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Lutheran at Shortridge football canceled due to referee shortage.


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https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/high-school/2019/09/13/indiana-high-school-football-game-canceled-due-referee-shortage/2316769001/

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Lutheran and Shortridge had its contest cancelled Friday night due to a shortage of officials. 

Lutheran coach Dave Pasch said three officials did not show up for the game, which was held at Shortridge. After several calls to the Indiana High School Athletic Association, it was determined the game would be declared a no-contest. Pasch said a minimum of four referees is required for a game to be held, according to the IHSAA.

Section 14-9 of the IHSAA bylaws recommends five officials for varsity football contests.

"In 31 years, I've never had this," said Pasch, who is in his 12th year at Lutheran. "We were willingly going to comply with what the IHSAA has in place. I believe what they have in place is in the best interest of the kids. It's a safety issue."

Lutheran came into the game 3-0 and was looking to improve to 4-0 for the first time since the 2007 season. That pursuit will have to wait until next week, when the Saints host Cascade.

"(There's) disappointment," Pasch said. "Any time you prepare for the week, it's five days worth of prep and you get one night to compete. I feel worst for the senior class. They're not going to get this one back."

Pasch said he didn't know who the referees were who didn't show up or what the circumstances were preventing them from attending. He said it "It wouldn't be fair for me to speculate" on the circumstances.

According to the IHSAA, officials are assigned by an officials assigner, who hires IHSAA officials for each sport on behalf of the school. 

 

I'm afraid this kind of situation will probably only accelerate in the future.

 

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14 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

It truly is an unfortunate situation for the student athletes, fans, and administration of both of these schools. 

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16 minutes ago, crimsonace1 said:

I'm not sure it was an "official shortage" issue as much as it was "the contracted officials didn't show up" issue. 

The overwhelming likelihood is that there was some sort of a communication foul-up. I can assure you that if it is as simple as “the contracted officials didn’t show up” there will be serious repercussions for those officials. Don’t rush to judgment. 

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1 minute ago, Bobref said:

The overwhelming likelihood is that there was some sort of a communication foul-up. I can assure you that if it is as simple as “the contracted officials didn’t show up” there will be serious repercussions for those officials. Don’t rush to judgment. 

Without a doubt ... that's likely on the host school AD. 

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I would bet this went through an assigner, not through a crew.  The assigner found 5 guys with a license, and 3 showed.  I got an email last night at 7:09 from an assigner looking for two at Shortridge.....for last night.   As a new crew (2nd year) last year we had to use an assigner to fill out our games.  This year we did not.   But I see on event link where assigners are using individuals instead of crews.  Put money that’s what happened here.  And 2 guys decided to not work or more likely forgot they had a game.  Some individuals not on crews, not being on  a crew,  I wonder about their motivation, what drives them.   Maybe they remembered they forgot to get their license renewed.  Maybe they had to work.  Whatever it was, it was more important than working the game.

Lesson here is for schools to use crews, use a crew chief, who takes care of the crew, coordinating them, getting them to the game, making sure they work together, asa crew, not just 5 guys getting together on a Friday night.

 

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2 hours ago, sr1 said:

My understanding is that a crew is hired not just 5 individual officials. If two or three officials showed up where was the rest of the crew?

Typically a “crew” is hired. However in the last few years you are starting to see individuals hired thru hiring apps such as Arbiter and Event Link. You see individuals being hired closer to the game date. In one example a couple of weeks back the AD discovers on Wednesday that the crew he had hired for Friday has in fact retired. He uses various means to find a crew for Friday, one is to send a mass invite thru Event Link where individuals can accept the game. Thru various means, he found two officials from a crew who had taken the week off due to their other crew mates having some other obligations, it was Labor Day weekend, and three individuals who were not on crews and could work. 

I don’t use an assigner, but I would assume assigners are probably having put individuals together to create crews for some games. Assigners have long been used in other sports, not necessarily Football. But as our shortage continues and grows worse, I assume we will see more schools use assigners, mainly because it’s less work for the AD’s to make sure they have officials. 

Honestly as an official, I’d never take a varsity game with four guys I’d never worked with. 

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2 hours ago, Olympian06 said:

Are referees on the verge of possible contraction? I hope not! 

The referee ranks have been contracting for years.   I question the work ethic of younger people in our society.  Nearly all refs have full time jobs.  They ref on the side to bring in extra income and to have an opportunity to be on the football field.  

Why can't we get our younger folks, primarily the 25-40 year old crowd, to do the same?   

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4 hours ago, DT said:

The referee ranks have been contracting for years.   I question the work ethic of younger people in our society.  Nearly all refs have full time jobs.  They ref on the side to bring in extra income and to have an opportunity to be on the football field.  

Why can't we get our younger folks, primarily the 25-40 year old crowd, to do the same?   

Being an official myself, I feel like a lot of the younger generation can not handle the backlash from the fans. Quite frankly, I can understand.  We had a guy working a lower level game get confronted ON THE SIDELINES during the game by a fan. If this continues, we will no longer have enough officials. It only takes a few to ruin it for everyone.

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This was a game at Shortridge, and I believe many of the IPS school games are assigned. The assigner has a group of officials he uses and he puts them on games each week. They aren't set crews, but I'm not sure to what extent he tries to keep people together. Based on what I'm reading here he either had 3 guys not show or was unable to find 3 guys to work it. There was not an APB put out for a crew this week and I understand there were a couple crews not working so there were officials available. They may not have been convenient to this game site though.

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15 hours ago, DT said:

The referee ranks have been contracting for years.   I question the work ethic of younger people in our society.  Nearly all refs have full time jobs.  They ref on the side to bring in extra income and to have an opportunity to be on the football field.  

Why can't we get our younger folks, primarily the 25-40 year old crowd, to do the same?   

I don't question the work ethic of younger people in society when it comes to referees.  Have had the distinct pleasure of coaching ... now in my 18th season ... youth football and have gotten to know the refs up close and personal.  Our games are a great place to train younger or new officials and I've been able to see many over the seasons work the trade.  As a coach, you sometimes get so grief from parents, fans, etc., but it tends to be specific like "Why isn't my kid getting to carry the ball?" or "How come my kid only played on defense during the game?"  Refs often seem to get what I call "drive-by" grief.  Usually indiscriminate and almost always based on a lack of understanding of rules by the fans, parents, etc.  Sometimes it's just a lack of realizing that, in a youth game, the second-string flanker on the far right-hand side of the field playing slap-fight, patty-cake with the third-string cornerback while the team runs a wide left-hand sweep doesn't warrant putting laundry on the field. 

I wouldn't say it's a lack of work ethic as I've been quite pleased with the fact that these younger refs are taking time on the weekends when they could be running with their college buddies to come out and help us coaches give back to the community.  I've been happy with their performance and therir desire to not just show up, but to do the job right too.  It may, more likely, be a lack of tolerance for cr*p and BS from folks who themselves don't have the work ethic to come out and do the job, but feel that their "ticket" grants them the right to be part of the show.

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On 9/14/2019 at 4:49 PM, SPARKS said:

Some individuals not on crews, not being on  a crew,  I wonder about their motivation, what drives them.

I'm an official not on a crew and I'm not sure what you're implying here. I absolutely love football, and I get to help crews who need a replacement official that week or several weeks during the season. 

 

The assigner in my association has been warning us about this for years. There are 3 online scheduling websites being used as well as paper contracts, there's a good chance there was a double booking and miscommunication between school, assigner and officials. 

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3 minutes ago, 5GetsYou1 said:

I'm an official not on a crew and I'm not sure what you're implying here. I absolutely love football, and I get to help crews who need a replacement official that week or several weeks during the season. 

 

The assigner in my association has been warning us about this for years. There are 3 online scheduling websites being used as well as paper contracts, there's a good chance there was a double booking and miscommunication between school, assigner and officials. 

I’ve been told that, starting next year, only EventLink will be used for scheduling and assigning. ... of course, that’s what we were told when Arbiter came on the scene. The key, as always, is getting all the schools to use the same system.

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1 hour ago, Bobref said:

I’ve been told that, starting next year, only EventLink will be used for scheduling and assigning. ... of course, that’s what we were told when Arbiter came on the scene. The key, as always, is getting all the schools to use the same system.

One of the biggest issues with Arbiter as I understand it, was Arbiter didn't play well with all scheduling software. EL is a product of one of the scheduling software companies and is suppose to be able to link to the the other scheduling software products. 

One by-product we're seeing is virtually EVERY contract we've had for the last two years has been in EL, even if they were originally scheduled in Arbiter. We've be paid via EL Pay for 4 of 5 V games we've had.  The nice thing about being paid via EL Pay is my savings is growing, but I don't have the walking around money I used to have. Oh who am I kidding, my wife or kids are going to end up with it anyway!

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35 minutes ago, Impartial_Observer said:

One of the biggest issues with Arbiter as I understand it, was Arbiter didn't play well with all scheduling software. EL is a product of one of the scheduling software companies and is suppose to be able to link to the the other scheduling software products. 

One by-product we're seeing is virtually EVERY contract we've had for the last two years has been in EL, even if they were originally scheduled in Arbiter. We've be paid via EL Pay for 4 of 5 V games we've had.  The nice thing about being paid via EL Pay is my savings is growing, but I don't have the walking around money I used to have. Oh who am I kidding, my wife or kids are going to end up with it anyway!

Well, most of it, right?  🤣

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