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Old Thu Jul 01, 2004, 07:56pm
WindyCityBlue WindyCityBlue is offline
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Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 554
Question

I will begin this discussion as genial and confrontation-free as possible. That said, it is a hot button issue here. Are multi sport officials better than single sport?

Since 1998, I have worked baseball exclusively. I've tried football, softball and hockey - all sports I played competitively. I liked them all but love baseball. Even though I live outside of Chicago, I travel a lot and work games ten months of the year (not a whole lot of BB in Sept. and Oct.) I focus on working the best ball available and work hard at gleaning the best habits of my partners. I attend and teach training clinics across the country and see a lot of guys that work several sports. They claim that they are better officials because of what they bring from each discipline. I can truly understand and admire the dedication it takes to work several competitive sports.

Yet, I focus all year long on one sport - striving for a level of perfection that alludes all of us. This micro-focusing allows me to understand the nuances of the game and appreciate a lot of things that slip by the casual official. So here it is...would you rather be outstanding at one specific sport or good at several? We are not talking about the well-rounded official here. I want to know if you think it makes a difference to work several sports.
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