“They do this for the same reason that I wanted to do it: because it’s all about the children.”
Athletic directors are the liaisons between the school and referees. This means they inform referees about the operational aspects of the school and also protect them from any adversarial fans or participants.
Flagstaff High School Athletic Director Jeannine Brandel was an official for the Arizona Interscholastic Association (AIA) and currently serves on the AIA board, representing the Grand Canyon Region. She, and others, attribute the lack of officials to three key factors: aggressive fans, higher paying job opportunities elsewhere and a lack of new, young entrants.
“The pool of officials really has gotten much smaller because a lot of those people are retiring out,” Brandel said. “There aren’t new kids or new people just dying to be officials. Some of that has got to do with salary, travel can be difficult, particularly in our region, and then the hardest thing is parents, kids, coaches – they’re disrespectful.”
Flagstaff already has a low number of officials. When schools have to pull officials from other metro areas, they have to pay the mileage, which can cost $300-$400 per game.
“And if it’s a junior varsity game or a freshman game, then we as a school absorb it,” Brandel said. “If it is a varsity game, then those miles are tacked on to the state. And then at the end of each season, we divide those out and everybody pays. That was created as a way to not penalize rural schools.”
Coconino High School Athletic Director Eric Freas passes out cards with instructions to a sportsmanship course for parents. He also uses his discretion to review red cards, which signify the highest in-game penalties a player, coach or team can receive and may result in punishments such as longer penalty time-outs for individual players, removal from the game or being barred from the next game or more.
“If we have to eject somebody, they are required to take a sportsmanship course through the National Federation of High Schools,” Freas said. “If you’re going to act immaturely, you can take that class, learn and return with a completion certificate that tells me that you took the course.”
High schools are battling with club sports to retain officials because of other opportunities for higher pay, despite the AIA’s efforts to raise the rate. Often, local officials are community members who care about youth and high school athletics.
Mike Elder was Northland Preparatory Academy’s athletic director for 20 years. Elder decided to become an AIA official after retirement to relieve some of the stress he had seen within the community. Elder encourages spectators and participants to give grace to the officials.
“They are people just like us out in the community, working jobs,’” he said. “They do this for the same reason that I wanted to do it: because it’s all about the children. They are just great people, these officials of ours.” FBN
By Ava Nichols, FBN
Photo by Ava Nichols: The officials team clarifies a rule with Coconino soccer players Marco Medina and Liam Thayer before the start of the second half.