Last season, three of the five Kenai Peninsula football programs won state titles. All five programs have head coaches that have been on the job three years or more, and all the head coaches report healthy numbers in their programs.
But in November, the health of football on the peninsula was thrown into question by one email.
“What happened was we got an email in November — the school district and the (athletic directors) — that the Anchorage officials association said we will not renew the contract to cover your games for the following year,” Eric Pomerleau said.
“And then it kind of settled in. We thought, ‘They just ended football on the peninsula next year, unless we get our own officials association, because we can’t have a game without officials.’”
Pomerleau thinks peninsula coaches would have figured out how to have a season. He said coaches probably would have recruited parents to take the officiating test and head out on the field with little training.
“That’s not really safe, or the best thing for the sport,” Pomerleau said.
Pomerleau, Will Chervenek and Sarge Truesdell jumped into action, becoming the three board members on the renewed Kenai Peninsula Football Officials Association.
Pomerleau, the president of the association, said the group ceased to exist a few years ago due to the retirement of refs like Randy Sparks and John Kennedy.
That meant all the games the last few years were covered by officials from Anchorage. SoHi head coach Galen Brantley Jr. said his bill for officiating has been $6,000 to $7,000 a season.
He said a few thousand dollars of that cost came from the extra expense of bringing officials from Anchorage and paying for their meals and housing.
Pomerleau, Chervenek and Truesdell all have a ton of contacts in the area.
Pomerleau teaches at Soldotna. He was head football coach at now-closed Skyview High School for five years and a SoHi football assistant for eight years.
Truesdell was head coach when the Stars won their first state football title in 2006. After that, he went into administration before retiring as SoHi’s principal after the 2023-24 school year.
Chervenek is an assistant principal at Kenai Central, has coached high school baseball in the past, and also has refereeing experience.
Pomerleau said Chervenek is the treasurer, while Truesdell is director of training. Pomerleau said he is making sure everybody gets certified and doing all of the scheduling. He said Brian Hosken, the associate director at the Alaska School Activities Association, has been extremely helpful in getting the peninsula referees started.
Pomerleau said the three board members began recruiting in April. Currently, there are 13 officials.
“We have officials from Homer in our association, as well as officials from Seward,” he said. “This is not SoHi and Kenai taking care of everything.
“We’ve got officials from all the different communities, but we could really use a couple more.”
Pomerleau said there is a nationwide need for officials.
“Anchorage didn’t bail because they didn’t want to drive down to Soldotna anymore,” Pomerleau said. “They were so short they couldn’t cover Anchorage and send teams down here.”
Pomerleau said football is not the only sport with an officials shortage. He said all sports on the peninsula could use more officials.
According to Pomerleau, a shortage of officials costs programs money and limits when athletic directors can schedule games. The worst-case scenario is canceling games.
Even with his long history in football, Pomerleau thought refereeing would be tough. As he trained, he realized he was not responsible for all 22 players on the field, but four or five instead.
“I did not think I was going to enjoy it very much, but through the training and the practices and going and doing the jamboree and stuff like that, I actually really enjoy it,” he said.
Pomerleau said the more officials that get involved, the better. He said schedules can be managed so parents are not officiating games involving their own kids, or missing their kids games.
Starting this weekend, the new officials will be doing three varsity games on the peninsula. While Pomerleau knows coaches are appreciative, he also knows that’s no excuse for poor performance.
“I’m not going to hold them to a standard that they’re just going to accept everything that we do,” he said. “They’ve been very appreciative and understand the burden the association has taken off of them.”
Pomerleau said he’s looking at doing a course, or maybe even a high school class, aimed at training referees. He said the referees could work at Boys and Girls Club games or Pop Warner before going off to college. Then in college, they’d have a way to earn extra money.
“If we don’t start training, or if we don’t start getting kids into this referee stuff in their 20s, then all we have is retirees jumping in, and sooner or later, they’re done too,” Pomerleau said.
Pomerleau said he is still looking for more football officials. He also said anybody interested in any sport can contact him, and he will make the appropriate connections.
“The three of us are only doing it for the kids,” he said. “This was going to be bad for the kids. We want to make sure the kids are safe.
“We want to do a good job for everybody, and that’s the only reason we got into this. We would love for more people in the community to jump in and join us.”
Pomerleau can be contacted at pomerleau_eric@hotmail.com or 907-252-3650.
