Wanted: Track officials

It’s a thankless job … and an essential job

The rain pelted down in angry, frigid drops.

The officials wore every manner of foul weather gear, but to no avail. There was no way to stay dry on this April showers kind of a Saturday.

Welcome to spring track and field in the Northeast!

We’re at the long jump, at a local meet at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie. Jumpers are doing their best to stay dry and warm. They are failing on both counts.

The horizontal jumps in rainy weather can be annoying at best, dangerous at worst. Hurtling your body down a runway approach at close to full speed, planting your foot on a slippery board and then hurling your body in the air into a mealy/muddy sandpit … not the best way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Shepherding over this are two old men and a middle-aged woman.

Track officials.

One guy’s job is to determine if it is a fair jump. Another guy’s job is to mark where the jump is to be measured. The woman’s task is to make the measurement and bellow out the distance for all of us to hear.

After one particular jump that is deemed fair (not a foul), she bends over as the incessant rain beats down. Squinting through eyeglasses in desperate need of windshield wipers, she tentatively reads the measurement: “Five … point … four eight … meters.”

Wait. What? The coach of the athlete who just jumped starts to approach the official incredulously. I arch my eyebrows under my soaked winter hat … FIVE? Point 48? meters? Two coaches ask in unison. “Oh, oh, oh, my bad, FOUR … point … four eight meters. 4.48 meters.’’

Big difference! About 3.2 feet, to be exact.

We all get a laugh out of it.

I comment that track officials working in a cold, driving rain should get the equivalent of “shift differential” pay … you know, employees who work third shift (overnight) sometimes get a little extra pay as compensation for an unfavorable work schedule.

It was meant as a joke, but they took it seriously! Then, they started on the what-ifs of how much they should get paid on hot days, windy days, cold days … and everything in between. It’s a fair point, if hypothetical, which leads to another, far more important, point … if you care about the future of track and field:

There is a shortage of young, qualified, eager and competent track officials.

This is not ageism, but … the average track official, at least locally, is well past “normal” retirement age. My unscientific observation? The prototypical track official is a man between 70 and 80 years old.

I normally don’t turn to the vile message boards at letsrun.com for validation. But a few days ago, after there was a lap-counting snafu in the 25-lap women’s 10,000-meter run at a Division I conference championship, one of the vitriolic commenters posited that track officials are generally “75-year-old men who can’t remember what they had for breakfast.”

Yeah well. I did say those boards are vile, didn’t I?

Despite this online vitriol having to do with the inexcusable fact that some women ran 24 laps instead of 25 laps in a championship race … this “track officials thing” is a potentially intractable problem.

Track officiating is a multi-faceted job. And it pays quite poorly. And for many, it has the appeal of watching grass grow; or, more accurately, watching grass getting pulverized into divots by the discus, shot put or hammer.

Unlike other sport referees, track officials are required to master varying skills – almost like multiple sports under the umbrella (pun intended) of track and field.

Long jump and triple jump officiating is different from the high jump, which differs from the pole vault, which differs from the aforementioned throwing events. On the track, you need a head starter, an assistant starter, a clerk of the course, relay zone officials and myriad other jobs (yes, including lap counting). It’s not “just runners” out there.

Just like other sports, you only notice the officials when they screw up. They called a fair jump a foul. They miscounted the laps. They called a sector foul when the discus landed within the lines. The women’s hurdles were accidentally set on the men’s height. They held sprinters in the “set” position too long, leading to an unneccesary false start. On and on. It all matters.

Similarly, have you ever been at a track meet that just seems to drag on for hours and hours, with endless down time between races? That’s on the starter! The starter’s job is to expedite one race to the next, closely coordinating with the timing company.

There are a lot of moving parts.

Many of you reading this are simply road racers and may not be familiar with the nuances of track meets and track officiating. I get that. Just know that it matters, and that track officials can make or break the efficiency and proper running on a track meet.

If you enjoy track and field and you think you might be interested in officiating, contact your local group. And bring a friend! They’ll be thrilled to hear from you. Trust me when I say, we in the track world need you. A lot of you!