Longtime refs take pride in work, look for new recruits

The Montana High School Association recently honored members of the Montana Officials Association who have put decades of service into refereeing prep sports contests. On the list was Charlo's Joel Fuhrmann, who has been a referee for 20 years, and Ronan's Steve Picard, who has officiated for 30 years.

Picard, who was previously an athletic director and coach for Mission High School and a resident of Ronan, got into officiating one year when a coaching vacancy required him to coach volleyball.

"After a couple of years, I really grew to love volleyball, so after I found a volleyball coach for the school, I got into officiating," Picard said. "It was mainly for the kids, and there was a need for it."

Picard would go on to officiate in volleyball, softball and football.

"Volleyball was a learning experience, but I played baseball, so slow pitch was kind of the same idea," Picard said. "I actually did a lot of officiating of slow pitch when I was in college to make a few bucks."

Picard has officiated in over a handful of state volleyball tournaments, 20 state softball tournaments, and some state football playoff games.

Living in Ronan, Picard works out of the Missoula pool while working in school administration part-time.

Fuhrmann has been refereeing for 21 years and became an official after finishing school at Montana-Western. He is a 2002 graduate of Charlo High School.

"I just wanted to give back to the game and stay involved," Fuhrmann said. "There is no better way to stay involved, other than maybe coaching, than being an official."

Fuhrmann primarily referees football and basketball, recently calling games in the 2023 State Basketball Tournament. He also works for Coleman Limousin Ranch and is the fire chief in Charlo.

"I guess it's a good stress release physically, and you make a little money on the side," Fuhrmann said. "None of us do this to get rich but to give back to the game and ensure student-athletes have a good pool of officials calling games fairly."

Fuhrmann worked his way up from a rookie referee to assigning roles, evaluating referees' performances and is now the MOA Regional Director for the Region 2 Missoula Area. He has called six football championship contests covering all classifications from AA to C6, seven basketball state tournaments, and NAIA football. He even got to referee the NAIA National Championship game in football.

"I had good mentors when I started," Fuhrmann said. "A lot of people I looked up to. I enjoyed getting to work with those officials, and everyone does become like a family."

The need for officials

Both Picard and Fuhrmann said there is still a large need for officials. Recruitment of new officials is challenging, and with a labor force that is already short, companies are less forgiving of their referee employees needing to take time off.

"It seems like every year it's getting harder to recruit," Picard said. "We have tried to get officials starting out in high school since they can start doing sub-varsity contests and then also recruiting in colleges. Some of those, however, are with us a few years, and they move on."

Both Fuhrmann and Picard said the pay scale is not high enough to be a financial windfall for anyone and that could be a factor for people already time or cash-strapped.

"We're independent contractors, and who has that availability when you have to play a slate of sub-varsity games followed by varsity games?" Fuhrmann said. "Not many officials can take that much professional time away from their jobs."

Fuhrmann said big changes in the future would be games not on their traditional days, such as football on Friday and basketball on Tuesday and Thursday, but spread out over the week to deal with official shortages.

With baseball becoming a school sport, officials versed in diamond sports will have even more work on their plates, so this could stretch officials even more.

Both Fuhrmann and Picard agreed that overzealous parents and coaches chasing refs off aren't a major factor. They said the overwhelming majority of parents and coaches support refs and realize they wouldn't be able to play without them.

Despite the shortage, both refs take pride in their job and insist that officials work their hardest to provide the best possible product on the court, whether its middle school basketball or a state tournament game. This includes looking at film of games they refereed and continuously training to get better.

Fuhrmann said that anyone interested in becoming an official can go to the MHSA website's officials section at www.mhsa.org/moa.