[cmckenna]

As President of a local Little League program I see the difficulties on a regular basis when it comes to umpires. Not the quality mind you but the issues around getting and maintaining good people.

First, most Little League programs especially ones in small towns like ours, do not have a large reserve of cash to afford paying for umpiring services. As it is we show a loss every year due to the rising costs of insurance, equiptment and field maintenance. And before you suggest raising our registration fees or doing additional fundraising, we already do. And we need to keep our registration fees reasonable so that no one miises the opportunity to play because of money.

Second, we do not seem to have a stream of people beating down our doors to assist in any area never mind umpiring. And due to what appears to be a serious decline in sportsmanship across all youth sports these days it becomes difficult to retain good volunteers becuase who want's to get blasted by every mother, father, sister, brother, grand-parent and so on who thinks that their little Susie or Johnny is God's gift to baseball. And when we do get good people on board, you don't have them for long because Little League is transient in nature. When one's children move on, the volunteers who are mostly parents, move on as well.

Based on these issues we have to take whoever we can get to get the games covered so that these kids can enjoy their games. We also try to do our best to get these individulas trained to the best of our ability through clinics and such so that there is a degree of knowledge on the field.

Perhaps each of you "veterans" of higher level ball should look within yourselves and ask, what can I do for my local organizations to assist. But since you all seem to want to get paid for everything you do, I am not going to hold my breath. I am not saying that you need to go and umpire any games, but how about offering to give some instructional clinics to help these volunteers.

When one is not involved it is very easy to criticize. Get involved with your local Little League board and see what we as administrators go through.

As far as people thinking they are the best at something... Well I have sure seen my fair share of "professionals" who give off that impression as well.