CHICAGO – Kevin McMurray is the sort of person high School sports needs in order to run. For 46 years he has officiated football games in the fall, swimming and diving competitions in the winter and baseball games in the spring, even as his colleagues dwindled in number.

But McMurray, 68, a retired health teacher who lives in Willow Springs, Illinois, near Chicago, recently decided his body could no longer withstand the physical toll and hung up his referee’s whistle and umpire’s mask.

“It was the one thing I can’t beat — Father Time,” he said. “You do this for a certain amount of time and after a while my standards couldn’t be met.”

As a newly retired official, he’s got plenty of company — and that’s creating a huge problem for high school teams.

People who assign officials to games say football alone appears set to lose hundreds of referees for the upcoming season, a shortage that could force some games to be moved from the prime time of Friday night, if not canceled outright.

The scarcity of officials is a long-running problem in high school sports, some say, but the pandemic has brought it to a crisis point.

“There are guys who have sat out because of what happened to COVID,” said Jim Adamski, who officiates football and baseball. “They sat out for two years and said, ‘You know what? I didn’t really miss it.’”

Familiar woes

Officials say worries about contracting the coronavirus are just one factor behind the decline. The others are stubbornly familiar.

First is the abuse many officials say they encounter on and off the field of play. A survey released last year by the National Association of Sports Officials found that 57% believed sportsmanship was getting worse, a trend the respondents said was caused mostly by parents and coaches.

Paul Tanzillo of the DuPage Officials Association said some sideline critics don’t understand the rules, which differ between high school, college and the pros. In high school football, he said, intentional grounding is called even if the quarterback is outside the pocket, and holding penalties are enforced 10 yards from the spot of the foul, not the line of scrimmage.

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“You find yourself saying a lot of times, ‘Coach, that’s not a Friday night rule, that’s a Saturday or Sunday rule,’” he said. “Then they realize the mistake they’ve made.”

Lacrosse referee David Krok said the invective sometimes devolves into threats, as happened after one heavily attended, narrowly decided high school playoff game.

“Some idiot was threatening to run us over with his car,” he recalled. “They were all giving us the business as we were walking back to our cars too. It wasn’t like we made a last-minute penalty call — the right team won. They’re just (teed) off and they’re taking it out on us.”

He said the mistreatment has made some of his colleagues believe the job is no longer worth the money — which leads to the second factor.

Coalitions of athletic directors determine the pay for officials. The fee runs roughly $60 to $80 per game, depending on the sport, and hasn’t changed much in years.

Soccer referee John Anderson said colleges and even some elementary districts pay more than the $65 high school officials receive. High schools also angle for a discount from referees working multiple games at the same field, he said.

“If you have two games at one site, you get only half the fee for the second game; the logic is you’re already there,” he said. “That’s kind of turned off people, to be honest.”

Officials must pay to be licensed with the Illinois High School Association and buy their own uniforms, an outlay that can cost several hundred dollars depending on the sport. They often must leave early from work to make it to their games on time, an accommodation some bosses are reluctant to offer.

COVID’s toll

Then there’s COVID. Officials tend to be near or beyond retirement age — the median age for a football referee is 56, according to the National Association of Sports Officials survey — and many have decided the pandemic has made the work too risky.

“I think guys that are my age don’t want to go out there and take a chance on getting sick and ending up on a respirator,” said Tim Kerr, 68, a football head linesman from Joliet who is sitting out the upcoming season. “To be honest with you, my wife doesn’t want me to go out for a couple of bucks. Just doesn’t seem worth it. And I don’t think it’s appreciated anyway.”

The shortage has complicated the lives of those responsible for scheduling referees to work games. Gary Grohovena, who makes assignments for the South Suburban Conference, said while he normally has all games covered by late July, this year is different.

“There are at the moment dozens of varsity games that aren’t being covered,” he said.

Octavio Herrera, an assigner who staffs games in the west suburbs, said the lack of referees was manageable in the spring because many games were called off after players went into quarantine. This fall could present a more formidable challenge.

“At the end of the day, there just aren’t enough of us to go around,” he said. “That’s what the reality is.”

One consequence of the shortage is that less experienced officiating crews are being promoted from underclassman games to the varsity stage. But Laurie Jordan of the Inter-Athletic Council of Officials, an organization that trains officials in several sports, said that produces safety concerns.

She said football is faster and more intense at the varsity level, and that novice officials might struggle to keep control of the game or enforce penalties that have the potential to cause serious injury, such as targeting or blocking below the waist.

“You have to get those fouls,” she said. “We don’t want any players hurt or knocked out of the game. We don’t want the possibility of concussions. When the game moves that much faster, the officials have to move that much faster, and it becomes very difficult.”

Solutions elusive

Schedulers and officials have suggested moving some football games away from Friday night so the shrinking cohort of referees can cover them, but school administrators and parents aren’t enthusiastic about that idea.

Bob Quinn, athletic director at Naperville North and head of the DuPage Valley Conference, said football works on a practice rhythm that could be dangerous to disrupt.

“You have so many days you can teach kids to hit and tackle safely,” he said. “You might lose that day because you’re throwing (an alternate game day) in there. If we can do it safely then I’m in, but I’m not convinced we can.”

Many in the field are trying to recruit younger replacements — people as young as 17 can officiate high school games — with limited success. The IHSA is also trying to smooth the way for newbies by waiving the $70 license fee in some cases, executive director Craig Anderson said.

Most officials interviewed by the Tribune, though, expect the shortage to get worse. Adamski said that it might be necessary to produce the higher pay and greater respect needed to convince more people to don the stripes.

“It’s going to take the schools not playing because there are no officials to be had,” he said. “Dad’s going to have to say, ‘Wait a minute: What do you mean we’re not going to have a game Friday night?’”

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