New Blood

[dr_donald_t]

I'm sure we are consistent with most officiating organizations,in that,we are very shorthanded. The majority of our officials are in the 50 years of age range.
Does anyone out there have any ideas for attracting, not only new recruits, but high school and college aged men and women. I'm toying with an idea to gather information that I could incorporate into a High School elective program. I'm not sure if this has ever been attempted (on the High School level). Any direction to available information would be very much appreciated.

Donald T. Myers
Ferrisburgh, VT

[Andy]

When I was in Jr High school, our PE teacher incorporated some officiating information into our curriculum. Mostly football and basketball as he was a certified HS and College official in these sports. That is what got me interested in officiating.

I'm no expert, but it seems to me that there would be a lot of red tape and hoops to jump through to get new courses introduced into HS curriculum. You may want to investigate the possibility of sending a "guest speaker" to talk to some classes about officiating. This may be easier to get approved.

Another thing that I tried with some success was to find out when some of the local coaches were having instructional clinics or camps for players in the area. I would ask for a small window of time, maybe 30 minutes, to discuss rules and the role of the official in the game. I would also make sure that I included an offer for the players to come join the officiating ranks when their HS eligiblility was over. This method is not a quick fix, but I did recruit several new officials over a few years.

[DaveASA/FED]

One thing that has had limited success for my area is grooming kids as they go through our rec program. I am UIC for a small rec league and as the kids get older a few have become good umpires. There is at least one (out of high school) that is toying seriously about getting her high school license. Several have become ASA umpires and even done some tournies. I am not going to lie, there are HOURS of wasted time, kids just don't get into it and give it up. But I figure if I can get some of them to love it and stick with it, the effort was worth it.