High School Umpires

You know, with all of the talk about CC, we are all overlooking the major problem with Varsity High School Softball; that's the umpires or lack there of. We have by far the worst officials in the state. Most come to the game with much less than a working knowledge of the sport and the rules we play by. The one's who have some knowledge, have an ego larger than the sport itself. And what's up with allowing umpire's to come to the games and spend more time laughing and joking with the players, coaches and fans outside of the fence, instead of doing the job they are there for. And they are getting pretty good money to be there. The only training these people get, is to sit in a room about once a week, read a couple of rules, then have a scrimmage game or two, and presto, you have a High School Softball Umpire. WOW!!! They have no clue of where to be, how to move to get there, and dare we say, know what the strike zone is. This is not recreation softball, these guys impact games to the point of deciding the outcome. We need to demand that these people receive PROPER training, from legitimate instructors and not just accepting status quo. Our daughters deserve qualified people to officiate their games, this will and does effect their future in the sport.

 

More Umps Need Travel Ball Experience

I know some do call travel ball games, but for the most part I see few that are on the HS and travel ball fields.

It has almost become a neccessity for girls who even want to make a good high school team play travel ball. One would expect the various umpiring associations and booking agents would require travel ball experience on an ongoing basis for their people.

Cheeze is right, as coaches, we are evaluated by our parents and/or school administrators all the time. The umpire associations probably does some evaluating, but due to the lack of umpires, the booking agents are sometimes happy just have a person that knows how to operate a counter! I know this to be true as I spent 13 years as a baseball ump (everything from LL to college) and I have worked games with some of these guys who are just there to get the game over as quickly as possible. So the coaches need a formal way of providing positive and negative feedback.

Many times it's not the missing of a call that get these guys in trouble, it's the lack of field mechanics and knowledge of the rules. I can't count how many times I have seen a bad call by an ump (for and against) that was due to the umpire running to the base to make the call. One of the first things they used to teach in umpire school is you need to be stationary to make a good call. Sometimes that means you will be farther away from the play, BUT if you have the correct angle you will almost always make the correct call. (Saw this happen several times in a game last night.)

Most of these men and women do a pretty good job. However it is the ones who don't take what they do seriously or get defensive when they can tell a coach has more knowledge than they do that cause so much grief for everyone.

I have always said the best umpire or official is the one that after the game, no one could remember what he or she looked like.

Just my thoughts, for what they're worth.

 

I agree that the umpiring does suck, not only here but all over. I have thought about getting back into umpiring since my dd is a senior. Just don't know if it is worth hearing all the aggrevating parents that think they know what is going on. I think that each parent should be made to umpire a few games to see what it is like. There are just too many lazy umps out there that are only in it for the $$$.

 

Ironically, I was thinking the other day how I thought the umpiring has been sub-par in high school this year.

First of all, I would never do it, and it is a hard and thankless job. I see a lot of really good basketball refs, so I wonder why not the same for softball?

Are there enough people out there who want to do it? Is the pay enough? I say more training and experience, but that probably requires more pay. The game times may be a problem for people who work, but there's not a lot you can do about that when it's cold, and there's few fields with lights. JMO.

 

Umpiring

I'm sorry. I have been a collegiate official for 30 years and I don't buy in to the fact that they are scraping the barrel trying to find umpires. The problem is, that the booking agents (i.e. Bill Freeman in Charlotte) and others, are only worried about one thing, and that is the money that they make off of the schools. I supply umpires to about 35 Division I colleges and about 25 lower level divisions and all it would take is a dedication training the officials that you have and really concerning yourself with what is important. Honestly, it doesn't take any more effort to train these men and women better, it just takes the will to do so. I have even offered my services and the services of my collegiate clinicians to train these people to Carolyn Shannonhouse in Chapel Hill, but until Bill Freeman, who is in charge of the Metrolina Athletic officials Association, decides that he needs to train his officials, which by the way, will never happen, because that would constitute an effort on his part, things will never change. Maybe when he decides to give it up, is when we will see a change.

 

I think we ran into the illegal sub rule last year in the NSA World. Unfortunately...runs didn't count. Wish we could have had that ump then, huh?