Quote:
Originally Posted by IRISHMAFIA
Me, naive? Yeah, right. Wake up, the coffee's brewing.
ASA, NFHS, NCAA and I'm sure a few others absolutely provide the information and instruction.
If an umpire does not get it, you cannot blame the organization. The information is there in a very timely and multimedia fashion.
I can only think of three reasons why someone would be put on the field without proper instruction:
The local association is too lazy to provide the appropriate training;
The local association needs umpires and people join too late for the clinics; or
The person just doesn't want to be bothered learning the right way to do things, just give them a schedule and tell them how to collect their money.
While they cannot be everything to everyone, the associations with which I have been involved always made their best effort to provide the appropriate training. If anything, our training is poached, but that's another issue.
Again, some people (they certainly are not umpires) don't want to learn or think they know better than the years of development and adjustment.
The sad part is when the training is not available or the person thinks they can skate by asking everyone else how it is done. This is why I get skeptical when someone comes on this or any other site with a litany of very routine questions.
I don't mind helping people. If I did, I certainly would do what I do. However, a web site is no place to learn how to umpire or the basic rules and applications. God help the umpire who tells an evaluator or UIC, "but that is the way they told me to do it on officiating.com".  |
Welcome to the real world, sir.
That's life. Sometimes umpires fall through the cracks and don't get top notch training. The good news is that, in the majority of these cases (as in mine), these umpires are doing low level recreation co-ed games. Not that I will call them meaningless, but not properly understanding the IP mechanic in this case is really not the end of the world as you so dramatically make it out to be.
Were I to move up, say, to upper level men's league softball or even fast pitch girls softball, of course I would get the proper training through my association.
But the reality is, when you're new like me, you start out doing low-level games where the players are there just to have a good time, and so am I for the most part. I care about the job I do, and my assignor is not always readily available to answer my questions when I think of them. So I come to places like this, only to encounter pretentious blowhards like yourself hellbent on protecting the integrity of the game via an internet message board.
So, I'm not bothered by the flippancy I get when I ask a simple question and get a "oh that's softball 101" answer. Some people have the heart of a teacher, some do not. I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm not trying to skate by. I read some of the ASA manual every day. Some days I get it. Some days I feel like I'm getting dumber with every page I read. I write down scenarios from games I work and talk them over with my assignor. I ask some questions here. Some of them are stupid questions, but I've never been afraid to ask stupid questions and encounter people who love to tell you how stupid your question is. That's just life.