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Terry Tinich, a volleyball official for the Kansas State High School Activities Association (KSHSAA), is one person working to reverse the decline in officials. At Louisburg (Kan.) High School, where he is a teacher and Head Girls’ Basketball Coach, he offers an officiating class for students. “I had been mulling the idea for a while,” Tinich says. “There is a need to recruit younger officials, and I knew this would be one way to help do so.”

Now in its second year, the officiating class is offered each semester. The first semester covers basketball and softball, while the second is for volleyball and baseball. Students learn how to keep a scorebook in each sport, study the official high school rulebook—which they are tested on throughout the semester—and get some hands-on experience.

“For the hands-on portion of the semester, I ask some local officials to come in and help,” Tinich says. “We all go down to the gym and they go over proper mechanics as well as some nuances and details of how to officiate a game. We’ll talk about how in basketball, for example, an open hand indicates a violation while a closed hand is a foul, and that the elbow needs to be locked when making a call. We show them where to stand in front of the scorer’s table, and how to make sure the scorers are looking at you.

“I also have the students match up with a veteran official at some point so they can shadow each other during a scrimmage situation,” Tinich continues. “When the student refs, the official can say things like, ‘You need to be a little more to your left, this is what you look for in this situation, you missed this right here, and you need to be watching for that.’ The hands-on parts are just as beneficial, if not more so, than the book learning we do.”

Tinich also brings in guest speakers from the KSHSAA offices. “They talk about the importance of officiating, why we need new officials, and how important it is that they’re taking the class,” he says.

So far, several students who were enrolled last year have started officiating for pay. “Each student covers at least one middle school game during the year to see what it’s really like, and I think that generates a lot of interest in pursuing it further,” Tinich says. “When these kids go off to college, they can have a pretty good part-time job.”

While working to get more officials into the pool, Tinich also has some advice for coaches on how to keep new officials from leaving. “Issues with game management can be frustrating for us,” he says. “It’s important that the courts are properly marked, there is someone there to meet us when we arrive, and there is someone to pay us before we leave.

“Those things aren’t necessarily the coach’s responsibility, but they can work with their athletic director on them,” he continues. “The small details like that make a big difference.”

For more information on Tinich’s class, e-mail him at: TinichT@usd416.org.

Abigail Funk is an Assistant Editor at Athletic Management.