In an effort to combat the officials crisis straining high school athletics in Colorado, the Colorado High School Activities Association is launching the “You Look Good in Stripes” initiative.
CHSAA will cover costs for any new official’s CHSAA dues, as well as the sport’s officials association dues, for the first year. The dues will cover each new official’s background check, insurance, testing, rule books, a membership to a sport-specific association and a membership to ArbiterSports.
CHSAA has also made it easier than ever to sign up.
Anyone interested in becoming an official can visit https://bit.ly/3h6zE0A and fill out the five-question form. The staff at CHSAA will then send contact information to sport-specific area directors, who will reach out with details of training, meetings, procedures and requirements.
“We are very excited to implement the ‘You Look Good In Stripes’ initiative,” said CHSAA assistant commissioner Michael Book, who oversees officiating. “It is vital that we not only increase the number of officials across all sports, but develop a pipeline of new officials and retain them in this incredible profession. It can be expensive to begin as an official, so we are extremely grateful to be able to remove this barrier for new officials.
“This is a full-circle process of creating an opportunity of bringing new officials on board to counteract those that leave the profession. … We will continue to work towards aiding in the halt of the officiating crisis in Colorado and we hope to have several hundred new officials by the end of the year.”
As part of the “You Look Good in Stripes” initiative, CHSAA will also provide uniform and equipment grants for new officials once registration and testing are complete.
