Athletes will be ready when high school sports competition resumes in late December.
Coaches will be ready, too.
What about officials and referees?
There might not be enough of them, especially for non-varsity games and matches.
Some officials in the age bracket that is considered most susceptible to COVID-19’s effects could be wary of being close to high school athletes. Others might not want to work games if it is mandatory that they wear masks or shields.
The compressed sports calendar set by the CIF State and Southern Section could make it difficult for officials organizations to find enough officials to work games and matches.
The Orange County Baseball Officials Association was enduring a shortage of officials before the onset of COVID-19 this past spring.
“We already had a number of guys not coming back this season,” said Gary Gilman, coordinator of officials for the OCBOA. “Some for job purposes, like one of our guys moved to Virginia and another to Idaho, and some are saying with all of this time they’ve had off they decided they really didn’t miss officiating and so they’re not coming back.”
South Orange County Basketball Officials Association president Russ Smith said it’s too early to determine if his group will have enough officials when the season starts March 12, which in a usual season is around the time the CIF State basketball tournament is underway. His officials association has not begun registering officials for the 2021 season.
Smith said SOCBA had a sufficient number of officials last season. But this season’s tight schedule, with basketball teams trying to squeeze up to 28 games into 72 days, compared to the maximum of 28 allowable games over 89 days in the 2019-20 season, could stretch thin the roster of SOCBA officials.
“We might be having basketball games Monday through Saturday to get the season done,” Smith said, “and we might not have enough officials for that. We might have to tell (schools) you can’t play on Thursdays because we just don’t have enough officials.”
As for how a mandatory mask-wearing edict could make some decide against officiating, Smith said, “That will be interesting.”
“I would like to think,” he said, “that by February or March we would be past that requirement.”
High school sports this coming school year will have a compact schedule. Instead of dividing its sports over three seasons – fall, winter and spring – that stretch from August to June, the Southern Section has placed them into two groups, a fall group and a winter group, that run from December to June.
Overlaps occurred in past school years. Winter sports would get started as fall sports playoffs were winding down, and spring sports would be underway while winter sports playoffs were in their final weeks.
For this coming school year, some sports that would overlap now are on top of each other. Basketball started in November this past season and ended in March, a few weeks after the baseball and softball seasons started. Now basketball starts in March and will end in June; baseball and softball are on the same schedule.
Smith said of the 130 people he had on last season’s roster of basketball officials, he guessed that between 18 or 24 of them also are baseball or softball umpires.
Gilman is concerned that the two-sport, baseball-basketball officials will have to make a choice. For some, basketball could be the more attractive option.
The pay is about the same. This past school year a baseball umpire working a varsity game as part of a two-person crew, the usual number for non-playoff games, was paid $83. Non-varsity umps working as a two-person crew receive $73. A two-man varsity basketball crew are paid $80 for a varsity game, $69 for a non-varsity game. Varsity football officials are paid $87 for the white-hatted referee, the others receive $85 each.
But as Gilman said, “Basketball has a time clock and it’s played indoors.”
A regulation high school basketball game lasts 32 minutes. One high school baseball inning sometimes will approach that, and in the sun, too.
Orange County Football Officials Association assignor Paul Caldera said it’s too soon to know if the football season that is scheduled to start Jan. 8 will have a sufficient number of officials. Officials were to have registered by now for the 2020 season. With the season pushed back a few months, the registration deadline also was delayed so Caldera does not know how deep the football officials roster will be.
“As far as being able to staff all the games,” Caldera said, “from what I’ve heard some schools are not sure what their lower level football will look like, what their numbers (of participants) will be. Some schools still will have two lower-level teams while some might condense them into one team. The goal for us right now is to get the varsity situation done before we look at lower levels.”
Caldera said he already has heard from a few officials who are committed to working games in 2021. They might be using an electronic hand-held whistle to blow plays dead in ’21, as football officials might be required to wear face coverings.
“Some others said they’re going to take a one-year leave of absence,” Caldera said, “and let this season go past. Then there are others who’ve told me they have not yet made a decision.”
As the months go by and the seasons approach, leadership of Orange County officials associations will have a better grasp of what their staffing shortages might be.
“The schools are going to have to be super flexible,” Gilman said. “It’s still hard to say what’s going to happen.”
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COVID-19 concerns, compressed schedules will make it more difficult to find officials for high school games - OCRegister
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