Breaking into the college level

[Rich]

Originally Posted by offici88

I've been working progressively more and better high school games over the last 13 years. As I look to the next 5 years, I'd like to keep working up in quality. How do you recommend I break into the college ranks?

I'm in western Wisconsin so MN and WI are options with lots of JuCo, NAIA, and D3 schools within a 2 hour drive.

How much is coordinated at a school level? Conference level? Division level?

Is becoming "certified" as simple as registering on arbitersports.com, selecting conferences, and sending in the test?

Is there value to getting registered now in hopes of getting games in 2-3 years?

I know how MN and WI operate on the high school level, but college is totally new to me.


A quick search yielded few helpful results. If this has been addressed in another thread, I apologize. Feel free to redirect me there if you know where "there" is.

Go to the WIAC website and look for the name of the umpire assigner and send him an email. He's a WIAA official, so you can find his contact information there. Last I checked, he assigns the NAC, as well. Of course, even though there's a WIAC school in La Crosse, every other place is a long drive and don't expect the assignments to ever be made based on what makes a trip shorter and easier for an umpire.

I worked those conferences for 5 years before I decided to pack in college baseball here. The drives are terribly long, everyone plays 2 9-inning games, and the pay is terrible for the amount of time and the amount of crap. Neither conference pays travel and in 5 years I had one hotel room paid for. Many of the games are long because the pitching is miserable (if they were better pitchers, they'd be playing college ball somewhere other than at a D3 school in the Hinterlands).

But a lot of umpires apparently like this. Perhaps I would if I didn't also work football and basketball and felt I needed something to go -- and working a HS game 20 minutes away is a better use of my time (and the baseball isn't that much better at the college level here, IMO).