Combating the referee shortage: High schools offering officiating course, inspiring future refs

As Illinois schools face a growing shortage of high school referees, students like Minooka senior Elliot Dahlberg are stepping up and getting paid to help fill the gap.

Dahlberg is one of a group of juniors and seniors who took an officiating class in the spring semester offered by Minooka High School. Minooka is one of a growing number of schools offering the class.

Dahlberg reached out to the head of umpiring in Will County and this summer umpired youth games up to the U-12 level.

“Sports is something that I have a passion for and put 110% into,” said Dahlberg, who has wrestled and plays football. “My brother started doing officiating; he’s four years older than me. I thought it might be something to get into, make some good cash, stay with the sport.”

It’s a good time to foster interest in officiating among young people as high school associations across the country struggle with a referee shortage.

A National Federation of State High School Associations survey of state high school associations in 2022 indicated that approximately 50,000 high school referees had hung up their whistles since the 2018-2019 season, the last full school year unaffected by the pandemic. Participation, though, has increased each year since 2021-2022, up 6% since the past school year.

While the number of referees in Illinois has declined in nearly every year since 2012, a trend accelerated by the pandemic, at the same time the Illinois High School Association has seen substantial growth in the number of referees ages 17-19 over the last decade. That is in part due to the introduction in 2022 of a provisional license at a reduced price, allowing 15 and 16-year-olds to officiate lower-level high school games while accompanied by a licensed referee. At 17, they can be re-certified to become a full-time official.

The number of individuals ages 17-19 with officiating licenses in Illinois has grown from 488 in the 2014-2015 school year to 1,083 last school year, the latter figure just over 5% of the total individuals with officials licenses.

“They talk about the shortage of officials,” said Minooka’s Brad Kunz, who has taught the officiating class for the last two years, “but a big thing that needs to happen is stop focusing on the shortage and instead focus on the many positive things of becoming an official and the opportunities kids have that they don’t even realize. They can make it a side job or a career.”

At the beginning of the class at Minooka, which is a physical education elective, students are surveyed on what sports they would like to officiate, and the curriculum is based on that. This past semester, they covered volleyball, baseball, softball, football, lacrosse, wrestling, and soccer.

“When I took over the class, my goal was to give the kids the opportunity to not only learn the rules, but really focus on the process of being an official and what that means,” Kunz said. “The professionalism of things, what is your end goal? Is this something you’re looking forward to doing in the future?”

In each unit, Kunz tries to go over enough rules that a student could officiate a club match or a local park district game. A guest speaker is brought in for each sport, an official or a coach, to give first-hand testimony on how to deal with hostile fans. Students are given the opportunity to officiate games in class.

A big element of the Minooka class deals with professionalism. They talk about the most controversial calls in sports history, how the fans and players were feeling, and how the students would handle the situation.

Kunz himself has first-hand experience of one of the most controversial calls in sports history, a pass interference call in the 2003 Fiesta Bowl, while a member of the University of Miami football team.

“We present the tools needed to be an official,” Kunz said. “I teach them enough to be dangerous as an official. They could do the job at a youth event.”

Kunz has had a couple of kids get certified for IHSA events, and sees a lot of them officiating local baseball games right away.

“The kids are like I definitely can do this,” Kunz said.

Kids like Dahlberg and Camden Swanson, a recent Minooka graduate who will be a freshman at Illinois State this fall. Swanson took the officiating class in his junior year and has umpired youth games up to U-13 in the Channahon and Joliet area.

“It sounded like an entertaining class to me – I’ve always been a pretty big sports guy," Swanson said. “I think it’s something that I definitely would like to keep doing, even when I’m down in college. It’s definitely something to have in the back pocket.”

Lyons Township High School is believed to have one of the longest-running officiating classes in Illinois.

Katie Meyers, going into her 20th year at the school, was approached a few years in by fellow teacher and coach Vic Montoya about starting a sports officiating class as a unique way to deliver meaningful PE curriculum to kids that could be transferred into job opportunities.

Every unit focuses on the hand mechanics and signals with which officials communicate. Students are tested on that and must perform the signals. A second component is field and court mechanics – where their position is on the field, how they run, how they communicate with their partner, the terms they use.

The class is offered to juniors and seniors, with the first semester focusing on soccer, volleyball, and basketball, and the second semester on softball, volleyball, and basketball. Students are given a rule book from the NFHS.

“Students have to identify what the correct call would be, like offsides in soccer or over the net in volleyball,” Meyers said. “It’s not easy. It does challenge the average PE student.”

Meyers estimated that close to 320 students took the class at Lyons last school year.

“Students come out of the class with a different perspective and see referees in a different light,” Meyers said. “It also inspires some of them. Especially since the pandemic, there has been a great demand for refs.”

The popularity of the class, likewise, has spread to other schools.

When Lyons started its class, Meyers said, as far as she knows, it was just them and Evanston that offered it in Illinois.

“It was the two of us for many, many years,” she said. “Word came out of it as a popular opportunity and I presented it virtually during the pandemic, an online video talking about the class. I do feel after the pandemic a dozen schools reached out to me to visit me at LT and made it into their special program.”

Yorkville is one of those schools.

The school first offered the class during the 2024-2025 school year. Yorkville’s Clarissa Cooper, who teaches the course with John Holakovsky, said close to 100 students, sophomores through seniors, signed up for the class.

Cooper said they had four students go on to become fully licensed as officials, and about 10 got their provisional license as 15 and 16-year-olds.

“They still have to take a course like an official. It’s more of a permit,” Cooper said. “They can officiate games up until freshman level. They can’t do JV or varsity games, they can do IESA and freshman with a licensed official.”

At Yorkville, they taught officiating basketball, softball, baseball, volleyball, and soccer.

Discussion was first held about instances of parents and athletes attacking referees, and the need to show empathy for officials – as Cooper said, “trying to teach the students just basic life skills to attack conflict, how to talk through issues.”

Signs and signals of particular sports were taught. Cooper noted that the NFHS provides a ton of smaller certifications where they tackled the nitty-gritty rules of sports like basketball and soccer.

A handful of Yorkville’s head coaches came in as guest speakers to discuss working with referees, and a basketball assigner presented over Zoom on what they do.

“I had 2-3 students, once they took the class, they started umpiring in the spring, making a couple hundred bucks in a weekend,” Cooper said. “Luckily, we got a lot of responses for the class.”

Officiating is a job that Dahlberg is interested in sticking with, even after he graduates from Minooka.

“Being able to stay around sports, being able to stay active, being outside, the physical activity is a lot,” Dahlberg said. “You look at officials, they really move around and get good physical activity. Being able to stay around sports is something I would like to do, especially football, which is the sport I love.”

As he instructs potential future officials, Kunz has an idea to create a proposal for an IHSA officiating competition similar to what the state does for journalism.

Students would officiate a freshman contest and be graded by a veteran official, just like a team journalism state championship.

“Sports have been a big part of my life and being on this end of things, helping the next generation of IHSA officials is a rewarding experience,” Kunz said. “As a coach on the field there are a number of officials I have respected and built relationships with. It’s good to be on the ground level teaching kids that these are things you can do.”