Shortage of officials leads to schedule changes
The Inland Football Officials Association has seen its membership dwindle in recent years, and the shortage of willing officials will be much greater this season because of the pandemic.
IFOA president Kelley Page said the association has 191 members. However, nearly two-thirds have opted not to officiate games this season for various reasons, mostly health and safety concerns with the average age of an association member in the 50s. That means there are approximately 60 officials available for an association responsible for crewing up to 42 high school varsity football games each week.
IFOA assignor Stan Smith said the number of would be higher if officials would have higher priority for coronavirus vaccines.
“I think the number would be flipped around, and we’d have 65% of our officials ready to go if they were fully vaccinated,” Smith said
Smith notified the Citrus Belt Area Athletic Directors Association earlier this week about the shortage and offered four time slots for games to be played — 7 p.m. Thursday, 7 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. Saturday. Smith said the IFOA would be able to send crews to 9-11 games in each of those slots.
The shortage of officials created a new wrinkle for the scheduling of football games.
“We want to be able to officiate as many games as possible,” Page said, “but there are going to be some big challenges this season. I know everybody would like to play on Friday night if possible, but we simply don’t have the numbers to make that work.”
San Gorgonio athletic director and CBAADA president Matt Maeda and his executive cabinet wanted to keep things as fair as possible for the association’s leagues, so it was suggested time slots be filled via a lottery. Maeda sent surveys to league representatives and asked them to list their preferences. A wheel was created and spun multiple times to determine when teams will play.
Maeda said the lottery was preferred to having teams playing in different time slots.
“Most coaches like having a routine that they can settle into each week,” Maeda said. “With this, you know what day you will be playing most weeks and won’t have to adjust everything on a week-toweek basis. It’s certainly not ideal, but we’re working the best we can and will grind through anything else in order to get the teams playing games again.”
The River Valley, Desert Sky and Southwestern leagues were the big winners, as their names landed first in the lottery. Those leagues will play most games Friday nights, although the River Valley League will have some games Thursdays because of shared stadiums.
“It nice for us because we get to stay in the same routine that we are accustomed to,” Chaparral coach Andrew Ramer said. “It’s nice to keep the Friday night feel. Honestly, though, we would have made things work no matter what spot we were given.”
The Big VIII, Mountain Valley and Sunbelt leagues will play games Thursday nights, with a few exceptions. For example, the Big VIII League will plays games on Friday, April 2, because many privates schools have requested to play Thursday, April 1 instead of on Good Friday.
Corona Santiago High coach Scott Morrison was making adjustments to his calendar Friday.
“We’ve had to change things so many times during this past year, so this isn’t that big of a deal,” Morrison said. “Thursday... Saturday... Monday. All of that doesn’t matter right now. Just tell us when we can play, and we will show up and be ready to go.”
The Citrus Belt, Inland Valley and Ivy leagues are slated to play Saturday nights.
“One thing I’ve learned though all this is not to be surprised by anything anymore,” Yucaipa coach Justin Price said. “I’m just happy the kids are getting an opportunity to have some kind of a season. What day and time we actually play is not a big deal.”
The Mojave River and Mountain Pass leagues and the Arrowhead Conference schools that are committed to having a football season will be playing their games Saturday mornings.
Luther Wilson is the assignor for the Foothill-Citrus Football Officials Association, and he said numbers are down there as well. The association has around 140 members with about half committed to officiating this year. Wilson usually has to assign crews to 22-25 on a weekly basis, with 80% percent of those on Fridays. He is trying to keep Friday crews to 14 maximum, so he’s reached out to schools about making adjustments.
“Everyone is working together to make things happen in difficult times,” Wilson said.
Varsity games are typically officiated by five-man crews. Smith and Wilson are trying to avoid using four-man crews this season for several reasons. An official might not pass an on-site screening measure like a temperature check, or one official could get hurt during a game, which would leave the crew with only three officials.