Across the country, high school athletic associations are getting more desperate as they try to recruit qualified officials for their sporting events.
Low retention rates and aging current referees, coupled with increased games for those refs to work, means the situation could become dire if not reversed soon. As things stand, a drastic shift—either in compensation or in how referees are treated—might be needed if schools don’t want to cut back on team schedules. Reports from several newspapers exploring the issue all hold a few common threads that help explain the shortage.