One of the principal difficulties which have to be faced every year by the managers of interscholastic athletics is the choice of proper and competent officials for league games. It is not so difficult in the spring-time to get umpires for baseball games, but in the fall if seems to be an exceedingly difficult matter to secure the proper kind of officials for the football matches.
Not only is this difficulty encountered in New York, but we often hear of the same trouble in Boston and Philadelphia, and other great athletic centres. The main difficulty seems to be in securing referees and umpires who shall be thoroughly impartial. Inasmuch as the men who can be secured to act as officials at school games are usually graduates of the schools, or are still in the schools, or are teachers at the schools, there is always the chance that they may be more or less interested in the success of one team or the other, and so not entirely impartial in their decisions, in spite of having the best of intentions.
If it were only possible to secure the co-operation of graduates of two or three years' standing, both in this city and in others, the question of officials would be settled. This, however, would be the ideal solution of the vexing problem, and can hardly be hoped for. It might be possible to get a list of such gentlemen, who are familiar with the sport, and who would be willing, for the sake of the promotion of the sport, to give one afternoon each season to the game.
In Boston there has been so much trouble over the matter of securing competent officials for the football-games that a committee of the head masters of the schools interested finally took up the question, and, after going thoroughly into its merits, reported to the Football Association, whose executive committee thereupon passed the following resolutions:
"Voted, that all games officials should be approved by the executive committee of the association before being allowed to act, and that the officials should be, when possible, men of college rank.
"Voted, that the secretary of the association be empowered to act by the executive committee as regards the approval of games officials, except in such cases where he shall desire to call a meeting of the whole committee."
It is plain now that when this rule goes into effect, the old system of waiting to choose the officials until the teams appear upon the football field ready to play will be done away with. The captains of the teams are now compelled to meet the secretary of the Football Association before the game, and to decide upon the officials at that time. This will dispose of one of the difficulties; but the greatest difficulty of all, that of securing the individuals themselves, of getting them to promise to come, and of having them appear after they have promised, is one that cannot be overcome by legislation. It is a condition that can only be improved by an increased interest among college men in the sports of their juniors.
Among other things done by the Executive Committee of the Boston Interscholastic Football Association was the reconsideration of its former decision to compel the Cambridge High and Latin schools to compete in athletics as two separate institutions. C.H. and L. petitioned to be readmitted to the Senior Football League as a single school, and their cause was very strongly championed by a number of graduates at the recent committee meeting.