4 Out Of 5 Officials Don't Show Up For An Inner-City Indianapolis Football Game. Game Cancelled.

[Muda69]

https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/high-school/2022/09/19/indiana-high-school-football-crispus-attucks-purdue-poly-game-canceled-after-referees-no-show/69502056007/

(note: story is behind a paywall)

Quote

Unfortunately, we became accustomed to seeing games getting canceled in 2020 and ’21 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But it was still a bit alarming to see the Crispus Attucks at Purdue Poly game canceled Friday for reasons that had nothing to do with contact tracing.

I exchanged messages with Crispus Attucks athletic director Chris Hawkins and Purdue Poly athletic director Josh Bowling on Friday night and again with Bowling on Saturday. It was a perfect weather night and both teams were ready to play. However, only one of the five officials assigned to the game showed up. Without officials, well, there is no game.

Bowling provided a screenshot of a document that appeared to show all five officials had accepted the Attucks-Purdue Poly assignment in early August. Bowling said four of the five ended up officiating the South Dearborn-Greensburg game instead. What happened?

“(The head official) told his guys that he emailed me and our scheduler, Chris Shields,” Bowling said. “I traded texts with (the official) this morning and he had no excuse. Obviously cannot produce any emails.”

Bowling went on to say that the other three officials texted apologies, but said they were under the impression the change of plans had been communicated.

I’m not so sure the details of what happened matter so much as the result: A bunch of kids who had practiced all week in anticipation of a game, sent home for no good reason. Purdue Poly coach Chris Chang, who is in his first year at the school, offered his thoughts to me Saturday in a written op-ed. With his permission, I’ve included a portion of Chang’s thoughts:

....

Shameful.

 

[Bobref]

Pretty sure there will be an IHSAA response to this event. Understandably, they take a very dim view of contracts not being honored. 

Not by way of excuse or justification, rather more like an explanation, between schools scheduling years ahead, to crews breaking up, to schools changing conferences and having to reschedule, there’s a lot to keep track of. I wonder why this doesn’t happen more often especially with the shortage of officials resulting in makeshift crews being cobbled together on a short notice basis. I would think that with all scheduling now being done electronically, there is less of an excuse for this happening than back in the old days when I kept a big 3-ring binder with the master schedule and copies of all my contracts.

[hhpatriot04]

28 minutes ago, Bobref said:

Pretty sure there will be an IHSAA response to this event. Understandably, they take a very dim view of contracts not being honored. 

Not by way of excuse or justification, rather more like an explanation, between schools scheduling years ahead, to crews breaking up, to schools changing conferences and having to reschedule, there’s a lot to keep track of. I wonder why this doesn’t happen more often especially with the shortage of officials resulting in makeshift crews being cobbled together on a short notice basis. I would think that with all scheduling now being done electronically, there is less of an excuse for this happening than back in the old days when I kept a big 3-ring binder with the master schedule and copies of all my contracts.

Are games ever officiated by "pick up" crews -- individual officials who aren't a part of a crew, but are contracted to work a game together?

I don't know how football officiating works but in basketball at the middle school level, you never knew who would be working a game with you until you showed up. I know that at the HS level for basketball most, if not all, games were officiated by a crew.

[scarab527]

Man, that's really tough for the kids. I remember my sophomore year our game with West Side had to be moved to Saturday because West Side's AD didn't get refs for the game (not kidding). Luckily we were able to use the refs for what was supposed to be the JV game that next day. 

[Impartial_Observer]

42 minutes ago, Bobref said:

Pretty sure there will be an IHSAA response to this event. Understandably, they take a very dim view of contracts not being honored. 

Not by way of excuse or justification, rather more like an explanation, between schools scheduling years ahead, to crews breaking up, to schools changing conferences and having to reschedule, there’s a lot to keep track of. I wonder why this doesn’t happen more often especially with the shortage of officials resulting in makeshift crews being cobbled together on a short notice basis. I would think that with all scheduling now being done electronically, there is less of an excuse for this happening than back in the old days when I kept a big 3-ring binder with the master schedule and copies of all my contracts.

Scheduling software is not without its own issues. Bottom line communication is a necessity. Ultimately that’s on the home AD. 

[Bobref]

2 hours ago, hhpatriot04 said:

Are games ever officiated by "pick up" crews -- individual officials who aren't a part of a crew, but are contracted to work a game together?

I don't know how football officiating works but in basketball at the middle school level, you never knew who would be working a game with you until you showed up. I know that at the HS level for basketball most, if not all, games were officiated by a crew.

The “crew” system was implemented in the early ‘80s, and has been the standard since then. There are occasional “pickup” crews patched together out of necessity to cover a game on relatively short notice. With the shortage of officials, however, it is happening more frequently.