STEVENS POINT, WI (WTAQ) – The Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association is in ‘crisis mode’ as they continue to see a dramatic decrease of licensed officials.
In the 2019-2020 season, there were about 9,250 people registered to be officials with the WIAA, many of them serving multiple sports. But for the 2020-2021 season, there are just 7,818.
But the biggest question around that nearly 1,400 official drop; why?
“Officials are somewhat aging out. We had more officials retiring from officiating than we had coming in as a new fresh young official…The pandemic hit, and we saw a distinct to decline in people who had registered,” said Assistant Director Kate Peterson Abiad. “We were wondering how many of those we would get back. Would some people decide it wasn’t so bad not officiating, and I’m ready to be done with it? Would the officials who are nearing retirement decide, I’m ready to retire?”
So while the pandemic and retirements did make a dent, they aren’t the only factors. Peterson Abiad says the biggest factor isn’t a huge surprise, and that’s disappointing.
“The number one reason officials were not coming back was due to the way they were treated while they were officiating,” Peterson Abiad told WTAQ News. “Those that maybe were getting a lot of heat when they were officiating, did they realize that they were just okay with not doing it anymore? That’s a major problem here and we’ve done a nationwide sort of educational piece trying to push the agenda of how to professionally respond to officials and not get so emotional and drive people out of this business.”
To learn about what it takes to become a licensed WIAA official, head to their website.
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