The long wait is nearly over. By the end of next week, the high school sports season kicks off with its fall sessions, which will see football, soccer, golf and volleyball teams kick off their new seasons across the Verde Valley. It’s an exciting time for athletes. They’ll finally strap on their new cleats they got over the summer and play the sport they love under the lights, representing the place they call home.
Of course, for parents, grandparents, family and friends it’s an exhilarating time as well. The summer months of driving young athletes to practice, paying for those expensive camps and saving up for that equipment is dedication to the craft in their own right. For those who raised the young athletes on the field, seeing them in action this fall will be just as much of a reward for them as it will be for the kids.
The beauty in high school sports are in the conditions these athletes perform in. They aren’t getting paid to play. Their highlights likely won’t trend on social media or come close to touching the SportsCenter Top 10. Statistically, this is as bright as the lights will ever get for a vast majority of the players. According to the NCAA, just 2% of high-school athletes across the country will earn any type of athletic scholarship to play in college.
For those in the stands watching Verde Valley athletes take the field or court this fall, keep those facts in mind when considering the play of the field. To increase enjoyment please remember one other simple fact: The referees and officials in these contests are human.
There is a 100% chance that there will be calls on the field that the home crowd disagrees with. Many calls and whistles will simply be the wrong calls. There’s no avoiding that certainty and there’s no way to change it.
[Bashing referees is] not supporting your child. It’s creating an embarrassing conversation on the sidelines as a teammate asks them, “Isn’t that your dad?”
But despite that simple fact that most accept, hostility at high school sporting events — which should be our society’s cornerstone of respect and sportsmanship — seems to be on the rise. Increasingly hostile crowds and negative interaction with officials is a massive cause for the referee shortage across the nation right now.
Mike Gillespie, Arizona Interscholastic Association Area commissioner of officiating for Flagstaff, Prescott, Colorado River Area and Reservation Schools told Larson Newspapers in a December interview that the shortage of officials forced over 2,000 high school contests across the state to be rescheduled in January and February alone. In just the Verde Valley, the games throughout the school year rescheduled due to a lack of officials were in the double digits.
“The newer generation [of officials], they don’t want to put up with the parents,” Gillespie said. “It has become worse. A lot of it is, ‘they don’t pay me enough for this.’ Sportsmanship has gone down. This is my 20th year, and it has gone downhill.”
As a high school sports reporter who attended two-to-three games a week across all sports offered by Mingus Union, Camp Verde and Sedona Red Rock last school year, there are far too many anecdotes to share in regards to poor sportsmanship from the bleachers in 2021-2022.
In dozens of contests, officials were far too often subject to harassment, beratement and profanity-laced barrages of insults from fans in both the home and away sides of the bleachers. Simply put, there is no place for this type of behavior in high school sports and the only result coming from it is the fact that referee participation is correlating with an increase in harassment.
The children on the field and the court want to hear their friends and family cheering their names and engaging in school spirit as they represent the name of the school on the front of their jerseys. What they don’t want to hear is their mother or father cursing out officials and arguing balls and strikes. That’s not supporting your child, that’s creating an embarrassing conversation for them on the sidelines as a teammate asks, “Isn’t that your dad?”
Of course, the good far outweighs the bad. Most supporters are just that, supporters. They cheer on their team and congratulate their opponent. If a call doesn’t go their way, they wait for the next play. A vast majority of high school sports fans in the Verde Valley embody the spirit of what high school sports should be.
So when the Marauders, Cowboys and Scorpions suit up next week, lets remember to be supporters. Win, lose or draw, the kids on the field are learning from their experiences on the field. Their time as an athlete will be some of their most treasured experiences as they grow up, build their careers and start a family. As a collective, let’s make sure those memories come with the sound of their family and friends chanting their names rather than complaining about an ultimately meaningless call.
