There used to be a common cheer that went “I’m blind, I’m deaf, I want to be a ref.”

It was funny enough the first hundred times I heard it, but the joke was not meant to single out the target’s abilities. Rather it was a general disrespect for game officials. With treatment like that, who would want to be a referee or umpire?

Would you? The hours are long and the pay is pretty much nonexistent. The abuse is constant — it comes from the sidelines and sometimes can follow you home.

There are redeeming aspects, like the feeling that comes with getting off the couch and giving back to the community. It might even be appreciated a little bit, especially on the sidelines where coaches understand your plight way more than they make it seem because you are both in the same boat helping the kids while putting up with their parents.

Before the pandemic shut everything down, parents were easily the greatest threat to high school sports.

Not most parents. Not some parents. Certainly not you, dear reader. You have always let the coaches coach, players play and officials officiate, as the OIA used to remind us.

But you have seen THAT parent. The one trying to spoil an evening under the lights by haranguing everyone in earshot because they are the best coach and official in the building. You probably heard them when you pulled into the parking lot, because not only are they great drivers, they would be just as great parking attendants.

All sarcasm aside, it is hard to remember what pre-pandemic prep sports was like, but it was in a serious crisis.

There have been a lot of changes made in the name of safety that had nothing to do with safety this year, but the lack of officials was undeniable and threatened the ability to allow our kids to play full seasons, which sounds funny since sports were shut down in Hawaii anyway.

But it was coming. The pool of officials was seriously that drained and still is.

In the HHSAA’s last event before the pandemic reduced it to sitting and waiting for the signal to get back to the serious business of holding state tournaments, a wrestler was hauled off to jail after he and his parents caused a ruckus that put the entire tournament on hold.

This unfortunate incident wasn’t an anomaly, it was just the next step toward an epidemic of bad sportsmanship by a few and happened while two Senate bills were being discussed. One of them, Senate Bill 2549, made assault on a sports official a class C felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

That one hasn’t passed, but another bill that prohibits individuals who are convicted of assault or threatening a sports official from attending another event for the next year was signed into law a year ago. Hawaii was the 22nd state to jump aboard with that one.

Groups have been pursuing such legislation since at least 2005, when two incidents ran on local newscasts about players assaulting sports officials, but it has been an issue forever and is certainly not limited to high schools.

Leagues are begging to refill the pool of officials and prospects can begin their journey at sportshigh.com/resources/officials or HighSchoolOfficials.com.

There is no telling what a high school football game will look like if the OIA finally opens its season next month, but it really can’t be much worse in terms of abuse than where we left off. It must have been heaven for veteran referees who worked the Punahou-Kamehameha contest at Aloha Stadium earlier this month, they just do their part to give back to the community and don’t have to listen to the boo birds until they get to the parking lot after the game.

Unleashing pent-up parents into the stands of a high school football stadium after last year’s depression can go two ways. Fans can keep it subdued like it is the end of prohibition or go crazy like a United States Marine returning home from eight months in a dry country. The players have waited so long for this, we certainly don’t want to see the latter.

Here’s hoping that when fans do get to come back and watch kids have some fun on their high school campuses, the first huge applause is directed at the officials, who are only trying to give back to their communities.