(NewsNation Now) — With more examples of parents and coaches abusing youth sports referees, one veteran of the industry says many people have come up with a way to fight back.

They’re quitting.

“From a percentage standpoint, we are losing refs at the highest rate we have ever lost referees in any sport at any level,” Brian Barlow said on NewsNation’s “The Donlon Report” on Friday. “Once you get down below the professional level, refs are just sick of it.”

Barlow would know. When he’s not reffing games, he’s maintaining a Facebook account dedicated to highlighting the abuse officials are taking.

“Offside” has more than 61,000 followers and hundreds of videos of parents verbally and physically abusing referees.

Barlow has a name for the people who star in his videos: cheeseburgers.

“They’re normally the people that spend more time in the line of the concession stand trying to figure out if they’re going to have a hot dog or cheeseburger or Coke. They go to the field, they sit in the shade in their little comfortable chairs with their little blankets, and then they decide they want to be an official.”

He says the name he’s calling them in his head is not fit for a family-oriented cable news network.

A study commissioned by the National Association of Sports Officials found 13% of the 17,000 current or former referees who responded had been assaulted physically during or after a game, and more than half said sportsmanship in general is getting worse.

It also found 46% of the officials surveyed had feared for their safety because of behavior by a player, coach, fan or school administrator.

A Washington Post story found referees in the Washington, D.C., area make around $50 per game, and it’s no longer enough to convince people to don the zebra uniforms. Football games this fall were spread out across more days of the week to cover for a shortage of officials.

“If it wasn’t for referees, it would just simply be recess, you would be going to watch your kids play recess,” Barlow says.

Still, he insists no referee wants to become the spotlight of any game they work. He just hopes parents can find it within themselves to respect the boundaries that make youth sports work.

“It’s ridiculous the way adults are acting at youth sporting events and it’s got to stop.”