Lessons Learned About Rats

[JRutledge]

Don,

Once again I cannot say it any other way. I do not answer to any coach ever. No coach hired me to work a specific game or work in a particular conference. When I work college games the supervisors I work for expect certain things and when you follow those expectations they continue to hire you. Baseball does not have a lot of umpires to work anytime and anywhere, so if a coach gets upset with an umpire, the supervisor might not have a lot of realistic choices to replace that umpire. Not everyone is available to work a 2:00 game in the afternoon if the coach gets thrown out by a certain umpire.

Don, I have attended multiple college camps for basketball and I did not see one coach evaluating me or deciding who they were going to hire to any of these conferences at the D1, D2, D3 and NAIA level.

Now a supervisor might have a different point of view, but I am not a supervisor. I am only an umpire who knows that I will not be liked or loved every time I step onto a field. I also know there are places I will never go back to because of this fact. I also know that I will be around longer than many of the coaches I see. A coach at the D2 level that I worked multiple times is resigned (and adamantly disagreed with my about a rule application and the supervisor supported me and my partner btw) so I am not going to worry about some guy that in 2 or 3 years might get fired or released from his job.

Also you are overplaying my opinion about coaches. I might not trust or even respect many coaches. That does not mean I will behave unprofessionally and not treat them with a lot of respect. I just know I will not rely on them to have my back or to necessarily be fair when the time presents itself. Also how many times do you know someone has a run in with a customer only to see them a couple of days later? I know that even for our HS playoffs, if a coach has been a jerk to us; it is very possible we will see them in the post season. So I am not getting how this is a business owner/customer relationship. And you can follow the money all you like and coaches also have hire ups they have to answer to as well.

Peace