Why ref? Understanding sport officials' motivations to begin, continue, and quit their avocations

Abstract

Developmental trajectories and pathways for athletes and coaches have been frequently examined, whereas sport officials are often overlooked. With attrition rates of up to 30% (Deacon, 2001), sport organizations need to better understand officials' career pathways; what motivates someone to become an official and to stay at it rather than quit? We studied sport officials' (N = 514) motivations to begin, continue, and quit their craft, categorizing participants as interactors (high number of cues and high interaction with athletes; e.g., soccer referees), monitors (high number of cues and low interaction with athletes; e.g., gymnastics judges), and reactors (e.g., low number of cues and low interaction with athletes; e.g., tennis line judges) (MacMahon & Plessner, 2007). Multiple t-tests and ANOVAs showed that, generally, interactors cited intrinsic reasons, such as enjoyment and passion, to begin officiating, whereas monitors and reactors were more motivated by a sense of being of service or giving back to their sport. For continuing officiating, all officials were most motivated by intrinsic motivations including personal growth and meeting challenges. All officials cited lack of respect, too much stress, and lack of recognition, respectively, as their main beliefs as to why officials would quit the sport. In the discussion, we highlight patterns including the rise of extrinsic reasons to continue refereeing, complimented by the reduction in 'for the sport' reasons.

Acknowledgments: The authors would like to thank Denis Auger at Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières for granting us access to this data