How about an opinion:

[David B]

Originally Posted by jicecone

I am amazed that officials believe that a coaches input is necessary in his deveopment. I have been involved many years in the training of officials for both Ice Hockey and Baseball and find it degrading to think that I, my trainers or association need input from a coach in order to develope an official.

Setting up a training program for your officials in personal appearance, physical conditioning, mechanics, judgement, rule knowledge, interpretation and application, communication with players and coaches, alternate officiating systems, community relations and involvement, needs good experienced officials that are willing to pass along this information. Not Coaches.

Reinforcing this training with constructive evaluations and mid year training, then rewarding with advancement is just about all the ingredients necessary to develope an official.

Most good coaches I have met expect only that we hustle in position, know the rules, be respectful, and give them the best job we can. If they have to tell us how to do our job, then we shouldn't be there and I agree.

I never had the oppurtunity to attend a professional umpires school but, I just can't believe that the staff has many, if any coaches on it. JMO

Precisely what I've been thinking reading this thread. We've never used coaches opinions in our training or evaluations and its worked very well.

Now our state office came along and started this evaluation for each game per the Arbiter system and it was a mess because a coach could easily rate you down and you had no way of responding. And usually you could tell who lost the game based on the evaluations given by the coaches.

But at a local level, training doesn't require coaches input.

I did like Bob's idea that if you include coaches, have a very specific list of questions and very few general ones. The only thing I've been able to glean from coaches input through the years is how an umpire might respond under pressure, when the coach is coming down on them hard during a heated contest. Some very good umpires simply cannot handle the pressure of a "big game'.

Thanks
David