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[Manny A]

Originally Posted by SRW

Diving deeper with this - WHY and HOW did you get to be on "beer drinking terms" with them?

I think there's a difference between being friends with a coach, and being friendly with a coach. As Steve pointed out earlier, NCAA wants the latter, not the former. I personally believe that mindset should trickle down to NFHS, and even ASA to a point.

I may be wrong, but I think there's a reasonable expectation that, at the NCAA level, coaches and umpires are pretty separated in terms of interactions away from the field. It's probably rare that a college umpire and a college coach will have any kind of relationship outside of softball.

The same is not necessarily true at the high school and local ASA level. A few of the umpires in my association are high school coaches, and I've seen them at social events involving our association, in the stands at games I've attended as an umpire evaluator or casual spectator, and even at Target or Costco.

I also know a couple of coaches from when my son played high school baseball. Heck, one of his head coaches is now the assistant coach for the high school's softball team. He was also one of my Little League volunteer umpires when I was the District UIC. We've known each other for many years.

So I think the NCAA has the luxury of having a lot more separation between umpires and coaches that is not necessarily present at the more local level with high school and ASA. If the same policy existed, then our umpires who also coach high school teams wouldn't be able to participate in association functions.