Getting Younger Umpires

Just curious, does umping games (and getting paid) while in High School or College violate any state UIL or NCAA/other governing bodies rules?

Go44dad posted:

Just curious, does umping games (and getting paid) while in High School or College violate any state UIL or NCAA/other governing bodies rules?

I assume you're asking because of the baseball nexus. No, it does not violate any rules because of that.

If it violates other rules, such as booster contact, max allowable income, etc. then it could, but that's true of any job.

Ran into a friend of my son's (19 year old) umping at a local field this summer.  He is certified...and doing 12U-14U mostly.  He has gotten hooked up with a tourney/league director and basically makes his own schedule.....doing as many or as few games as he wants this summer.  Said he's making more money umping than if he'd have taken a 40-hour/week job.   I watched a game and a half and he did a really, really good job.  

Buckeye 2015 posted:

Ran into a friend of my son's (19 year old) umping at a local field this summer.  He is certified...and doing 12U-14U mostly.  He has gotten hooked up with a tourney/league director and basically makes his own schedule.....doing as many or as few games as he wants this summer.  Said he's making more money umping than if he'd have taken a 40-hour/week job.   I watched a game and a half and he did a really, really good job.  

I started in 1995 getting $20 for LL games. At the time, the minimum wage was $5.15.

I worked some JV games last year with a high school junior who hadn't made his varsity team. He had umpired Little League for a couple years and then went through our association's training program. Took it seriously and did well, considering his youthfulness.

This year I worked a varsity game at his school and he was on the bench wearing a uniform. He made the team as a senior, but wasn't getting playing time.

Even so, he'd rather sit on the bench as a player than get paid to work as an umpire.

That in a nutshell is the difficulty with recruiting young umpires: if they're young and into baseball, they want to play. Who can blame them?

Swampboy posted:

I worked some JV games last year with a high school junior who hadn't made his varsity team. He had umpired Little League for a couple years and then went through our association's training program. Took it seriously and did well, considering his youthfulness.

This year I worked a varsity game at his school and he was on the bench wearing a uniform. He made the team as a senior, but wasn't getting playing time.

Even so, he'd rather sit on the bench as a player than get paid to work as an umpire.

That in a nutshell is the difficulty with recruiting young umpires: if they're young and into baseball, they want to play. Who can blame them?

...and that's the rub--I was exactly the opposite. If I could get on the field instead of just observing, I'd take that, and I got paid, too. The kids that are like I was are the ones that stick around.

Buckeye 2015 posted:

Ran into a friend of my son's (19 year old) umping at a local field this summer.  He is certified...and doing 12U-14U mostly.  He has gotten hooked up with a tourney/league director and basically makes his own schedule.....doing as many or as few games as he wants this summer.  Said he's making more money umping than if he'd have taken a 40-hour/week job.   I watched a game and a half and he did a really, really good job.  

That's basically what we did. At 10u we ran across a pretty good umpire and hired him for the season. Had him at 11 and 12 too. It was great.  He had a known schedule and we didn't get stuck with a bad umpire.  

I read an article that detailed the problems associated with a lack of younger refs and umps coming up the pike for HS games. Basically the low pay, combined with constant verbal abuse, and the potential threat of physical abuse, make it a pretty unattractive job.

Stafford posted:

I read an article that detailed the problems associated with a lack of younger refs and umps coming up the pike for HS games. Basically the low pay, combined with constant verbal abuse, and the potential threat of physical abuse, make it a pretty unattractive job.

My favorite umps are the older retired grandpa types that use to play, they usually tell the catcher exactly what went wrong..."little high", "little outside"....etc.

In this day and age of constant change something is still crossing the generations is awesome!  When I was a kid there were no cell phones, now almost everyone has one.  When my parents were kids barely anyone had a television, now they are in nearly every room of everyone's house.  When my parents parents were in their youth there were honest to goodness ice-boxes, now people won't even buy a fridge unless it dishes out ice and filtered water....BUT...baseball is still baseball.

My kids have been umpiring the "lower levels" for quite a while. It helped them be better ball players and they've made money doing it. Getting into and being "in the rotation" of an association that does HS games can be a "challenge" though. It's not just the "abuse" from parents, it's working your way up through the lesser games and earning your way into those more prestigious games. Too many want the instant gratification of working the "best" level of HS games. Then of course there's those that have been doing those upper games for a long time and don't want/like the challenge from the younger bucks.  It's a delicate balance. Like anything though - how do you know someone is good enough until you give them a chance, but generally those that would be giving them that chance are those that have the power to ensure their own schedule stays as is.

My older son has been umpiring youth games for a couple of years now.

Our league uses teen umpires for 4U through 8U.  (4u really just is there to tell coaches when the "game" should start and end)

At 10U they pair one of the experienced teen umpires who works the bases, and a badged umpire works the plate.

I've gotten a lot of compliments from coaches and umpires that have worked with him, and from the times I have watched it looks like he does a really good job.

Because he wasn't playing school ball this past year, he was available to work pretty much whenever he was needed.  He ended up doing about 40 games in the fall and 70 games this spring.  At $20 or $30 a game it adds up pretty quick.

That's one of the big factors for him in deciding if he is going to go back and play for his school this year. He figures it would end up costing him at least $150 a week if he plays.  That's a pretty decent chunk of change for a high school kid with all of the costs of senior year.

He also was a ref for the park's soccer program, which runs between baseball seasons.  He made $20 a game there, and did something like 90 games. (2 games a night, 4 nights a week and up to 6 games on Saturday)  He's going to be taking the certification class for soccer officials next month, and then he can work travel games at $35 each.  For $35 a game minimum, I'm strongly considering getting certified myself.

While the money is nice, this spring rec season was pretty rough.  For whatever reason, the behavior of coaches and parents has really gotten out of hand in our park lately.  There's a difference between fans complaining to the umpires, and fans following umpires out to the parking lot to keep arguing. (Happened more than once)

For those of you that saw the Good Morning America/ESPN/Deadspin video a couple months ago of coaches fighting on the field... well, my son was the base umpire for that game.  He had just ejected both coaches for shouting profanities at each other before fists started flying.

For the most part he enjoys umpiring, but it's certainly been an adventure recently.

Sadly most Young People can imagine a better way of spending their Weekend than squatting behind home plate in the heat for a few hours and then even get yelled at and insulted by coaches, fans and sometimes even Players.

it takes a lot of time and at most Levels it doesn't even really pay and nobody is thanking you for that Job.

There is a lot of opportunity for younger umpires who want to get serious about it.

In our association, there are lots of guys like me who started umpiring when our kids stopped playing high school ball. Someone in reasonably good physical condition who starts umpiring at 50 can become a pretty good high school and advanced travel umpire, but by the time we get enough varsity games under our belts to think about college, we're already older than the age at which most college umpires step away from umpiring.  Also, people my age often have family and career responsibilities that don't permit us to pay the dues (work any game, any time, anywhere) the college umpires have invariably paid.

So our association is glad to take in people like me, but everyone acknowledges that we'll reach our ceilings pretty quick.

Because our association has contracts from 13U all the way up to D1, they are always looking for umpires who are young enough to become long-term college umpires and committed enough to take the training (they offer scholarships to the advanced training camps) and work enough games.  

Those high school kids making $30 to work Little League games could be working high level games for money that is worth their attention by their mid-twenties if they stick with it and start climbing the ladder early.

Swampboy posted:

There is a lot of opportunity for younger umpires who want to get serious about it.

In our association, there are lots of guys like me who started umpiring when our kids stopped playing high school ball. Someone in reasonably good physical condition who starts umpiring at 50 can become a pretty good high school and advanced travel umpire, but by the time we get enough varsity games under our belts to think about college, we're already older than the age at which most college umpires step away from umpiring.  Also, people my age often have family and career responsibilities that don't permit us to pay the dues (work any game, any time, anywhere) the college umpires have invariably paid.

So our association is glad to take in people like me, but everyone acknowledges that we'll reach our ceilings pretty quick.

Because our association has contracts from 13U all the way up to D1, they are always looking for umpires who are young enough to become long-term college umpires and committed enough to take the training (they offer scholarships to the advanced training camps) and work enough games.  

Those high school kids making $30 to work Little League games could be working high level games for money that is worth their attention by their mid-twenties if they stick with it and start climbing the ladder early.

This is precisely how I did it.

The thing is that this has to be a labor of love. While we may be able to bring in kids to umpires with the incentive of money, the amount of effort and time involved off of the field to hone the craft means that someone has to truly love umpiring to create self-improvement to advance. There's no way of knowing who is going to be that person at age 15--which means that if we can bring in a larger pool, the more likely it is that we have at least a few who fall in love with the profession.