Retirement...when it's time?

[Ed Hickland]

Originally Posted by JimB

I wanted to get some thoughts on a retirement issue. First, let me set the stage:

Crew has been together in some form since mid 1990s. The umpire, who turns 60 early next year, is the least active and physically vulnerable official on the crew...of course he's in the middle.

...

Thanks in advance for your comments.

First of all there is no exact age when one slows down [of course, I'm already 60 and so is my umpire] it is sort of gradual.

I let a previous umpire go and he was 72 but age was not the matter, it became obvious on the video he was not moving, great guy.

At the high school level there are not opportunities for officials who still want to be involved as they can be a wealth of knowledge. Schools do not want to pay for supervisors or any other function that does not put feet on the field, even then, we had an uphill battle to add a fifth official.