Recruitment and Retention of Officials

[CMHCoachNRef]

We are working on a number of things in the State of Ohio including:
1. Recruiting players from the CPSL (the local amateur soccer league) -- many of the players are former college players and semi-professional players.
2. Recruiting current USSF referees to join the NFHS ranks (in soccer, most referees start by reffing club or recreational soccer with a different license from HS). We offer a "bridge" class (a shorter version of the normal NFHS class to allow the USSF referee to also referee HS.
3. We are reaching out to all HS soccer coaches as HS players can become NFHS referees (in Ohio, they can do sub-varsity games).
4. We are also attempting to work with current HS coaches to encourage them (and their players) to treat referees better (particularly the younger ones who are either dropping out or moving to college exclusively (college pays at least 2 to 6 times high school pay)).
5. We are also doing all of the items you mentioned in your post.