Your the President

[hckyosgood30]

This came up between me and a few fellow umpires last week during our association meeting. What do you like and dislike about your association? If you were the president what changes or new programs would you start and why? Odviously we would all like lower fees, and more money for games, but past that how would you better your local unit? This thread is for all of us to share our ideas and hopefully take them back to our local associations and make changes for the better.

[UmpTTS43]

This came up between me and a few fellow umpires last week during our association meeting. What do you like and dislike about your association? If you were the president what changes or new programs would you start and why? Odviously we would all like lower fees, and more money for games, but past that how would you better your local unit? This thread is for all of us to share our ideas and hopefully take them back to our local associations and make changes for the better.

Umpire development is critical to any association's longevity. Mentor programs can help with this. Where I live, you have to have 9 varsity high school games to meet the requirements for post season consideration. In our association, I proposed that for every 3 games worked towards this requirement, an umpire must work a sub JV game with a less experienced umpire.

[hckyosgood30]

UmpTT,

I completely agree with you on the mentor and development programs. My unit as well started up one again last year and the members who went thru it learned alot. One of the main problems I think plagues any unit, is how to evaluate the talent of the group, and individuals. Yes word of mouth counts for something but pure surprise evaluations I think are some of the best learning tools you can use. I know that its very difficult for many units, to find qualified evaluators that are willing to give up there time, most likely another game to watch someone else work. This however to me is a key component to developing any unit. Umpires in my unit have several years of experience, however if you've done it wrong for 20 years then does that now make it right? I'm interested to see how some of you would take on the development process.....?

thoughts?

[Majordave]

My old college association has a "senior member" with some physical problems that works as an association evaluator, showing up unannounced (usually) and watching you work then giving you an oral eval after the game (if he stays until the end) especially if he sees glaring problems. Then a day or two later you get a written eval emailed to you and you are required to read, discuss via email if you have questions and a phone call summary session after the written-your dime to call and chase him for a telephonic conference that you understand and what you are doing to fix it.

This method/system works pretty well. Lots of D-1 conference officials and NCAA/NAIA/NJCAA post-season umpires in the association. Rich Fetchiet spoke highly of the association publicly to all the other guys in a CBUA meeting at NCAA meetings in Chicago a couple of years ago.

Believe me, they don't sugarcoat the evaluations you get in person or in writing.

IF you got a negative eval then you WILL get another look by the association evaluator sometime that season.

They pay the guy. I think it is a full game fee for each eval he does, paid from our dues and game "surtax" we pay from each game we work. Don't know if he can get multiple game fees a day or not but he does well. I will tell you that.

They also have certain senior assigned umpires working occasionally with the new/younger guys and they use the same evaluation form and have to e-mail it to the President, the Evaluations Chief and to you within 24 hours of the game. Not everyone you work with does an evaluation on you and until you get one you don' t know that you are being evaluated.

I got an eval from my FIRST college game and didn't know I was being officially evaluated. Fortunately I got a good one. They still ding you on nit-picky stuff like strike calls and strike three calls ( I got several and the all want a different style- don't like the point on swings, want pointing, don't want pointing, like hammer, hammer higher, louder voice, quieter voice, step back farther..... It will drive you nuts when they nitpick style. At least it does me.

My two cents..................

I did get better as a result of his evaluations but it was painful to be so directly criticized.

[yawetag]

They still ding you on nit-picky stuff like strike calls and strike three calls ( I got several and the all want a different style- don't like the point on swings, want pointing, don't want pointing, like hammer, hammer higher, louder voice, quieter voice, step back farther..... It will drive you nuts when they nitpick style. At least it does me.

Unless you're that inconsistent with your strike three call, this is a problem. If the association wants them to critique it, then there needs to be set standards. Not necessarily everyone having the same call, but guidelines you need to fall between. If your call didn't change from one game to the next and one's telling you "You're too quiet" while another is saying "You're too loud," then there's a problem with the system.

Not that I disagree with evaluations; I just want a standard I have to meet.

[Majordave]

Exactly!

[mstaylor]

We have clinics every year to help keep the guys current. Also, many of our guys go to big clinics to help the senior guys to stay current to instruct the newer guys. Remember you are either getting better or worse, you don't stay the same. Our struggle right now is evauluations, we rate each other every game but we don't like the current system. Anybody have a rating system they would like to share I am interested.