The Most Important Person Not Playing in the Game

Who is that? Not the coach that is for sure, not the parents, you should not know who they are. If they do their job well they are very invisible – the official. The official at any level of sport can have a profound influence on the outcome of the game. Their ability to pay attention and stay on task to focus on the game is paramount. They do not get to go to the bench to rest. At the youth sport level the official can teach the players more about the game in the course of one game than the coach can in a week. Learning the rules and playing by rules significantly improves the quality of play and also prevents injury. One of the reasons for the high rate of injury in youth soccer and girls basketball is poor officiating. The officials lose control of the game and the players play out of control increasing their chance of injury. Officials must be game fit to be able to effectively officiate a game. This is one of the biggest deficiencies in sport today. I know Major League Baseball has tried to address this. At the youth and high school level it is becoming increasingly difficult to get officials at all because of the lack of respect and abuse. So I guess it is hard to expect them to be game fit, but if possible this should be addressed by officiating associations.