Quote:
Originally Posted by HugoTafurst
Idiot was not the first word that came to my mind....
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Sadly, there are a lot of umpires/officials in my area that should not be working any level, let alone high school softball.
The problem is Michigan's PATHETIC training of umpires.
Here are the requirements to become an official in Michigan:
1) Send in Registration form and money to the MHSAA.
2) The MHSAA will send you a test covering the MHSAA policies and procedures, which is open book and must be passed at 80%.
3) If you do football or basketball you will also be sent a sport specific test for those sports which is also open book and must be passed at 80%.
If you are not registered for football or basketball, you are never tested on rules knowledge by the MHSAA for a particular sport.
4) You are sent your officials ID numbers, rulebooks and patches.
You are now an official.
The MHSAA does encourage officials to join an approved association, and some assignors will not assign umpires that are not members of an approved organization. With that said, even Member In Good Standing (MIGS) is a bit of a joke in some associations. The association I am in has had 3 meetings so far. We have 4 total for the season. We are required to attend half of them to be considered for MIGS. The softball association meetings have had 6, 5, and people in attendance so far this year. There are a lot of umpires who will sit at these meetings (other associations have more membership), and not even pay attention, but they meet the criteria to be assigned by the assignors.
We do have some umpires that are very good, but we also have some that make me look like I should be working the state finals, and I know I am far from that.
Basically, officials training in Michigan is left up to the umpire/official and only them, with little help from the MHSAA.