By Ray Hamill — With a shortage of officials for high school sports affecting leagues all across the nation, the H-DNL is taking a proactive approach to the problem.
The league recently began a campaign to attract more officials to all of the H-DNL sports and it will continue through the school year.
“We’re trying to help support our local officials associations,” H-DNL commissioner Jack Lakin said. “And we’re trying to promote an increase in the numbers of officials we have for each association.”
A social media post that includes a QR code for anyone wanting to receive more information has been circulating and the league plans on promoting the campaign at many of the local high school sporting events as well as at College of the Redwoods and Cal Poly Humboldt athletic events.
The local high school officials associations have each experienced a decline in the number of officials available for H-DNL sporting events in recent years.
A focus of the campaign is to attract more young people to join the local officials associations in basketball, soccer, football, wrestling, baseball, softball and volleyball.
Many of the local officials associations feature a lot of veteran officials, and without attracting younger members to their rosters the problem is only expected to worsen in the coming years.
Over the past few years, the league scheduling has had to adapt to the shortage in just about every sport.
With a limited number of officials available on any given day, the league can only schedule a limited number of games on any given day.
Last year, the league was unable to provide any officials for freshmen basketball games for the entire month of December.
This fall, the H-DNL can only accommodate up to three sites for football games on any given night, which limits the number of local games that can be played on a Friday night here on the North Coast.
Many league soccer games now only feature two officials instead of the usual three, while earlier in the year H-DNL baseball and softball were “extremely limited” in their scheduling, according to the commissioner.
The league is hoping the new campaign will help ease those concerns moving forward.
“We’re trying different avenues to make people aware of the need for more officials,” Lakin said. “I think it’s difficult for them to do it all on their own.”
The league commissioner added that this is not just a problem for the H-DNL.
“This issue is not something just restricted to our local area,” he said. “It’s all across the nation.”
The new campaign follows the league’s focus on promoting better sportsmanship at H-DNL events in recent years.
School administrators have been keeping a closer eye on the behavior of fans in attendance and it’s an approach that appears to be paying dividends.
“I think the league has been working really hard in regard to the sportsmanship (at games),” head of the Nor-Cal Football Officials Association Chris Peterson said. “And I would argue it’s getting better. The No. 1 reason people don’t want to officiate is they don’t want to get shouted at, but it has gotten better. I think we’re on an upswing right now.
“The league has really got our backs in regard to that and I can’t thank them enough for that. And the schools have really stepped up as well. The schools have more staff available at games to stop that from bubbling over.”
Lakin believes that better sportsmanship at games will help ease the concern over attracting new officials.
“The No. 1 thing we hear the most is about sportsmanship and people not wanting to put themselves in that situation,” Lakin said. “And schools have worked very hard promoting good sportsmanship.”
Anyone interested in becoming an official or just getting more information about it can scan the QR code above and they will be directed to the sport of their choice.
Categories: baseball, Basketball, Community, Football, Soccer, Softball, Volleyball
Soccer- Unfortunately, Lakin uses the macro environment which is debateable to launder some QR code locally…
… the problems with CIF are it’s own, but yes, NFHS has a big f’ing issue or few on it’s plate… .
Further, Lakin refuses to address the real elephant in the room OPENLY… “schedules” and “Fields”… and after inquiring, Jack made it well known the soccer schedules are always the worst problem of all teams… but I knew that…Jack been singing that tune for 20+ years… and I wonder, why is Jack so ineffective as an H-DNL commissioner?🤷♂️ I say it is the Jordan Winters curse… cafeteria at lunch punch by coach…
…Back to back games… boys then girls, girls then boys… THIS IS THE FIRST FIX IT MOVE I’d MANDATE.
Reality is my whole life, H-DNL has been anti-soccer, ENOUGH administratives at high schools have been anti-soccer… these changes over the years were only meant to disrupt and destroy the game of soccer at high school level… not make better…
…reality is high school soccer is fading because club soccer is vastly better quality…
…I am an original founder of the soccer organization that is now blackballing me…
… because all the current insiders want is newbies like college student players to run lines, not centers… and DEFINITELY, not a better senior official… I left because of people like Lakin, school AD’s, etc… who did nothing to address issues as they were brought to them.
I knew soccer as a sport would deteriorate, told folks back in 2010 that school insiders were back-stabbing lazies and liars (THEY STILL ARE LIARS) , and so I decided to step away due to so many bad people involved who got their fingers OVERLY sticky in their bad behaviors.
High School is unique, college players look at H-DNL and mock heavily, typical comment is “High School is recreational level”… and most of the coaches are not soccer qualified (pictures also aide in proof), but are paid teachers on staff already…
…Yes, there is a shortage of refs, but when ya double the number of crews needed, then don’t act surprised as a whiner league when the H-DNL pet hound dog complains about it’s hiney having a projectile shoved up it… .🤷♂️
Lakin acts like others do not understand more than him what the issues really are…🤷♂️
High School sports are cheating out it’s officials, short-changing the officials, frustrating the officials…essentially, High School leagues in CIF act like a dictator behind the scenes, but pan and opine publicly some level of “helping out”…🤷♂️
…In soccer, I know I am still a high quality ref because I still high quality officiate, but when the CURRENT assignor only views quality officials as a line-ref only for inferior senior refs projecting in their protective little society, welp, ya gotta know these insiders are being selfish and DUMB…
… and all I can do is smh, especially when I see referees who self-adorn themselves with items outside the tolerances of being properly equipped as an official… or players not prooerly equipped, or how too many refs look like they don’t even want to be helping out…
I want to help out, but I have been black-balled and my name was tarnashed years ago on 100% lies perpetuated by locals who always wanted me gone once I dipped my feet into politics, showing I am a messiah in effort and desire to do by right…
I am too good, that has always been my life’s ridicule…🤷♂️
You level or irrational egotistim is unmatched.
Nothing irratiinal about me, but the issues of ref shortages is about other refs in similar situations @ all age levels and the differences in reality based upon current status quo… and yes, I am too focused at being good in life, and enough people hate it… I’d rather be a good person, as imperfect as everyone else, but good… not my problem JR if others are turned off because they can’t be good themselves…
Something to note:
The organization of referees now in soccer is masculine dominated…
… I am very proud of the fact that being an original founder of the organization along with a few others that we had many female referees as members, but they too quit, like me, because of the bad behavior of males who had selfishness issues…
…the current list of refs has nobody serving that is a founder, but they are just as old in life… it takes several years of officiating many matches to be qualifiable as a center regardless of any playing career… just how it is, but it does not mean inferior senior refs should be hoarding all the center positions…
… especially when better female officials existed, and likely still exist out there, somewhere in the testosterone driven society…