Georgia high school officials predict ref shortage amid pandemic concerns

ATLANTA - As the Georgia high school football season is less than a month away, the GHSA has handed down health and safety protocols for schools. But local football associations in charge of staffing officials for games on Friday nights are struggling to devise their own measures to keep their members safe — not to mention making sure there are enough refs on the field as many choose to stay away.

Capitol City Football serves Fulton, Dekalb, Clayton and Henry County schools. And their assignor, Ralph Green, has his phone ringing off the hook from concerned members, calling him "probably honestly every five minutes."

"People will tell me about something that they heard or read on the news," Green said. "And a lot of times, they hear things that maybe I don’t hear until later that day or something."

He’s giving his members until Aug. 15 to opt in or out of the season, and has lost only a few members so far. But most other local associations, which are contracted by the GHSA to officiate games, are facing a significant shortage.

About a dozen of the most veteran officials at the Atlanta Quarterback Club Officials Association, which serves City of Atlanta and Dekalb County schools, have opted out.

"We as officials love the game, we do it because we love the game, we want to see football played," said Atlanta Quarterback Club Officials Association President Michael Johnson. "But we also have families to take care of, full-time jobs in most cases to attend to, and don’t want to martyr ourselves or any of these kids. At the end of the day, it’s all about the game, but it is a game."

While recruiting and retaining officials is a struggle in a normal year, the pandemic has made it even more difficult. Georgia Football Officials Association, serving 27 Atlanta area schools, has seen a dozen veteran officials opt out, according to Georgia Football Officials Association President Todd Downes. On top of that, rather than the normal 10 or more new recruits, they’ve only added five this offseason.

The Georgia Officials Athletic Association’s new recruits are down 75 percent, with 5 of their 100 football members already deciding to stay on the sidelines for 2020 — a moving target their president sees only growing.

"I swung to the very optimistic side during the summer months. I have to be somewhat optimistic," Georgia Officials Athletic Association President Tim Smith said. "I have to make sure my association is ready to take the field that first week of the season, but there is a part of me that each day that goes by, I get a little more pessimistic that we’re going to be playing."

Some of the biggest concerns for officials beyond the on-field contact revolve around dressing rooms, bringing their own coolers with water bottles and Gatorade, sanitization when touching chains and footballs, and the lack of a face mask mandate.

"The GHSA has mandated that the schools do that but we do not have a mandate for each association," said Downes, of the Georgia Football Officials Association President. "We are building one in. We are building what I call a COVID sheet of everything we talked about with the sleeves, the gloves, the masks, no handshakes, the water bottles, the dressing rooms — every bit of that, we’re building a sheet, and that’s also going to include what we’re asking of that official if that official were to test positive post-event."

Some associations have the means to provide hand sanitizer and even masks — like Multi County Football, which spent about $900 on matching face gaiters after saving money for an emergency.

"And that rainy day is now here and it’s pouring. So we're OK," Multi County Football Secretary Jeff Greene said. "We’re independent of GHSA. All football associations are. We’re autonomous and we should be running our own. We’ve got to do the best we can, but at this point I think all football associations could use assistance."

But that kind of protocol is very much the exception among officials FOX 5 Sports spoke with. Each association is left to its own devices to decide what to enforce.

"The GHSA has mandated that the schools do that but we do not have a mandate for each association. We are building one in," said Downes, of the Georgia Football Officials Association. "We are building what I call a COVID sheet of everything we talked about with the sleeves, the gloves, the masks, no handshakes, the water bottles, the dressing rooms — every bit of that, we’re building a sheet, and that’s also going to include what we’re asking of that official if that official were to test positive post-event."

"I know our association would like a little more set-in-stone sort of standards," Smith, of the Georgia Officials Athletic Association, said. "We have had a very difficult time in getting new officials this year and we have already had several of our returning officials who have opted out for the season. We obviously get paid for our time on Friday night, but we’re not getting rich doing this. And it’s a matter of weighing your love of the game versus the great unknown of what you’re facing when you go out there."

But the GHSA told FOX 5 Sports that there is no one-size-fits-all solution for its 470 member schools across the state, and it can’t necessarily regulate officials, who are contracted workers, not employees.

"We’re constantly getting emails from parents that are saying, ‘Yes let them play let them play let them play!’ And then we’re getting those from the other side saying, ‘You’re being so irresponsible by letting them play!’" said Ernie Yarbrough, the GHSA Assistant Executive Director - Coordinator of Officiating. "We’ve had areas of this state that have no incidents, no positive tests, and then we have other areas where it’s very congested on a very high level of positive tests."

There are some rule adjustments the GHSA is making on its end to facilitate safety for officials, like widening team boxes and allowing five-man crews instead of the typical teams of six or seven. Still, all the local officials FOX 5 Sports talked to said they expect even more officials to also decide to opt out as Week 1 on Sept. 4 quickly approaches.