The Clinton County High School boys’ and girls’ varsity soccer teams have been playing for almost a month in its inaugural seasons and for the most part the seasons for both teams have been very productive by providing extra curricular activities for more than 30 students.

In one area, the sport has had a few minor set backs. Both teams have had to cancel games due to the fact the Kentucky High School Athletic Association has failed to assign referees to Clinton County’s games.

Three games have been cancelled so far this season and according to Superintendant Micky McFall, assigning referees is the responsibility of the KHSAA.

“Any KHSAA event, they take the responsibility of training and assigning officials for those matches,” McFall said. “We, of course, are responsible for paying them, but we don’t have any input in terms of who can come and officiate games and matches.”

Newly hired Athletic Director Mike Beard has been working for the past month trying to resolve the situation. Beard, along with McFall, has been in contact with officials at KHSAA regarding the lack of referees.

“I’ve had a conversation or two with the person in charge of officiating at KHSAA and she had indicated that a big part of the problem is the lack of officials available, so we’ve been trying to work with the 12th Region and the 4th Region and there have been some nights we just haven’t been able to get anyone,” McFall said. “This is a new thing as far as I’m concerned. This has never happened before, but it appears most of the officials are in the Bowling Green/Glasgow area and they have been previously assigned to soccer games in that area.”

McFall said there has been a struggle with KHSAA in order to get officials re-assigned to Clinton County’s games. Beard said another problem was the fact that Clinton County’s schedule wasn’t completed as early as other schools in the region due to the fact the program is so new.

“Basically the officials are assigned games for the whole season before the season begins,” Beard said. “They already had that finished before we even had a schedule.”

According to Beard, the KHSAA recommends three officials for every game, however, most of Clinton County’s games, (the ones that have been played) have only had one or two officials. He said some of the teams in the fourth region have played their games with three officials.

“My question is why didn’t they send one of those officials who was calling a game with three officials to our games that were cancelled?” Beard said. “If they pulled one from them then they could have one or two themselves.”

“The KHSAA told us that if we get our schedule in by this spring then it shouldn’t be a problem,” Beard said.

Another reason Beard mentioned was the fact that referees get paid the same amount of money if they are calling a game in Clinton County or calling a game in Bowling Green. The only expense officials are out are travel time and gas.

“I’m sure nobody is volunteering,” Beard said. “On the traveling thing, we moved all of our games to six o’clock because they said that would help, but it didn’t help for those three games.”

McFall said he has also been in contact with officials at KHSAA and they have assured him they are working on the problem.

“They tell us they are doing everything they can to get officials down here and that’s one of the reasons, it’s not a good reason, but it’s the reason we are getting. They are aware of the problem and they are working to try to improve it,” McFall said. “We are just not getting a whole lot of results right now.”

McFall said they don’t get much notice that the game has to be cancelled.

“Word has come right up until game day,” McFall said. “I talked to Coach Beard this morning (Monday), while I was at the high school and he told me that we have a home match tomorrow with Monticello and as of now, there has not been an official assigned to that game.”

According to McFall, each team has to play a minimum number of games in order to be considered for post-season play. As of right now, Clinton County has met that quota and will be eligible for post-season play.

Beard said next season Clinton County can schedule a maximum of 21 games, but since this season got started late, most other teams already had a full schedule.

“We need soccer officials in our area,” Beard said. “I think all they have to do is pass a test and become a soccer official. That would help the cause for everybody if we had some officials. We’ve had as many officials come from the 12th Region as we’ve had from the 4th Region … which is our association.”

Despite the setbacks this season, McFall said he thinks soccer provides a great activity for many students within his school district.

Clinton County started putting together a varsity soccer program in the spring of 2010 and has in recent months hired Greg Cummings as the head coach for both the girls’ and boys’ teams.

“I think it’s off to a really good start. Coach (Greg) Cummings has worked at really building it and getting kids involved,” McFall said. “It’s a game where a lot of us in the area are really not familiar with, but we’ve had the elementary school leagues, with the 21st Century, to kind of build interest and I think that’s helped. I think he has taken it a step further with the high school soccer and there is a great deal to it that the average fan in this area just doesn’t know about. I think as time goes on he (Cummings) is going to build more interest because as people learn the game more, they are going to enjoy watching it more.”

Being in a small school district, athletes in numbers are a very small group. McFall said once it first came to the school district about starting a soccer team, his concerns would be the sport would take athletes away from other sports, but according to McFall, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

“I was concerned it would take away from other sports in terms of participation … We don’t feel like it’s hurt any of the other sports at all,” McFall said. “In the small district that we have, we are getting pretty saturated with the number of sports that we are offering. Right now I don’t think any of them are suffering from the other sports we have going on. We are getting a lot of the kids involved in extra curricular activities and that’s what it’s all about.”

As of right now, both soccer teams play at the middle school and no admission is charged for the game. However, McFall said it would help if an admission was charged in order to pay for the officials, and maybe pay for uniforms when they are needed.

“It would help out a little,” McFall said. “I think it’s $60 for a varsity game and $45 for a junior varsity game, so it’s a couple hundred dollars for two officials for two games, so we have to recoup those funds somehow. If we could just get our gate and concessions to cover the referees and put a little bit back to maybe help buy uniforms occasionally, then the district will cover the electric for the lights, coaches salaries and transportation.”