In Cleveland there are, off the top of my head, at least 5 referee schools. (I'm sure there are more that I don't know about) These five schoolsaverage about 20-25 students in them, meaning that there are over 100 new referees every year. I dare some of them would love to work that younger rec stuff.
There is a significant athletic organization about an hour from where I live that does not use certified referees. Two years ago it made the paper here that a coach of a 6th grade team was charged with assaulting a referee in the parking lot. I never heard the final resolution of his court case, but like everything else, there are two sides to the story.
DISCLAIMER: I am in no way condoning the behavior of the coach.
Two brothers aged 16 and 14 were the referees. Apparently this coach was complaining about their calls during the game and in response the older one, "If you don't like the last one, wait until you see the next one." Nice Huh? (Of course, we've all fantasized about saying something like that
) Seriously though, after the game the two young
officials were at their car cleaning off the snow when the coach came out. As he walked by he said to the referees something about it not being right that the game was officiated in that manner. The younger 14 year old went off spewing F-Bomb after F-Bomb at the guy. As you can imagine, that set the guy off and he ended up assaulting him.
All could've been avoided if this high profile organization would just use certified referees.