From the Editor: KJ Cardinal
If you love New Hampshire high school basketball, you better have your schedule cleared on Tuesday and Friday nights or you might miss it.
With roughly 1550 regular-season varsity games on the 2024-25 NHIAA slate, around 1220 of them (79 percent) are played on Tuesdays or Fridays. Tuesdays feature 34 percent of the action and over 45 percent are on Fridays.
It’s rather mind-boggling that with 174 NHIAA varsity teams competing around the state, there are only about 320 total games scheduled all season long on the other days of the week. Those numbers average out to less than two games for each team this season that are not on Tuesdays or Fridays.
Why does any of this matter, you may be asking? Good question.
This compacted schedule is drastically impacting officiating around the state.
By putting the majority of the games on the same nights of the week, the shrinking pool of game officials is getting spread too thin. The 1220 games referenced on Tuesdays and Fridays are only counting the varsity games. In most instances there are also junior varsity, freshman or reserve games being played prior to these varsity games.
With a limited pool of officials, these referees are often asked to officiate back-to-back games and as it works out, the higher level and faster paced game being played is nearly always the last game on the night. Fresh officiating legs aren’t consistently available on the most physically demanding contest each night and at times it does a disservice to the game.
“It is an on-going problem. We know that. You’re seeing the same officials do at least two games on the same night,” said long-time official Bob Hodsdon. “We even have people doing three… a freshman, a JV and then a varsity. That’s really asking a lot. By the time you get to the varsity game, how much do you really have left?”
Hodsdon recalls 20 years ago when officials were tasked with doing “one game a night and doing it at 100 percent.” With the shortage of officials and the compacted schedule, this simply isn’t possible right now.
“You’re looking at why do we have these officials doing two games and they shouldn’t be doing two games and lo and behold they are,” said Sean Moynihan, the Chair of the NHIAA Basketball Committee and Principal at Sunapee High School.
At the Division IV level, some schools do not have junior varsity teams, so varsity doubleheaders are the norm. This means officials are often pulling double-duty for premier varsity match-ups. The first game played on the evening is typically the girls, followed by the boys.
The officials shortage is publicly recognized by the NHIAA as they have a public address announcement made prior to many postseason games with a call to action to get new officials. This recruiting effort could serve as a long-term solution, but a simpler and more immediate remedy may be achieved by looking at the schedules.
“We had this same problem with volleyball and I know the schools were asked to try to schedule on off nights and some of them did and that helped,” said Hodsdon.
Speaking of the NHIAA postseason, the compacted schedule will play a big role on officiating come tournament time as well. This season, the Division III boys preliminary round will take place on February 18 and that is already an extremely busy Tuesday night that features 43 D-I and D-II regular-season games combined.
Furthermore, the D-III boys quarterfinals are on a Friday (Feb. 21) with 37 regular-season games on the docket and then the D-III girls semifinals and D-IV girls prelims are on a Tuesday (Feb. 25) with 40 regular-season tilts scheduled.
“The Division III season was shortened a couple of seasons ago and that exacerbated the issue. When that went forward, I remember the basketball committee was not in favor of that because we already knew we had officiating issues,” said Moynihan. “Those Division III games are up against a lot of things, but Division III made that choice.”
Officials will only be asked to work one game on these playoff nights so their legs will be fresh, but the pool is still being limited by the bunched up schedule. It’s probably safe to say that schedule compaction will play a role when it matters most in some of these playoff games.
By divvying up a portion of the schedule to Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, more officials will be available on any given night and playoff games will not be impacted by this issue.
“There has been a real push for new/younger officials,” said Dave Haley, founder of NHSportsPage. “Suppose you cut down on Tuesday and Friday games and add more Wednesday/Thursday games. In that case, you’re allowing more schedule flexibility and an opportunity for officials who may not be available on those nights because of college or prep commitments to work your game.”
Haley’s point is also a good one as NHIAA officials aren’t exclusive to the NHIAA and many of the top officials in the state often take the higher paying and higher profile college and prep school jobs that are available.
So who can make this schedule adjustment a reality?
The answer lies with the NHIAA and the athletic directors.
Currently, the athletic directors are responsible for making the schedules for their schools. The NHIAA could step in to implement some scheduling rules to ensure each school is doing their part to help the issue and it wouldn’t be that hard to do.
For instance, the NHIAA could require each school to play a total of six games throughout the regular season NOT on Tuesdays and Fridays. These six games would be more than triple than what is currently being scheduled as teams are averaging less than two games this season on days other than Tuesday and Friday. A flexible requirement like this would still give ADs the freedom to make a schedule that works for their student-athletes, coaches and communities.
“It would seem an easy thing to have the NHIAA tell the athletic directors and schools, can we try to play six games on other days,” added Hodsdon. “It would take cooperation by everybody to do that, but it would definitely help the officiating situation.”
“I don’t think it would be a big ask for the basketball committee or the NHIAA to ask teams to move games to say a Monday. Would it be some more work? Yes, but I don’t think there would be any heavy lifting,” said Jay Darrah, Pittsfield Athletic Director and boys varsity basketball head coach.
Another possible solution, suggested by our Mike Whaley, would be for each division to take one week a month and put their games on Wednesdays and Saturdays. For instance, the first week of January could feature D-I, the second week D-II, etc.
“This is an example and not the answer, and there’s plenty of room for tweaking,” said Whaley. “But it is certainly a way to avoid the current scheduling rigidity.”
Regardless of the solution, the issue needs to be addressed.
A scheduling adjustment would do more than just fix the officiating shortage issue.
A byproduct of adjusting the schedule for officiating purposes could be more media coverage for the hardworking student-athletes and coaches around the state.
With a 60-plus game slate on most Tuesdays and Fridays, it’s nearly impossible for any outlet to give attention to the most important games whether statewide or on a regional level. There’s simply too many games compacted into a small window of time.
“Having the game schedules stacked into two days each week certainly impacts our coverage,” said Dan Attorri, Sports Editor at The Concord Monitor. “We’re making tough choices each week and we know there are good games we aren’t getting to. I’m sure there is a reason for it, but especially with an officials shortage, I’d have thought that it would behoove the NHIAA to have games spread out over more days.”
“We would love to cover as many games as possible but we are limited due to scheduling,” said Jonathan Marshall, WMUR-TV Sports Anchor. “A more spread out schedule would give us more opportunity to showcase teams we normally wouldn’t get the chance to.”
Haley agrees as well, “I have always liked the idea of putting your marquee game, whether Nashua North/Nashua South or Epping/Newmarket, on a Thursday night so you have more statewide exposure and the best officials.“
While this additional media coverage would be a nice added bonus to these potential solutions, the real issue here remains and that’s a shortage of officials is impacting the game.
“It is a problem and hopefully we can find an answer for it,” said Hodsdon. “But, I really think this will take cooperation from everyone, starting with the NHIAA. If it comes from them, the schools will listen.”
Speaking on behalf of the NHIAA Basketball Committeee, Moynihan added, “A lot of what we are is advisory. I feel very comfortable that we’re not going to mandate it. The reason I say that is because there’s very little that we mandate. There’s sometimes recommendations. I think you’re on the right track. Where we would go, potentially, is suggestions on doing that [having six games played not on Tuesdays and Fridays].”
Darrah may have put it best when he said that adjusting the schedule would be “for the betterment of basketball.” We couldn’t agree more and for the sake of the game that we all love, we’re hoping the NHIAA and member Athletic Directors can find a solution.
Let us hear your thoughts. Email Ball 603 founder and editor KJ Cardinal at kj@ball603.com.