The level of coaches & umpires

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radness

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Dec 13, 2019
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In another thread read these comments and thought this is possibly a good topic.
@EdLovrich , @PJR202 Good conversationđź‘Ť

The level of coaches to the skill level their coaching and the level of umpiring to the games they umpire.

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Topic question~
Do you think at a certain point there should be an upper level skill of a coach? (whether that's at the beginning ages or to upper talent level?)
And at a certain point
Do you think the Umpire should have better skills to officiate upper levels of talent in games.
*Primarily speaking to officiating travel ball.
Interesting concept~
"the level being umpired has little to do with the skill of the umpire" but should it?
 
Last edited:
Jan 10, 2022
43
8
Long Island NY
i think this is a hard thing to say because "skill" is subjective. Different organizations are also so different in coach hiring philosophy from being parent volunteers to paid coaches. yet many volunterr parents can getjust as good results as paid coaches do. so i am not sure if i think this is possible without first setting up objective metric driven criteria to judge skill. This is not professional sports. i would say we should be happy that we still have umpires and coaches willing to give their time and be thankful for that.
 
Jun 8, 2016
16,118
113
At a certain age detail things like DP turns/feeds, etc become important. Some coaches are willing to grow with their players if they don’t know these things initially and some coaches are not..Yes position specific lessons/outside (of team time) work are important but the coaches need to know these things as well.
 
Mar 10, 2020
734
63
In both cases not a good thing to be in over their head. Will either have a coach and umpire who is at the beginning of their learning curve or further along. No training teaches as well as experience.
This is where the beginning of learning curve gets questioned because lack of experience is more noticeable.
 
Feb 13, 2021
880
93
MI
When I made my comment, it was meant as a contrast to what some think....that the lower levels of ball get the lower level of umpire EXCLUSIVELY. It doesn't always work that way. For umpires in an association or who work with an assigner, the organization tries to pair younger/less experienced umpires with more seasoned/more talented umpires at lower level games, games that are within or just a smidge above the capability of the less experienced umpire. It is how you grow and develop. Also, some umpires will schedule themselves and will take lower level ball than they are capable of working, sometimes to fill in an open date, sometimes to be able to work on a specific part of their game, sometimes, just to give back to the game-Little League typically is volunteer time for the umpires for several reasons relating to the LL organization itself.

That being said, I am a firm believer in an umpire not working a game that involves skill of the players above what they are comfortable working UNLESS they have a more experienced partner. The game just goes too fast at times to not be ahead of the play and players.
 
Jan 22, 2011
1,610
113
When I was president of a rec league, we had one 8u team whose parents were a little over the top. The third game they got an adult umpire they realized only their 8u games were getting adult umpires (our most experienced umpires), and the other teams were getting 14-year-old umpires, they started to calm down some.

I haven't looked at what Canada does for coach training in 5 or 6 years, and I am impressed at their latest program:

In my opinion, no sanction should let a coach who has not at least taken a principles of coaching class and passed a test should be allowed to coach in their tournaments.

CIF requires high school coaches to take a few online classes:
 
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Apr 14, 2022
564
63
Most coaches an umpires do a good job.
Many coaches even at the college level try to win games and over coach. While stealing bases, aggressive base running, and sacrifices are an important part of the game; not giving away outs is the key to winning. Particularly in front of the best hitters. Coaches also have trouble judging talent. I find men tend to judge by physical appearance. Softball/baseball is about hand eye coordination and strength. David Eckstein or Shawn Dunston in a travel ball tryout? Arm Accuracy is an athletic skill. How many would change Wade Boggs swing?
The issue I see with umpires is calling balls and strikes. Many come from baseball and will not call the high strike but give one below the knees. The strike zone is any part of the ball over the plate knees to armpit, yet you hardly see a center of ball belly button strike, much less armpit. Most call the Pro mlb zone minus ball width. The ball is 4” wide batters box is only 6” from the plate, so a ball completely inside the lines is a strike more often than not. Most call center of the ball or entire ball over plate. Calling the entire ball in the zone vs touching the zone eliminates 45% of the strike zone. I just do not think training is done on how big the zone really is.
 
Jun 8, 2016
16,118
113
Softball/baseball is about hand eye coordination and strength. David Eckstein or Shawn Dunston in a travel ball tryout? Arm Accuracy is an athletic skill. How many would change Wade Boggs swing?
Dunston wasn’t known for his arm accuracy..Softball/baseball is about skill and athletic ability (which includes strength)..hand-eye coordination falls into both of those categories (it can be developed but eyesight, which is part of it, is something which you are born with)
 
Apr 20, 2018
4,581
113
SoCal
When I was president of a rec league, we had one 8u team whose parents were a little over the top. The third game they got an adult umpire they realized only their 8u games were getting adult umpires (our most experienced umpires), and the other teams were getting 14-year-old umpires, they started to calm down some.

I haven't looked at what Canada does for coach training in 5 or 6 years, and I am impressed at their latest program:

In my opinion, no sanction should let a coach who has not at least taken a principle of coaching class and passed a test should be allowed to coach in their tournaments.

CIF requires high school coaches to take a few online classes:

Many coaches that are required to take such classes, go to the bar after and pour a few back and laugh about how stupid the classes were. Ego is real.
In my estimation, over 50 percent of coaches are idiots. They already know it all so there is no reason to take a class or read a book. These kind of coaches are often the berating screaming coach obvious type. "You need to throw strikes!" Thanks coach, I didn't know that. Or, this line (which I believe must be taught by the orgs head because I have heard it so many times when we play a team from that org. After taking a called strike, "If you don't want to swing at strikes, I got 12 player on the bench that do." Thanks coach, you are so inspirational.
 

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