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Sean, I am going thru the same experiences in my area (East side of Baltimore County, Md). Our little group of umps (20) provides a service to 5 in-house leagues (1-fast pitch and 4-modified fast pitch) we also serve a large group of 13 Rec councils who play travel and they play (modified fast pitch). For 8 years they have been slow pitch and want to slowly work their way up to fast pitch perhaps a 3 year plan for 11-13, 14-17 ages. ALL of them have coaches and executive boards that change every year. So the education of coaches in ASA rules & interpretation, as well as the creation and enforcement of THEIR league rules all happens in February-April. Once these 6 groups make their final rules & schedules then WE Umps have our meetings, and actually have about 4 meetings to cover the rule book from front to back..mostly for the new Umpires.
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This education back & forth and helping these people with their program is key to its success. I have seen many conversations about various topics on this board. You can see right away that some attitudes displayed on the board come from Umps that do not get involved with league Officials as you & I do. So in a way it is a good experience to see the mind-set of other Umps in the Country who do "School Ball" only, just to get a glimpse of how the other side thinks.
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EPILOGUE: The success of softball lie's in Rec. level play growing. Just keep on helping where ever you see it needed. However their is only so much we can do at the time the game is happening.
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