PIAA will require refs to be vaccinated
GREENSBURG » The PIAA will require its game officials in all sports to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 to work any state postseason games this fall.
In a bulletin for football officials posted online Tuesday, the PIAA wrote: “All officials must be fully vaccinated to officiate any postseason interdistrict contest. The terms and conditions of PIAA interdistrict playoff contracts will include language that all officials working those contests must be fully vaccinated.”
The PIAA mandate does not appear to apply to district postseason games. However, executive director Amy Scheuneman said the WPIAL needed to confirm that belief with the PIAA.
The PIAA board is scheduled to meet Wednesday afternoon.
“We’re going to get clarification on that,” Scheuneman said, “whether it’s at the district level as well as (interdistrict), or if it’s just beginning with their crossdistrict tournament.”
PIAA administrators weren’t immediately available for comment. The PIAA Sports Medicine Advisory Committee met in late August and unanimously agreed to recommend COVID-19 vaccines for “student-athletes, coaches, athletic personnel and officials in accordance with the recommendations of the CDC and NFHS.” However, the SMAC position included only a recommendation, not a requirement.
Requiring vaccinations for district playoffs contests would complicate scheduling efforts when there is already a welldocumented shortage of officials.
“There are going to be people who are not then able to officiate,” Scheuneman said. “I’m not saying there will be a complete shortage where we won’t have them, but the ones that we want to use may not be available.”
She added that verifying the vaccination status of every official working in the WPIAL also could be challenging. The WPIAL does not know the current vaccination status of its officials.
“If it becomes a require
ment, we’d have to ask them to submit their interest (in working the playoffs) and prove their status,” Scheuneman said. “We’ll see if that becomes a necessity or not.”
PIAA officials are considered independent contractors under a court decision from 2019. The case arose a few years earlier when a group of lacrosse officials tried to unionize as employees of the PIAA, a move the PIAA opposed.