Quote:
Originally Posted by Dakota
Careful, wade. Here in MN, the state association for ASA has been losing ground for several years against a cacophony and shifting landscape of organizations.
The reasons behind this have nothing to do with the rules or with umpire training, but the effect is if you want to umpire fastpitch, you need to umpire the sanctioning organization that has the teams where you are. I'm an ASA-trained umpire, but I find that I actually umpire fewer and fewer true ASA games every year. NSA isn't here (yet), but plenty of others from U-trip to NAFA (for girls, not men). AFA made a brief appearance, but appears to have flamed out locally.
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Unfortunately, we have a very similar fight going on here; with a fairly new and obscure alphabet org .. these things stemming from fees and money and TDs and nothing to do with the umpiring or organizations. Plus the premier thing is obviously going on in CA. That org is using the ASA umpires and that drama is heating up and should be a good inferno by next year I would think.
Actually why in my post I specified NSA only umps.. of which it is obvious NSA provides little to no training (or at least quality training) for their officials, a fact that glares when they walk on the field.
I find it to be a real issue of consideration that these orgs do little to train or advance their umps and instead leach off of ASA umpire...
but there are worthwhile arguments to the contrary .. not the least of which are the "ind contractor" issue, lack of ASA games as ASA is seeming to decline in many areas (with some help/support of ASA trained umpires IMO), and the fact many pay for their trianing.
Loyalty is also dying or non existent for most.. I admit inner turmoil as to how to proceed in the current climate. IMO, ASA does bear some responsibility. I am hopeful it is not ignored or denied, but recognized and accepted and actions taken to help us again grow. We know ASA is the finest.. but if its not happening, what good is that other than a platitude?
The alphabet soup org taking hold in our area is so small and completely irrelevent as to be laughable, even NSA has more credibility.. but teams dont care, they just want to play and they are under pricing ASA orgs then simply using ASA umpires.
Its quite disturbing IMO.