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Reply to "Why do youth and high school game officials quit? 75%, adult behavior"

I don't know how much credence to assign the survey.

When our association loses members, the most common reasons given seem to be age/infirmity, work/family schedule conflicts, or unhappiness with level/quality of games assigned. 

My hunch is that parent behavior may be more of a factor in decisions by less experienced umpires not to pursue umpiring as a long-term avocation. Umpiring probably isn't fun for people who don't learn to tune out irrelevant noise. 

In my own experience, I haven't seen a trend in parent behavior over time. Each year, it seems that zero, one or two games have something ugly happen. Very seldom in a high school varsity game. More often in local tournaments late on a hot day. 

Umpires have some power to influence the tone. Being professional, approachable, and courteous has a good effect on the conduct of game participants and fans. 

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