We have officially shoved off from the pier on the excursion that is the 2025-2026 sports year.

A lot of high school sports teams had their first official contests in the last week, and those that didn’t will have them this week.

The fall and spring sports seasons are very short seasons, and they scoot by very quickly. This column hits your front porch on August 20, and the girls golf sectionals are scheduled for September 18-22.

For those of you keeping score, it’s roughly six weeks between the first day that teams can have first matches and the day most of their seasons end.

Since Dale Hubler first asked me to write for him each week, I promised that I would use my space to try to do more than just rant about things that bothered me or to right wrongs.

I wanted to make sure that a few times a year, I offered advice on how sports can be more fun for them and everyone around them.

Today is that kind of day.

The goal today is just to give you some general reminders of things you have already heard and you already know. But most classroom teachers start their year with review, and we’re doing the same thing here.

The Indiana High School Athletic Association, the governing body of Indiana high school sports, has a simple approach to its mission.

The concept is called “education-based athletics.”

That means that what happens in the gym, on the field or in the weight room is supposed to be a supplement to what happens in the classroom. I believe that the lessons learned in sports will benefit the learners long after their playing days are over. Less than 10 Hoosier high school athletes of the thousands that compete each year will ever make a professional roster, which means they will make their living doing something other than playing sports.

Athletics can help bring families together. Athletics can create memories for families that last a lifetime.

But, with a disproportionate view of the importance of sports in a family, it can be a miserable experience.

I want to encourage parents and grandparents to be careful of what their postgame approach might be.

Of course, you are going to talk about the game after it ends! I would never suggest otherwise. However, it’s not productive to overdo it. If the only subject that comes up is the mistakes that are made, things that went wrong or plays that didn’t work out, it’s probably not going to be a lot of fun. No one should dread the postgame conversation.

Here's the barometer to use: if the only things that come up are the bad things or things the athlete or team didn’t do well, you might want to re-examine your after-game plan.

Let me also encourage you to exclude from your postgame commentary any negative comments about your coaches and the game officials.

Even comments made between parents in the front seat can be heard in the back seat by young ears that don’t understand the sensitivity of what they just heard their parents say.

Oh, and when you say “the coach did a poor job of subbing tonight” on the way home from the game (for example), your kids believe that. And they file that away in the warehouse of their minds, and it leads them in forming opinions about people and things.

The problem is: what if your opinions are wrong? You are naturally and understandably biased, and that means the lens you see things through is often skewed to a certain extent, which could cloud your vision of the truth.

As far as officials go, I talk to you about this all the time: try hard to back off.

You might say “I hear you comment and complain about the officials all the time on your broadcasts,” and that is true. But if you really listen closely, you’ll notice that I give officials as much or more credit for getting a tough call correct as I do complain about one they missed.

I can do that because I am a licensed basketball referee and have been a licensed baseball umpire. I have a pretty good idea of where an official is supposed to be and what they are supposed to be looking for in any given situation, which helps me help my listeners understand why that call was made — no matter which way it goes.

You could become a better fan if you got your officiating license and learned the rules, and I highly recommend that.

One last thing: every school has corporate and business sponsors that support its athletic programs and athletic departments. Without them, high school sports would wilt and die.

Those sponsors are mentioned on the microphone, on the rotating video board, or on signage at sporting venues at your school.

Would you please take a minute to stop in and say “thank you” to them for their financial support? It will only take a few minutes, and you might just find that some product or service that they offer is just what you need.

Time to get started for season No. 35 of covering high school sports. We’ll see you out there.

The post Time for the sportsmanship talk appeared first on News Now Warsaw.

New information out this summer confirms what I have been telling you for a couple of years: the number of people who are umpiring and refereeing youth sports is shrinking.

The problem has reached a point at which something has to change.

According to a report released by the National Federation of High Schools, the body that monitors and regulates prep sports for all 50 states and the District of Columbia, the

average age of sports officials is increasing.

Their survey got anonymous responses from almost 36 thousand officials from around the country, and it showed the average age of those responding was 56.68 years old. That compares to 53.29 years old in 2017. In every survey prior to these, the average age was less than 50.

The questions to ask, of course, are “why is this happening?” and “What can be done to turn it back again?”

Behavior is where it starts.

In the survey, officials were asked “Is sportsmanship getting better or worse?”
68.8-percent said it had gotten worse. Over half of those who filled out the survey said they had worked a game where they feared for their safety at some point in their career because of an administrator, coach, player or spectator behavior.

Nearly 12-percent of the officials who responded said they had been physically assaulted during or after a sporting event. That’s about one in every eight officials.

It didn’t all start during COVID, but a lot of officials retired during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021.

That’s when even officials had to wear masks, and that made a difficult job even more difficult.

Add to that the fact that young people who were no longer playing in high school and college were not making the transition to become an official in the sport they participated in at a rate comparable to those who were stopping because of their age or the pandemic.

You can see where this is going.

When it comes to pay, you won’t be surprised to hear that officials believe they should make more money to do what they do because of the way they are treated.

No doubt, some fans would say they don’t see why they should be paid a dime.
That’s all very predictable, right?

Now, with a smaller pool of men and women to pull from when it comes to filling games, athletic departments are forced to call on certain officials more often. That is not good for anyone.

There is a saying in the officiating handbook that encourages officials to be vigilant about things like where they eat before the game or where they stop afterward. The point was “it’s not the impropriety; it’s the appearance of impropriety” that we should be worried about.

Officials shouldn’t take too many games at the same school.

Schools don’t want that either, but they have to fill these game dates.

After all — if there are no officials, there are no games.

You can also probably understand that when you officiate too many games, you are more likely to burn out. An official who goes from two games a week to four, for example, is going to have games on back-to-back nights.

Physically, you get tired faster. Mentally, you get pushed harder.

Even the most even-tempered official runs the risk of losing their cool or becoming overly defensive when a fan blurts out something or a coach asks a fair question.

When any of us work too hard and too long, no matter what line of work we are in, our brains start malfunctioning.

In the study we referenced earlier, 37 percent of those officials who responded said they felt pressure to accept more games than they were comfortable with.

So, what do we do about it?

The first thing we can do is to put youth sports back into the proper perspective.
Quit yelling at the little league umps. Quit yelling at the summer basketball refs.
You are not helping.

In fact, you are making things worse.

But there is something else you can do … if you have the courage to do it.

You could pick up a whistle or slap on a pair of shin guards and become an official yourself.

You’ll be more active, so you’ll improve your health.

You’ll find that the pay isn’t that bad, and those game fees can add up pretty fast.

And you might just find that it’s fun … if you let it be.

The post Number of those officiating youth sports dwindling appeared first on News Now Warsaw.

I was watching the final seconds of the final hockey game of the season last week.
Time was ticking away as Florida was about to claim back-to-back Stanley Cup Championships with a win on home ice over Edmonton.

The Cup was in the building, and the guy responsible for its care was polishing it in preparation for the winning players putting their lips on it and giving it the sweetest kiss they’ve ever given.

There was no drama in the end of this game because the Panthers had built an insurmountable lead. It was just a matter of running the time out and starting the celebration in South Florida.

When the clock hit all zeroes, the roar of the home crowd was deafening, and the best tradition in sports began.

The winners tossed their sticks and gloves and surrounded their goalie for a 20-man group hug at one end of the ice. They were soon joined by their coaches, who for the first time all season, cracked a smile in public view as they slid in their dress shoes out to join the mass of humanity.

At the other end of the ice was the Edmonton Oilers.

Unlike any other professional sport on earth, the losing team in a hockey playoff series doesn’t move. They don’t walk off the field and trudge up the tunnel.

They don’t go down the dugout stairs and slink back to the clubhouse.

They don’t exit the bench and go back to the hallway where the locker room is.

Those players on the bench when the horn sounds freeze in place, while the players still on the ice slowly glide from where they were to the quiet end of the ice.

And they all watch the other team celebrate.

Can you imagine how painful that must be to get that close to your own moment of raw, unbridled joy, only to be forced to watch your opponent take your dream and make it their own?\They lean against the wall in front of their bench. They prop up their chins with the butt end of their sticks.

They take a knee with their sticks on their shoulders.

Some watch the celebration at the other end through a prism of tears. Some watch and wonder if they will ever get that close again.

But all watch, just the same.

And then the moment happens. The moment that defines the difference between the sport of hockey and every other sport.

The two teams line up, and they skate towards each other to shake hands.

Remember, one team just won the series and the other just battled for four, five, six or seven games and came away with nothing.

But they participate fully anyway.

And let me be perfectly clear on this — this handshake line is exactly that … it’s a “handshake” line. It’s not to be confused with the “hand-slap” line that you find in gyms, on soccer pitches and at little league diamonds across America every night and weekend.

No, these people who beat the tar out of each other, yelled foul words at each other and squared off to fight each other for 60 minutes or more multiple times over the last two weeks … now extend their right hands toward each opponent.

Sometimes that right hand is met with a firm handshake. Sometimes it’s met with a hug. Sometimes it’s met with a pat on the front of the shoulder.

Each player makes contact not only with their hands, but also with their eyes. They look each other directly in the eyes. There may not be any words spoken in these short interactions. Words are not necessary here. The look and the physical contact say all that needs to be said.

It expresses the respect one player has for another, while at the same time displaying for all to see the love of the game that has been passed down through many generations to them, and will be passed down to generations of hockey players to come.

It is the highest form of respect a human being can show another human being—to look them in the eye and shake their hand.

It is a noble part of this sport that combines power, speed, grace and skill that sets it apart and above the rest.

And no matter who is playing in the series or where that series sits in the playoff picture, when this incredible display of sportsmanship takes place, I stop what I am doing and I watch it. It’s my way of contributing to the tradition in the only way I can.

In a society that is being increasingly pulled apart, in a world where decorum has been lost and civility is seen as a sign of weakness, I suggest to you that one of the last places on earth to find dignity in its purest form is in the five minutes of the handshake line at the end of a hockey series.

We can and should learn from it. We should show it to our young people. We should help them see the value of it.

We should want them to live their lives like that.

The post The best tradition in sports appeared first on News Now Warsaw.