Professionalism

[FUBLUE]

Originally posted by DownTownTonyBrown
I've been tagged with making a 15 minute presentation to our officials (baseball and softball, rookie to 25 year veterans) concerning PROFESSIONALISM.

I have a few ideas about:
personal appearance
promptness
rules knowledge
proper mechanics/positioning/hustle
communication/hand signals/voice
mutual respect
calm confidence, accept the emotional environment in which the game is played - expect excited responses
leadership
interaction with fans/crowd

I'm sure that will all fit in 15 minutes.

Give me some of your ideas of what you might talk about had you been tagged.



Thanks, Tony

I WAS tagged last year to give this same discussion. I basically talked about all the things you mentioned: looking the part, being to a game early, knowing the rules and mechanics, discussing the game with your partner. I also included examples of what make an umpire professional or not.

Professional: clean uniforms and gear, shiny shoes, confidence but not arrogance, calling the game without BEING the game, thinking the game, moving with runners, getting good position, calls coaches "coach" or "sir" or "Ma'am"---basically, doing everything we all do daily.

Unprofessional: shows up 5 minutes before game time, uniform is wrinkled/sloppy, dirty shoes, makes up rules, tries to dominate the game, yells at coaches, doesn't do pregame with partner, doesn't think the game, doesn't move during game, etc.

These were easy for me to come up with...I just looked at how several umpires in our association work...stand flatfoot an all plays, don't move with runners, horrible angles, signals are bad, make up rules to get out of games, concentrate on going home more than the game, etc.

Really, it sounds like you have a good list. The hardest part is getting it down to 15 minutes.