Retaining Younger Umpires

[Dakota]

Originally Posted by IRISHMAFIA

Lack of schooling - You can sit at a table with an newbie and cover rules until hell freezes over, but the mechanics are half the issue.

Too many areas have given up on schools. Every umpire that has returned from a national school in the last 6 years has complained that it was hard for them to learn anything due to the instructor's need to tone it down and cover issues that should have been handled locally.

You have state/metro associations using national schools as their own private school for inexperienced umpires. In the recent ADVANCED ASA Slow Pitch Camp in Cincinatti, there were umpires who have not been to a school and one umpire who was a newbie. AT AN ADVANCED CAMP! Allowing this to happen does no one any favors. The newbie struggles to stay with the rest and the experienced feel held back waiting for the instructors to move beyond Umpiring 101.

How in the name of Merle Butler can an umpire get any valuable training if the school must be dummied down for those who haven't a clue?

Yes, I've gone beyond the scope of the thread, but training is a continuing process that, in spite of the belief of most veteran umpires, should never end.

Our MN ASA association does an excellent job of local training. They offer several (3 or so) day-long schools that cover basic mechanics with on the field instruction (inside a dome, typically) and critique. I've attended several times, and there is usually a very good turnout, but I can't say what the percentage is.

If ASA National schools are being dumbed down, there are a couple of solutions to this. The Advanced school was a good idea, but it will come to naught if entrance into the school is not controlled. ASA (and, presumably, the host association) needs to decide whether they want the advanced school to be full or to be advanced. It probably can't be both; at least not until it builds its reputation as not a beginner's school and the veterans recognize its value. Asking for the umpire's resume to accompany the application to the advanced school would be a start - note: "application" not enrollment.

I don't know if ASA National has the resources to offer a beginner national school or two on the calendar each year, but if they could, they they could also up the resume requirements for the "regular" national school. Perhaps offer the beginner school at the same time and at the same place as the regular school to save costs, etc. It would require larger physical facilities, so the on the field training could be segregated, and it would require more clinicians, but for the beginner school, the local association could provide the bulk of the clinicians.