Referee shortage in Indiana hits home for local official

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- There are around 6,000 licensed officials for Indiana high school athletics, but there is still a referee shortage.

The Indiana High School Athletic Association is continuing to do what it can to alleviate the problem.

The problem has been getting worse over the past few years and now these local sports officials are being stretched thin.

They won't be lighting up the box score with gaudy numbers or drawing up the perfect play for a game-winning touchdown.

But we can't have games without them.

"I think the thing that everybody has to remember is that without officials, we have glorified recess at this point in time," said Brian Lewis, IHSAA assistant commissioner.

Lewis tells ABC57 that the IHSAA is looking at data to see who a good fit for officiating might be, including parents of recently graduated high school athletes.

"Now all of a sudden, they have this void of time to fill, can we get to those individuals the 45, 50, 55-year-olds that have some extra time and still want to be involved. But our number one recruiting tool, still right now is officials themselves getting out and talking to people and they do a great job of recruiting people," said Lewis.

ABC57 spoke to one local ref who says part of the issue is those who were officiating games weekly 10 to 15 years ago, are now getting to the point where they're aging out of the gig.

"We've also had individuals get to 80 years old and decide that their knees can't handle it anymore, so we definitely need to keep bringing new people in on a regular basis, that's how this whole thing works," said Chris Matthys, local referee.

Matthys says the growth of girl's flag football is great for the sport, but finding refs to staff the games is getting increasingly more difficult.

As far as football on Friday nights, they've been relying on newer officials to step up.

"We're having to cover Friday nights with guys who are in their first or second year, whereas in years past, we would be covering Friday nights with guys with 5 to 15 years of experience. There are Tuesdays where some games just have to have three officials instead of four, in some certain areas of the state, they're straight up moving games from Fridays to Saturdays, or to Thursdays in some cases," said Matthys.