The zebra remains a threatened species in the ecosystem of Wyoming high school sports, with athletic directors scrambling throughout football season to field officiating crews. This led to fewer Friday night games, while school officials absorbed higher costs for bringing in referees from out of town.
Now those costs and a continued referee shortage is carrying over into the winter basketball and wrestling seasons. While Wyoming high school athletic administrators hustle to staff games with officials, they’re also blowing the whistle on unsportsmanlike behavior from parents, coaches and players toward referees, another factor exacerbating the officiating shortage.
“We just don’t have enough officials to officiate all of the contests when schools want to have them,” Chad Whitworth, the associate commissioner for officials at the Wyoming High School Activities Association (WHSAA), told Cowboy State Daily.
This shortage has forced schools to alter their schedules, moving football games to less desirable days, such as Thursdays and Saturdays, rather than cancel contests. It’s also made it difficult to find neutral officials for basketball games, wrestling matches and other events.
To address referee scarcity, the University of Wyoming offers officiating classes, and the WHSAA partners with an online course called RefReps.
UW is also helping high schools grapple with the challenge of finding wrestling referees. Whitworth said athletes with wrestling experience at UW are recruited for certification as officials.
“It’s helping get them ready to progress into becoming certified officials and helping us during the postseason,” said Whitworth. “You get some kids who have obviously participated in the sport. They’ll do it because they love the sport.
“We've been trying to push that and that's not going to solve our varsity officiating crisis tomorrow, but the hope is that we get some high school kids that start to officiate junior high games and then move into the high school level. The hope is that they continue to officiate and over time, we increase the number of varsity level and postseason officials that we have available.”
Travel Costs
High school athletic directors like Ronald Wagner at Laramie High School work to bring qualified officials in from outside their communities to avoid any concerns about home-team favoritism. But as the pool of referees in Cheyenne and other nearby communities shrinks, Wagner has to budget more when hiring.
“Sometimes here in Laramie, I have to pay officials from Buffalo to come do basketball matches. That’s not cheap,” he said.
Wagner highlighted the escalating costs associated with hiring out-of-town basketball officials, noting that mileage reimbursement can reach up to 72 cents per mile.
Hiring locally and not paying mileage or a per diem might cost a school around $100 per varsity basketball game. When Wagner needs to bring a ref down from Buffalo, the cost shoots up to about $500.
Grace To Learn
Wyoming officials, like referees the world over, face harassment from overzealous fans.
Last year, former WHSAA Commissioner Ron Laird highlighted the unnecessary roughness inflicted on refs, telling wyopreps.com, “Basketball and wrestling have seen several officials chased off because of the lack of respect that some of our fans are showing officials.”
Wagner in Laramie echoed Laird's sentiment, pointing out that the least experienced refs are often assigned to the most difficult-to-officiate contests, like seventh grade basketball.
“Those kids are not fundamentally sound. And the ball's all over the place, and there's all kinds of weird stuff that happens,” sighed Wagner.
“And we're putting young people in that position, which is fine. They've got to learn somewhere, but they've also got to get the grace to learn. And we have parents losing their mind at seventh grade games. That ruins the official. The official’s going to go, ‘I'm not going to do this for 35 bucks.’”
Wagner, who worked as a bouncer at the Buckhorn Bar & Parlor while a student at the University of Wyoming, said, “I've had a handful of times where I've had officials on my floor go, ‘Hey, this fan has got to go. They're getting personal. They're yelling personal attacks. They're calling me nasty things, nasty names. And this guy's got to go or this gal has got to go.’”
David Thrash, AD at Pinedale High School, said he brings in refs from Rock Springs and Green River, and if they ever come under attack, he reminds worked-up parents.
“The coach's job is to coach. The ref's job is to ref. The kids’ job is to compete,” he said. “And as a parent, your job is to love your kid. We feel their emotions as a parent, and we get caught up in that moment.”
David Madison can be reached at david@cowboystatedaily.com.
