At a press conference held after the 37th annual Federal Arbitrary Referee Commission on Ethics and Sportsmanship (FARCES), the USRowing Director of Referee Enforcement, Bartholomew Uppercrust, announced a mandatory draft of new referee recruits that will begin in 2015. The draft proposal, which was unanimously voted into place by FARCES, will require all USRowing member institutions to contribute 10% of their membership to the draft.
"We are nearing the point where won't be able to fully staff races," Mr. Uppercrust admitted. Indeed, the statistics look grim. It is projected that USRowing is not only short of having enough referees to staff races already, but in addition, roughly 20% of current referees nationally are over the age of 65. The draft is coming at a crucial moment for USRowing as the sport continues to expand in popularity and the current base of referees is unable to meet demand.
The FARCES committee penned an open letter to the rowing community in the hopes of defraying the melee. "We were hesitant to instate a draft and this is coming as a last resort. We had looked into cloning existing referees to increase our ranks but cloning is damn expensive. We have already depleted our entire cloning budget on the top secret Winklevoss/James Initiative", the letter revealed.
Member institutions will be receiving draft materials in the mail early next month. Recruits will need to undergo training and testing, just like all referees before being allowed to officiate. They will also be held to the same minimum race commitment as existing referees which is 4 regatta days per year.
It is rumored that harsh penalties including mandatory race waking and failure to hear protests will be levied against teams who are listed as non-compliant with the draft. "If you dodge the draft, I've got something else you'll be needing to doge on race day!", shouted Willy Skegbender, a long time Schuylkill launch driver, as he passed an angry mob of coxswains outside the conference.
Prospective draftees interested in becoming a referee in advance of the draft deadline can visit usrowing.org/referees, Tweet @usrowingrefs or email [email protected] to learn more.
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