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Originally Posted by CajunNewBlue
dang.. i thought he had nothing but disdain for the NCAA and the people who officiate their games  ...if i was wrong.. my bad  |
There are good NCAA umps and there are bad ones. NCAA out here, Pac 10, etc - does a real good job at training their umpires and has really improved that past few years. Because my employment does not permit me to work NCAA, when I work with a good NCAA official I always like to get their input and pick their brains for how NCAA is teaching it. I usually find myself in agreement with the reasoning behind NCAA's methods.
A perfect example is going out in 3 man.. for simplicity, ASA sends you out on a can of corn; they dont trust their umpires to to think so the general rule is "go out on everything" and in fact that is enforced on national evals. NCAA teaches nuance and the thinking umpire on a play like that - they dont go out on everything. Plate stances and other things are all more examples.
Irishmike represents the stubborn "we can't change" old guard and ASA will improve as that old guard fades away and gets replaced with young blood and fresh ideas and a willingness to look to other places for ways to improve. There are many who wont even look at NCAA to see what they are doing. They still believe ASA trained these NCAA umpires, so there is nothing to learn from them. Mention a NCAA method at NUS (I did)... thats good for a laugh or two.
ASA is the foundation of fast pitch umpiring - NCAA built upon it significantly. Many, for their own insecurities, refuse to see how its being done elsewhere and how those ideas might improve our own umpiring.
Their excuse when they admit flaw: well we gotta train ___{insertnumberhere} umpires wah wah, and many are stupid, so we can't teach that.
Now comes the DVD... and they could if they wanted too, go deeper into the systems.
edit ..
oh wait, let me add
wouldnt want to forget that.