Umpires

We had an ump that was really bad a few years ago, and after the second game called for us the AD called the booking agent and requested that the ump no longer call our home or away games. that seemed to work as we never had the ump again. I think the vast majority of umps are in it for the love of the game. just like coaches and (hopefully) players. They have bad days make mistakes and foul up just like the rest of us. But for the most part they do a pretty good job, one that I would never do.
Playing devils advocate for a bit here. WHat quality ump would want to take the abuse that comes from some coaches and most spectators after almost every call? At best the good ones can only please half of the crowd, you can spot the really bad ones when the have both sides mad at them on the same call. :imagestor

 

I have had years of experience from both sides of the fence, 15 years as an umpire (some college ball) and 12 years as a coach.

Most umpires try to bring ther best every day as do most coaches and players. But as noted earlier we all have a bad day and we will make mistakes. However the problem comes when the umpire or coach for some reason begin to think THEY are the reason the game is being played, rather than for the players. Some umpires get into trouble because they can't wait to show or tell someone how much they know about the game. Some umpires get into trouble because they get lazy and are never in proper position to make a call. Some are just loud and obnoxsious. One of the worst things an umpire can do is to be running as he makes a call on the bases. You see that way too much. Also many umps will make their call too quickly and not let the play finish. That to will get them into trouble. One thing an umpire should NEVER do is to have a conversation with someone in the stands who has been yelling at him, unless to give that person a warning or eject them.

Umpiring is not easy, if it were more people would be doing it. Every year new umpires are learning the ropes of the games. Things such as being in the proper position, rotating, and communication with the other umpire take time to learn and mistakes will be made. Hopefully there is not such an umpire shotage in your area where the booking agent must put an inexperienced ump in a high school game. But that does happen.

Another part to this is how some coaches treat the umpires. For the most part, coaches give the umpires their respect and vice versa, but sometimes there can be a personality conflict or a open wound from a game with that coach and ump from years ago the coach or ump will not let go of. If that's the case, then both the coach and ump need to grow up. It's still a game. 98% of coaches and umpires conduct themselves professionally and love the game. However it is that 2% that make life hard on the rest of us.

As for evaluating an umpire afer a game, I'm not so sure after the game is the best time to do that. However ALL umpires and coaches need to be evaluated at some point. (most everyone else is evaluated in some way on their job or in school!)

I've always said, and it has been said on TBR many times before, the best umpires are the ones that after the game, you can't remember what they looked like.

 

That's a good question...when IS the best time to evaluate an umpire? After the season for sure, but umpires need evaluating more frequently than once after the season. In HS and college basketball, the officials are evaluated periodically by the senior officials in the association, and most of the time the officials being evaluated don't know anyone is watching them. I wonder if this type of evaluation is occurring in HS softball? When I umpired around Charlotte years ago, we were evaluated that way.

As for the coaches evaluating the umpires, I really don't know what would be fair to both sides so that the emotions of a game would not be involved. I don't know, maybe an evaluation form could be mailed on a weekly basis to the coaches by the head of the association and the coaches could complete the forms and return them. I also feel those results should be shared with the NCHSAA. Maybe the NCHSAA board members should make it out to a high school softball. Maybe they do now, I don't know.

 

I umpired for 13 years. Our local association had supervisors that would go out and evaluate umpires. However, we policed ourselves. We had a marvelous group. We were brutely honest with each other. If I had a bad day, I wanted my partner to tell me so and we would discuss how to defuse that. Many times I would talk with a partner and if they told me I had a good game (when I knew I could have done better), I would call their bluff. Really made our group much stronger. I haven't called in years so I have no clue what they do now.

I wish more umpires would do what we did though.