I worked a 10U districts two weeks ago and I almost gave it up on Saturday night and didn't come back Sunday after the abuse I received. In our 10's our UIC believes in using young umps to get them into the game. Personally, I think 10's are not that bad to ump, the rules are a little screwy, but its the parents and coaches. They are worse at 10U than at 18U, when it actually matters! I am a hometown umpire and was treated just as harshly by the hometown team as I was by the guests. I think at 10U you run into a lot of dad's who played baseball and figure they can coach their daughter's softball team. Example:
I had Coach A in my last game Sat. evening. Didn't like my strike zone or pretty much anything I called. Fine, thats his deal. Had him again on Sun. morning but I was bases. His team batting, pitch comes in, bounces, hits bat that is held *behind* batter. PU calls foul ball...coach goes nuts. Says balls dead, all that good stuff. PU comes out to me, I agree with call...coach just gives us the look that we have no clue.
I'll admit, because I am a 20 yr. old female, most coaches don't give me much respect for my umpiring. But then again, I'm not really good at handling coaches yelling at me... i.e. tossing them. My dad is a former umpire who always tells me to just give them a warning and then toss them, but I don't feel that I have the guts to do that. Plus being 5'4" probably doesn't help with the intimidation factor either.
I wish coaches would also understand and not try and think I'm going to change my call because they're going ballistic. They never said anything I felt was worthy of ejection, they just kept yelling at me because they disagreed with my calls. Basically, I guess, what I'm getting at here throughout this rambling, is that I'm not sure if its worth me working as a blue anymore. Do I need to find some more guts and just toss the coaches for getting on me so hard? Would it help if I worked with a more experienced ump, as opposed to kids younger than me/less experienced? I've been doing this for six years, and that was the worst its ever been.