How about an opinion:

[yawetag]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

I would not give that responsibilities to all officials, why would I give this to a group of people that know less by occupation? I guess to each is his own and if you want to put the future or training in the hands of coaches that is your prerogative, but I would find that to be pointless. I guess different places have different "standards."

If you'd read my original post on this matter, you would see how much stock I put into evaluations by coaches. However, the fact of the matter is that there are always two coaches at every game your umpires officiate. If those two evaluations are similar in a category (i.e., both coaches give high marks [or low marks]), it's a fair bet that you've got a good idea how that umpire is for that category. On the other hand, if you've got one giving high marks and the other giving low marks, you can throw the evals out -- they're obviously biased.

Originally Posted by JRutledge

You need two different people to evaluate two different umpires? Really? If one guy can do that with 5 guys on a field, I think one person can do that in a sport like baseball where no one moves until the ball is contacted or a play is made.

Two different people? I'm confused. If you're referring to my "2 evals on each official in a year." comment, you misread it. I was saying that if an organization relied on umpires to go to a game to evaluate the umpires, an umpire would be lucky to have two of their games evaluated in a year.

Peace[/QUOTE]