GOOD

Youth Sports Are Suffering A Referee Shortage, And It’s Not Likely To Improve Soon

Low pay combined with abuse from parents are turning off a generation of refs in youth sports.

 Penn Collins
06.29.17

Youth sports programs are facing a shortage of officials due to low pay and increasing frustration because of mounting abuse from parents.

The pay for public school matches hovers around $100 per match, including pre- and post-game involvement as well as travel. Certification can be difficult and expensive. Youth sports officials also cite the abuse and constant confrontations from parents as a reason for their dwindling numbers. As a generation of “career refs” continue to get older and retire, their younger replacements are not turning up in sufficient numbers.

The good news: A drastic increase in the number of kids playing organized sports, from 4 million to 8 million per year, has created a larger demand for officials. Attracting enough officials to meet this demand will require increased pay and improved working conditions.

The situation is unlikely to improve though, as schools continue to face budget cuts that affect sports programs. One suggested solution — transfering the cost increase to the families of the players — would likely alienate low-income families, causing a drop in sports participation, which would hurt the kids even more.

“From our perspective, it’s a pretty serious problem,” Bob Gardner, executive director of the National Federation of High School Associations, explained recently. “It’s kind of reached a zenith.”

Sports

Greta Thunberg responds to Steven Mnuchin mocking her at the World Economic Forum

via International Monetary Fund / Flickr and Streetsblog Denver / Flickr

Seventeen-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg made a dramatic speech Tuesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

In her address, she called for a public and private sector divestment from fossil fuel companies

"Immediately end all fossil fuel subsidies and immediately and completely divest from fossil fuels. We don't want these things done by 2050, or 2030 or even 2021 — we want this done now," she said.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin mocked the teenager on Thursday during a press briefing in Davos.

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The Planet

A study found running marathons might reverse some signs of aging

upload.wikimedia.org

Even though marathon running is on the decline, half a million people signed up to participate in the 2020 London Marathon. It seems wild that someone would voluntarily sign up to run 26.2 miles, but those half a million people might actually be on to something. A new study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found that running a marathon can help reverse signs of aging.

Researchers at Barts and University College London looked at 138 first-time marathon runners between the ages of 21 and 69. "We wanted to look at novice athletes. We didn't include people who said they ran for more than two hours a week," Dr. Charlotte Manisty, the study's senior author and cardiologist at University College London, said per CNN.

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Tori, the Target manager who was Tweet-shamed by an irate cheapskate, just got a $30,000 vacation

A satisfying conclusion to an infuriating story.

via David Leavitt / Twitter and RealTargetTori / Twitter

Last Friday, GOOD reported on an infuriating incident that went down at a Massachusetts Target.

A Target manager who's come to be known as "Target Tori," was harassed by Twitter troll David Leavitt for not selling him an $89 Oral-B Pro 5000 toothbrush for a penny.

He describes himself as a "multimedia journalist who has worked for CBS, AXS, Yahoo, and others."

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target tori cheapskates david leavitt tweet-shaming cnn msnbc fox news target target tori gofundme
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