[AtlUmpSteve]

In my opinion, the NCAA Umpire Development staff and conference coordinators are WAY more anal about exact positioning, despite telling us we are to be "thinking" umpires. Regardless, there is a secondary direction regarding deviation, beyond the "if you deviate, you must communicate". It is that you should/may not agree to deviate from standard mechanics as a norm; there must be a specific play or case that causes an appropriate deviation.

Finally, while I know that California believes it is the center of the softball universe, and that ASA is the only ruleset, neither is true. There are other accepted mechanics sets that correlate with some of these rulesets; NCAA and NFHS come to mind as having defined mechanics. None that I am aware of have either adopted or even reasonably considered the "wades modified C only for R1@3B" so far as anyone seems to be aware.

Reasonable for conversation purposes, and that you have evoked. I would hope no one else is seriously considering implementing (or worse, teaching) it. It's bad enough that we have members of the ASA staff teaching variations they happen to like, despite the clear direction of the Director to teach exactly what is in the manual (or to work to change the manual first, if a mechanic should be changed!!).