Colorado officials shortage continues to take bite out of Friday night lights

Mike Krueger has loads of points to deal with in his first yr as CHSAA commissioner.

However the first merchandise on the docket is way from something new — a scarcity of highschool sports activities officers that’s reached disaster ranges all through Colorado and the remainder of the nation.

In response to Michael Ebook, CHSAA’s assistant commissioner in control of officers, the Denver metro space is stretched so skinny schedulers needed to bump 60 soccer video games from Friday nights to Thursdays and Saturdays simply to cowl all the pieces this fall.

“We don’t have many choices at this level,” Ebook mentioned. “We simply have method too many video games and never sufficient officers.”

Because it stands coming into the 2022 season, Ebook mentioned there are simply 19 crews within the Denver space out there to officiate video games, which isn’t sufficient to accommodate a regularly rising highschool soccer calendar.

It’s a narrative that’s all too frequent for highschool sports activities associations throughout the nation — and throughout all seasons.

Roughly 50,000 officers have left the highschool ranks nationally because the 2018-19 faculty yr, in line with a survey carried out by the Nationwide Federation of State Excessive Faculty Associations. That decline is simply exacerbated by the growing variety of video games and colleges.

“The officers scarcity has been round for a very long time,” Ebook mentioned, “however with including groups yearly, including colleges yearly, dropping officers, that hole has simply gotten a lot greater. We’re simply on the level the place we’ve bought to do one thing completely different.”

In his opening deal with at CHSAA media day Monday morning at Empower Area, Commissioner Krueger mentioned he’s doing “something and all the pieces” to recruit extra officers to cowl video games.

Among the many particular gadgets his affiliation needs to handle: officers’ pay, fan and coach habits, and the way colleges host officers.

The pay at the highschool degree is usually cited as an impediment to retaining officers. And anybody who commonly attends highschool sporting occasions is aware of how poisonous issues can recover from the course of a extremely aggressive sport. “How can we get crowds to be all-in for his or her staff and never in opposition to the opposite staff and never in opposition to the officers?” Ebook mentioned. “That’s a giant one.”

The final merchandise — how colleges deal with officers — is a latest level of emphasis. The concept is to make officers really feel welcome once they present as much as colleges for a sport. Provided that they usually spend a number of hours on website, small issues like offering one thing to drink or a meal, can go a great distance, in line with Ebook.

“We respect the cooperation from colleges, as a result of we have now had colleges cooperate, however we’d like extra of that,” he mentioned. “And it’s going to occur in each sport and each season and proceed till we get one thing rotated.”

State soccer at Empower Area. The Class 4A and 5A state championship soccer video games drew 16,152 spectators to Empower Area final fall, however it stays to be seen whether or not these video games will proceed to be performed on the Broncos’ house after this season.

The Colorado Sports activities Corridor of Fame, which companions with CHSAA on the occasion and donates all proceeds to youth sports activities teams throughout the state, is all the way down to the ultimate yr on a nine-year contract to host the large faculty title video games at Mile Excessive.

It had beforehand supplied the affiliation a brand new contract to maintain the video games there via the 2024 season, however no settlement had been reached as of this previous week.

New assistant commissioner John Sullivan, who oversees soccer, wrestling and baseball, mentioned CHSAA is making an attempt to work out one thing that “works for everyone.”

“The largest factor is doing what’s greatest for the youngsters,” Sullivan mentioned.

The Broncos are “very open” about wanting the video games to remain the place they’ve been for 16 of the previous 17 years (the pandemic yr being the lone exception), Sullivan added, with the brand new Walton-Penner possession group indicating its assist.

Flag soccer tryout. CHSAA is partnering with the Broncos to begin a flag soccer program this fall that would ultimately grow to be a sanctioned sport for the affiliation.

There are already women who compete in deal with soccer in Colorado, together with Vista Peak Prep senior linebacker/fullback Leilani Caamal, who not too long ago gained a nationwide title with the Mile Excessive Blaze. However flag soccer is a chance to attach with much more athletes, Commissioner Krueger mentioned.

The plan is to run it via the piloting course of for 2-3 years earlier than ultimately making it a sanctioned sport.

Extra data on officiating for CHSAA may be discovered right here.