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Originally Posted by AtlUmpSteve
It is the attitude of most of the Div I coaches, and several of those from D II and lower. It is the attitude of most of the conference officials, and coordinators, who appear mostly worried about answering the coaches' concerns, never really adressing deplorable behavior by the coaches. Yes, it is our's to handle when it crosses the line, but we are rarely backed on anything but outrageous behavior.
In my personal opinion, far too many (in fact, damn near all) NCAA umpires attempt to ignore the consistent stream of disagreements with ball/strike judgments, fair/foul decisions, safe/out decisions. No one will tell a coach that sitting there disagreeing verbally with every call is unsportsmanlike, or that coming out to argue purely judgment calls that they KNOW from 80 feet away at a bad angle that we missed, that is "horrible", and on, and on.
No one will enforce the NCAA rules that have been newly added to require batters and pitchers to get it going; and, absolutely NO ONE has the balls to refuse to grant "time" to a batter who simply requests it to control the pitcher, despite the direction from the highest levels to NOT GRANT TIME. Rarely will any umpire refuse to award a base to a batter who is hit by a pitch while making no effort to avoid; I know some who will award first base to a batter who has obviously and clearly leaned into a pitch. Because they are afraid the coaches will blacklist them, most simply want to survive their games, and hope the adage of the umpire who isn't noticed will carry them to the promised land.
And now it is sliding down to high school, the speed up rules and don't grant time rulings. Georgia is a fall high school softball state, I have called almost 60 games this year, watched (evaluated) almost 60 more, and have never seen even one umpire other than me refuse to grant a batter time. Not even in my own association, even working with me.
Hell, yeah, we are subservient. More in NCAA than anywhere else, but overall, the umpires have no balls.
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