The person refereeing your child’s lacrosse game may not be old enough to drive

On a recent Sunday, elementary school students tripped over each other on the lacrosse fields, fighting over the small rubber balls under the watchful eyes of referees — most of whom are only a decade older than the players.

For players this age, the lacrosse ball is on the ground for much of the game. One girl scored, prompting cheers from dozens of parents on the sidelines and a whistle from 18-year-old Sophie Cho. She fished the ball out of the goal and set up the face-off, blowing the whistle again to release the hordes with their goggles and sticks.

“This is, like, the last hurrah,” she said of the Massachusetts Youth Lacrosse Jamboree in Devens. Cho’s mother was the one who suggested she become a referee a few years ago.

“I started as a lifeguard and I just enjoy guiding people,” Cho laughs.

She’s part of a group that’s increasingly taking charge on the field. Just as youth sports are becoming more competitive — with more leagues recruiting more players and scheduling more games — many veteran referees are hanging up their stripes. It’s a supply-and-demand problem that officials’ associations are desperate to solve, and they’ve found an eager group in high school players.

Some older officials acknowledge that it’s far from an ideal option, given the logistical hurdles of relying on a teenage staff. The experience can also be stressful for the young referees, who must deal with unruly parents and coaches. And yet, the teens say they love the gig.

“It makes a lot of money for each of the games, and it’s super easy and fun to teach the little girls,” said 18-year-old Abby Cooney, who recently made mistakes with Cho on that Sunday.

Filling the field

Baby boomers filled the ranks of youth sports referees for years — and often still do. But many have moved away from it over the years.

According to the National Federation of State High School Associations, 50,000 high school athletic directors nationwide retired by 2020. For the first time this year, those numbers have returned to pre-pandemic levels.

A 2023 survey by the National Association of Sports Officials found that minors still make up a small portion of officials. But here in Massachusetts, associations say the numbers have grown as they adopt more aggressive recruiting strategies and make training more accessible.

“When I first started coaching, there were no kids, no juniors — it was just adults,” said Michael Alexander, who umpires games through the Eastern Massachusetts Woman’s Lacrosse Umpiring Association. “With the explosion of the sport, you just need more people officiating.”

It is difficult to collect comprehensive national data on how many referees are teenagers, because the referee associations are spread across different age groups and regions.

Melissa Levine, who coaches junior officials in girls lacrosse, said she’s worked with more than 100 this spring. On the boys’ side, more than 200 minors have refereed this year, said Rick Catalano, a director of the associate officials program for the Eastern Massachusetts Lacrosse Officials Association.

Last season, more than 500 teenagers became referees on the boys’ ice hockey team, which is more than a third of all referees officiating at the junior levels.

Giving back to a sport they love

Players who sign up to referee are enthusiastic about the sport, like high school student Lauren McMahon, who has been refereeing for three years.

“I thought it was cool that people who have been playing lacrosse for so long could give back to it in some way,” she said. “Over the years, I’ve just gotten more comfortable with it — obviously, I’ve been playing the game for three years.”

Building confidence is one of the many virtues officials see in bringing in teenage referees. Because most of them play the sport themselves, the referees already know the rules of the game. And they also serve as role models for the younger players.

“For us it is actually want to to use them because we want these younger players to say, ‘Oh, that’s who I want to be,'” Alexander said.

Especially in girls’ sports, the new recruits give players an older female player to look up to, as men still dominate the official ranks. In softball, Grace Williams first umpired in high school. Now in her 30s, she runs a junior Olympic officials training program on the South Shore.

“There hasn’t been a game at the college level where someone hasn’t said, ‘It’s nice to have a female referee,'” Williams said. “Even though it’s a women’s sport, we still have very few — by comparison — women officiating.”

She says older referees are predominantly male, but her new, young crop, made up mainly of local players, is about 80% female.

Hannah Echt

GBH News

Dealing with Unruly Parents

While officials don’t want to ignore a potential pool of recruits, some are hesitant to bring teenagers into the game.

Parents and coaches regularly yell at referees, officials say, regardless of their age. For the teens, it can be especially tough to deal with — so much so that some leave the field or ice in tears after tough games. A handful never return to the referee.

Especially in hockey, officials have been sounding the alarm about misconduct from the stands for years.

Eugene Binda, who runs his own referee training company, Referees Crease, said he has been spat at and even had a cigar put out on him. He has also heard of violent acts against junior referees.

“We had a kid last summer, at a skating rink on the South Shore, where the parent waited for him to come out and almost tried to run him over in the parking lot,” he said. “And I’m not making this up — we had to file a police report.”

The rowdy behavior has made some officials more reluctant to recruit teens. Mark Rulli, the head coach for baseball’s South Shore Umpires Association, said he’s cast a wide net in recent years to fill the gap, trying everywhere from the parents in the Little League stands to the senior centers. In his area, it’s worked — without bringing in too many teens.

“They’re going to run into a parent who might have had a bad day at work,” Rulli said. “With baseball, you’re inside a fence, you’re kind of locked in. So it can be a tough situation for a kid.”

The Challenges of Trusting Teens

Also: they are teenagers. That brings problems, logistical and otherwise.

There are unique challenges in terms of scheduling, as unlike the older groups of recruits, the teenage referees have their own games to attend.

“We thought we were going to get a really good group of kids, but we found out that these kids were playing the same tournaments that we wanted them to referee,” Binda said of last season’s new players.

Levine says girls lacrosse may start out with a large team, but it will get smaller as the season progresses.

“A lot of times they’re not super reliable because they’re in high school,” said Levine, who trains the new recruits. “And by the end of May, they’re like, ‘Oh, I don’t want to be stuck on Sunday.'”

She now expects staff turnover to increase each year as children leave after-school jobs or go to college, as Cho and Cooney do in the fall.

Hannah Echt

GBH News

There are some teenagers who stick around. Andrew DeGirolamo, a 15-year-old boys lacrosse referee who has been refereeing for three years, said there haven’t been many “crazy coaches” this year.

“I just really enjoy lacrosse,” he said.

And the players they’re blaming for fouls could be next. Alison Hanchett, one of the parents cheering on the sidelines, says one of her daughters would welcome the black-and-white stripes.

“I can totally see my oldest wanting to be a referee someday. Like the whistle,” Hanchett told GBH News. “Like being in control and being the leader.”