Congrats to Coach JM
 

Despite his humble beginnings CoachJM has made great strides in leaving his past behind and well on his way to becoming a very good umpire.

Coach took Rookie of the Year honors at the Fox Valley Blues annual banquet and honors ceremony last week.
FVB is thee premier IL association and undoubtedly one of the top in the country so taking ROTY honors is quite an achievement.

CONGRATS JM

FROM A RAT TO A KING:D

John, congratulations on this honor!!!

Ha!
 

I sure am glad he saw me work before he "learned it all!"

Congratulations . . . hopefully you are a coach no more.

Regards,

Congratulations, there Coach! (I'll still call you coach) :D

Congratulations JM. (I cannot, and will not, bring myself to refer to you as a...ahem, gasp, choke...coach.)

Congrats, Ump!

Congrats UmpJM!

Congratulations.

Once you've joined the "third team", there's no going back!! :)

It's as if you guys think there is something wrong with being a coach.

Congratulations JM!

Way to go, John! I'll see you in a few weeks, I'm sure, and the first, second, and third rounds will be on me in celebration of your acheivement.


Tim.

Once you go 'blue', that's the end of the coach in you.

Gentlemen,

Thanks for all the kind words.

I was both quite surprised and quite pleased when the award was announced.

From everything I can tell, Fox Valley Blues is truly an outstanding umpire association, and I feel privileged to be a member - and truly honored to be recognized. Even though they knew I was a (former) coach, they made me feel welcome and an awful lot of the members went out of their way to help me learn to become a better umpire. Great group of umpires and a great group of guys.

Becoming an umpire this season has been both a lot of fun and very challenging for me. I realize I've still got a ways to go to become the umpire I'd like to be, but it's nice to get some reinforcement that I've made a good start.

Regardless of how good an umpire I am today (or not), I believe that I'm certainly a better umpire than I would be had I not learned so much from those who contibute their knowledge and experience on this (and other) forum(s). So, thanks to all of you.

BTW, the "ultimate" annual recognition awarded by FVB is the "Big Dawg" award. This year's recipient was none other than Bob Jenkins.

Congratulations, Bob!

JM

Congrats JM!