. In school games, administrators are often on hand to help police fans. If not, the coaches are usually faculty members with experience controlling budding conflicts. Regardless, the entry-level jobs pose threats to a referee’s longevity if not handled correctly.

“My biggest concern is that a new official gets a license and is thrown to the wolves in the AAU circuit or in travel ball, and we don’t have protection for them,”Lewis says.

Loving remembers what that was like when he began.

“I contemplated quitting early on,” he says. “I know what that feels like.

“We’re trying to always have a veteran mentor that’s present with new people trying to get started, so when they do get yelled at, when they get poor behavior from adults, they have an adult (referee) who can be the buffer and can address the issues.

“They also have a person who can encourage them and say, ‘Don’t worry about that call,’ or, ‘Don’t worry about that coach,’ and give them tips. If you just send them out there and they have a bad experience, more than likely they’ll just say, ‘This sucks, I’m done.’”

Making it easier

Lewis says the IHSAA’s registration process for becoming an official has been made easier, and licenses can be obtained for free through various sources.

Opportunities to learn in a low-pressure environment also have been enhanced. Loving helped with a football clinic at Taylor University last summer that included 12 high school teams. Referees in training worked the scrimmages and drills with veteran officials on hand to instruct. The coaches and players were supportive of the effort, and Loving considered the outcome to be “excellent.”

Part of the challenge of improving the environment for young officials is educating coaches and parents who let their passion override their civility. The IHSAA can communicate with coaches easily enough, but getting to spectators and parents is less direct.

“Nobody is telling the parents out there, ‘Your kid is making 5,000 mistakes in a Little League game; the official is going to make mistakes, too,’” Baltz says.

“When I was trained in 1966 or ’67, I was told not to put up with that s—, throw them (coaches or fans) out of the game. Kids today don’t think you can do that.”

Administrators across the board would like to see more former athletes become involved, particularly those with college playing experience. They’re most likely to understand and love their sports, but for some it’s difficult to make the transition after being groomed to view referees and umpires as opposing forces.

Loving was walking the sideline observing the officials at Indiana State’s football opener with Eastern Illinois in Terre Haute last month when a visiting player approached and asked what he was doing. The player expressed interest, gave Loving his phone number and has been connected to a source in California who can help him get started.

“That’s what we’ve got to do,” Loving said.

As difficult as the entry level stages can be for an official, the rewards can be great for those who weather the storms. The pay and working conditions become better the higher a referee goes, although scrutiny intensifies. Baltz routinely officiated prominent games in football and basketball throughout his career but still enjoyed the less prestigious ones. His final game as a basketball referee was for a women’s game at Marian College in 2016.

“I had a great career,” he says. “I had a lot of fun.”

Loving, 34, is in the NFL’s development program and expects to be working games there before long. Meanwhile, he’s loving the opportunity as a linesman for Big Ten games. He’ll meet up with three or four other officials in Ohio on Friday and carpool to Penn State for Saturday’s game against Iowa. He’ll have a similar trip every weekend during the Big Ten season, and truth be told, it’s his favorite part of the job.

“It’s the people, man,” he says. “You get to know the other officials, you meet their families, you meet people at the schools, the people at the hotels you see all the time. The games are cool, obviously, but I don’t remember the games as much as the road trip or the dinners or the laughter.

“I told the guys last week (at Nebraska), it’s almost unfair we get to do this. We work this game, we have the best seat in the house, we’re having fun, and we’re getting paid well for it. It’s awesome.”•

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Montieth, an Indianapolis native, is a longtime newspaper reporter and freelance writer. He is the author of three books: “Passion Play: Coach Gene Keady and the Purdue Boilermakers,” “Reborn: The Pacers and the Return of Pro Basketball to Indianapolis,” and “Extra Innings: My Life in Baseball,” with former Indianapolis Indians President Max Schumacher.