The numbers appear to be there — and appear to be sufficient.

“We do not have a shortage of (high school athletic) officials in Pennsylvania,” said Debra Rosenberger, a Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association staff member who works in the officiating department. “Our numbers have been steady in recent years, around 13,000 or so. We have not noticed a decline.

“We began offering online testing recently, and that's become popular with our younger officials.”

Will that popularity be enough to replenish the growing number of retiring officials in coming years? And will the number of active officials remain sufficient to cover an increasing number of games?

To people within the industry, those questions are viable.

“Attrition is settling in,” said Dan Cunningham, who runs the Butler County PIAA baseball umpiring chapter. “There's not enough younger umpires coming in. We've got 30 umpires on the roster right now and 70 percent of them have been doing it for 15 years or more.

“As guys step away from it or retire, there's nobody to replace them. It becomes a numbers game.”

A numbers game

The Butler County umpiring chapter covers Allegheny-Clarion Valley, Moniteau, Karns City, Summit Academy, Butler, Knoch, Vincentian, Pine-Richland and Armstrong. Umpires must be scheduled for varsity and junior varsity games involving all of those schools.

Cunningham said his chapter has a working arrangement with neighboring chapters in Natrona Heights and District 10, among other areas.

“We borrow umpires from each other as needed,” he said. “Ninety-five percent of our umpires have regular jobs. They work for a living.

“It becomes a nightmare at times trying to get games covered.”

Cunningham added there's “more pressure working Class 6A and 5A games because those coaches know the rules inside and out. You want more experienced guys working those games if you can.”

Gary Shingleton is one of those more experienced guys. He's been an umpire since 1981 — but primarily does college games these days instead of high school.

“The college games, you get paid three times as much,” Shingleton said. “I might get a $180 for a college game. A WPIAL playoff game might pay $50. A lot of your better umpires are going to say 'No thanks' to that.”

Two in 10

The National Federation of State High School Associations reports that only two of every 10 officials return for their third year of officiating.

It also said that the number of high school athletes nationwide has doubled — from 4 million to 8 million — since 1970, due to an increase in sports and the explosion of girls sports in the 1980s.

Shingleton isn't shocked by such numbers.

“In the last three years, I've worked more games than I've ever worked,” he said. “Younger officials don't want the heavy workload.

“Umpiring is about commitment and dedication. Like Ed Vargo (deceased major league umpire from Butler) used to say, commit to the craft and move up. People don't want to do that anymore. People don't want officials' duties to dictate their lives.”

Working games does require working evenings, weekends and sometimes holidays. More athletes and more sports mean more games and a need for more umpires, referees and officials.

Excessive criticism

It also means more people putting up with public criticism that can be excessive at times.

“These officials work under a lot of pressure now with the abuse they take. Absolutely, it's gotten worse,” said Brian Markle, Karns City athletic director. “Young people don't want to put up with that stuff.

“I know somebody's daughter who became a softball umpire and didn't last a year. The parents were so bad, she couldn't take it. People become umpires and officials because they love the game, they love the kids ... but with all the crap they have to take, why do it?”

Eighteen states — including Pennsylvania — have criminal laws in place regarding assault of a sports official. In Pennsylvania, assault against a sports official during an event or as a result of his official acts is a first-degree misdemeanor.

It can result in five years in prison, up to a $10,000 fine or both.

Art Monteleone, 73, has been officiating football and basketball games for 46 years. He said public abuse of officials at games “is terrible now.”

“You work a football game, you're far enough away from the stands, you can't hear anything,” Monteleone said. “Basketball, it's hard to block out. But the real shortage is in football officials. We might have 10 guys in Butler who do football. That's about it.”

Getting out

Monteleone said a lot of veteran officials in high school sports are beginning to get out because of “hassles” they have to go through off the field.

PIAA officials go through a series of background checks, have their criminal histories searched by the state police and must submit fingerprints to the FBI.

“We've lost 200 officials in Western Pennsylvania over the past two years and one of the biggest reasons why they're getting out is because of that stuff,” Monteleone said.

“People don't want to be bothered by that — and officials have to foot the bill for it,” he said.

Officials also have to join a local officiating chapter and attend six meetings per year, along with a seminar on rule changes to stay updated.

Rich Gavula, 70, has been an official since 1970. He only does baseball now, having given up basketball as he's gotten older.

“I've always liked doing games for the exercise,” he said. “The toughest part of officiating is you have to stay focused the whole time.

“We're going to make mistakes. That's part of sports. Everybody does. But umpires and officials take abuse for it. Why aren't there more younger officials? Most people don't want to take that abuse.”

Rich Duggan works baseball, football and basketball games. An official since 2012, he belongs to a different chapter for each sport.

He is with the Butler County umpires, West Penn chapter for basketball and Greater Pittsburgh chapter for football.

“There's a lot of meetings and training you have to go through, you have to spend money to get started ... Kids today aren't going to commit to that,” Duggan said.

“In some sports, there is a shortage of officials. Most of the Olympic sports, the nonrevenue generating sports, there's definitely a shortage.”

When it comes to weekend work, Duggan said, “They always call you to do games. I could spend the whole weekend working games, especially in basketball season.”

A few years ago, football teams in District 10, which covers schools from Slippery Rock and north as far as Erie, had to take a turn playing a Saturday game instead of the traditional Friday night contest because there weren't enough available officials to go around.

That is no longer the case, but John Osborne, Slippery Rock High School athletic director, pointed out that “some Erie schools play on Saturday anyway, which helps that situation.”

Osborne said of fans' treatment of officials “They can be pretty rough on them.”

He added that abuse of officials is practically an accepted form of behavior now.

“I think it's a cultural thing and I don't know how to change that,” Osborne said. “It's sad.

“Fifty percent of the people are going to be angry at you over every call. There's no reason for it. It's a game,” he added.