TULSA, Okla. (AP) — Robert Breedlove, a 53-year high school football official, tells a sobering story.

“A couple years ago, a friend of mine was working a sub-varsity game,” Breedlove tells the Tulsa World . “One of his first-year guys was with him, since you try to work veterans with less-experienced officials to help teach them. Well, this guy comes to my friend at halftime. I guess they’d had a rough first half.”

A pitiful fact about football and most youth sports: the younger the kids playing, the worse-behaved the adults watching. The adults direct their tantrums at the kids and at each other but unleash their most juvenile outbursts at officials.

“The guy takes off his officiating hat. He takes off his whistle. He takes his flag out of his pocket,” Breedlove continues, “and he says, ‘Here. You can have these. I didn’t sign up for this.’ And the guy leaves the game.

“This gives you a thumbnail sketch of what’s going on in the world of officiating high school football. Whether it’s Tulsa, Oklahoma, or Tallahassee, Florida, or Bozeman, Montana, it doesn’t make any difference. It’s the same. That’s what’s going on.”

Referees are fleeing the profession.

A Google search reveals crises in Alabama and Tennessee, Illinois and Missouri, California and Florida. The National Federation of State High School Associations recognizes the problem on its website, where it asks would-be officials to enlist and fans to chill so that referee recruits might stick around.

“Right now, we are at 992 officials,” reports Grant Gower, director of officials for the Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association. “That’s down from about 1,100 last year.”

The trickle of recruits doesn’t keep up with the outflow of resignations or retirements, and so organizations like Rolen’s scramble to staff games.

“You have to pretty much absolutely love it or you’re just not going to do it,” Breedlove says.

And there’s the problem: It’s difficult to love it when you’re catching hell for it as a rookie at those grade school games.

Consider this report May 17, 2019 special report by Fox New 17, a local Nashville news station featured a story that highlighted the impending shortage, which many officials who are quitting blame on the abusive parents in the stands.

“They say it’s a tough gig taking mental and sometimes physical abuse where a simple call can become a brawl.

Spectators see them all the time losing their cool, some looking like a WWE showdown. Yet, it’s just another night of kids’ sports. Referee Bronson Reaves is calling a time out and leaving his basketball side gig.

“It takes a toll on you not just physically, but mentally as well night in and night out taking the verbal abuse in the manner that you are,” Reaves said. “We had to throw a fan, a dad, out at a middle school game,” Reaves said. “He was out there at the door with his hat turned around backwards and he was challenging me (gestures with his fists) to come and I suppose fight him. My fear is that it becomes physical.”

“They used to call them helicopter parents. Bulldozer parents might be more appropriate,” Breedlove says. “They bulldoze every obstacle, they think, to their child’s well-being. They’re out there to run the show, so to speak.”

Maybe they would act differently if there was no show to begin with.

TSSAA, a member of the NFSHSA,, is looking for creative solutions. They are having to be creative, and are working hard with school districts and fan control to avoid referee shortage.

They are investing in outreach, such as the program Inside Out which partners with the Tennessee Titans promoting sportsmanship at all games. Creative solutions may lie in less traditional demographics like older teens and women. They are establishing mentor programs, such as the one featured here about the class students can take as an elective at Science Hill High School.

All of this sounds encouraging.

“It’s all about the game. And then the camaraderie, too. Being with your crew Friday night, those other four guys, is just wonderful. It’s the ultimate bonding experience because you don’t have any other buddies out there.”

It is important to remember that official are an intrinsic and important component of every youth competition.