- Jan 22, 2011
- 1,635
- 113
I attended the California State Athletic Director’s Association conference this spring. It was said a couple times that if the trend of declining number of officials continues, in two or three years half the high school contests across all sports will have to be scrimmages or glorified recess. A lot of officials didn’t come back after Covid. There is a shortage of officials for rec games, even though number of girls playing softball in my county is down 30 pct from Pre-Covid. What happens if half those players come back?I know this wouldn't help the whole not enough umps thing, but when guys pull this crap they should simply not get paid. You get paid for doing a job. This, imo, is not bothering to do the job. If you work a softball game and don't know one of the most basic rules of softball pitching, you either get your stuff together immediately or you just volunteered to work that game.
But if we did that, they'd moan and cry and people would say we lost another good ump when in reality we lost another terrible ump who's ruining the game.
I often wonder if the game would be healthier if everybody collectively played half the games we actually play, but umps like this never set foot on a field ever again.
Softball umpiring has a high cost of entry because of the cost of equipment. I told an assigner this spring to only give me games if no one else was available. I did 14 High School games. I’m in my mid 50’s and only 3 times was my partner younger than me.
Who is responsible for recruiting and training umpires? Leagues, AD’s, NFHS, CIF, Alphabet sanctions?
Two weeks ago 4 nights I was asked to do games by 2 different orgs, 1 night 3 different orgs.
One rec league hasn’t paid me yet for two games I did for them mid March. Another promised me my money would be in my PayPal within 48 hours of me doing a game. I haven’t been paid for 4 games I did between May 12th and 18th. They claim they paid me for a game I did for them in early April when they haven’t, even after I sent them a screenshot of my PayPal account.
I could make about the same per hour working a couple hours a week at Ace Hardware or Sports Basement.
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