Role of the League UIC

This was written as a letter from an outgoing UIC to an incoming one. Some of the information is specific to the league, but it might be useful to other UICs.

Welcome to the Umpire in Chief position. Here’s a little information on how to effectively recruit, manage, and maintain a volunteer umpire corps.

Scheduling

A game schedule should be provided by the division commissioners a week or two prior to the season. Use this game schedule to schedule umpires. Ideally, there will be two umpires at the Junior division, two in Majors, one in National, and one in American. But without more umpires, what you realistically have is one for majors, sometimes two in Juniors, sometimes no umpire in National, and an umpire only about 20% of the time in American.

My scheduling priority has been in this order…
1. Junior Plate
2. Major Plate
3. National Plate
4. Junior Base
5. American Plate
6. Major Base

Some umpires aren’t qualified or willing to work all levels, so sometimes you might have a National umpire but no Major umpire.

The league used an online scheduling system called The Arbiter (http://thearbiter.net) for the past two years. The Arbiter is somewhat complicated to understand sometimes, but it’s good for managing the schedules. Umpires will be automatically emailed when you’ve given them a new assignment, they can accept of decline assignments, and they get email reminders of games. The cost is $6/year for each umpire. You can add each commissioner and coach into the system as contacts so they can log in and see if they have a scheduled umpire. There’s no cost to add contacts.

Adding the games is somewhat simple if you use the import function. You can download a spreadsheet, copy the game information into it, and upload it to the Arbiter to add all the games at once.

To open an Arbiter account email sales@thearbiter.net. Accounts are tied to the email address of the primary assigner. It’s possible that if you give them the name of the group and the email address of the assigner, they’ll move the existing account over for you. But if not, it’s no big deal. Only the umpire email addresses and field locations would need to be re-entered into a new account.

Equipment

The league owns a few sets of umpire equipment, and most umpires that work games for us have their own. I intended to replace and upgrade some equipment in 2006, but budget shortfalls prevented that. The equipment we have is stored in canvas bags in the shed. Ask the equipment manager about them. Our equipment is suitable for Majors and below.

T-Ball, Coast, and American

I implemented a parent volunteer system for umpires at the lower levels. The idea is to get parents umpiring games at the t-ball and coast levels and filling in in american. The idea is to get the kids used to having an umpire around while at the same time maybe getting parents interested in umping. We provided hats and shirts to all teams for this purpose. Shirts were blue polo shirts with “RCLL Umpire” on them. Hats were black adjustable caps with an embroidered “RCLL Umpire.” These were purchased from the same company as the player uniforms. Cost was about $16 per uniform.

Only a few parents and teams took to this. I think the system should be continued for a few years to get the parents used to the idea. As time goes on, adoption should increase.

Training

Dan Blower or I (Adam Kalsey) can assist with running a mini clinic for new or returning umpires. The local high school umpire association also provides an intensive multi-day clinic in February. Although aimed at high school umpires, Little League umpires will learn a lot about how to umpire at these clinics.

There is also a rules clinic each year in February or March that provides rules training to coaches and umpires.

Even experienced umpires should attend at least one clinic a year.

Communication

Communicate with your umpires during the off-season. One or two emails a month telling them about rules changes, upcoming clinics, or articles you’ve found online will go a long way toward retaining volunteer umpires.

Snack Bar

Make sure all your umpires know that they can get bottled water for free from the snack bar. And that after the game, they can pick up a hot dog, chips, and a coke, courtesy of the league. This is the only pay we provide our umps, so they should take advantage of it.

Winter ball

Umpires need to be provided during winter ball’s Sunday games. This is more of a challenge since umpires are often not available on Sundays.

New Umpires

When you get a new umpire, there’s some things to remind them of. Here’s a checklist:
* Free water
* Hot dog and soda after the game
* Must send an ejection report within 24 hours of the ejection
* Local League rules

It doesn’t hurt to remind returning umpires of these things either.

Protest Committee

You are the head of the protest committee. If a game is protested, you must gather the other members of the committee (usually the player agent and division commissioner) and resolve the protest. The only time a protest should be upheld is if an umpire mis-applied a rule. Judgement calls cannot be protested.

The protest committee also reviews all ejections. You need to call a meeting of the protest committee within 72 hours of the ejection. The ejected coach or player should be at the meeting. If the ejection was a player, their manager should come as well. The purpose of the ejection review is to determine what additional penalties beyond an automatic one game suspension should be handed out.

Umpire List

Maintain a list of all the volunteer umpires who work for our league. Pass this on to future UICs so we can continue to have a strong program for years to come. Make sure you get a volunteer application from each umpire every year.

Post-Season and Certification

Many of our umpires look forward to working TOC and All-Star games after the season’s over. They look at this as a reward for all the hard work they put in during the season.

To work a tournament game, an umpire must be certified by District 5. Certification consists of having the District UIC or his representative come evaluate an umpire for suitability. The D5 UIC has lots of leagues to check up on, so make sure to get him out to watch your guys early. Start sending him umpire schedules in late April so he has plenty of time to come watch.

Once the post-season comes around, call the UIC and work with him to get your umpires scheduled for games. He probably will not call you looking for umpires, so be proactive about it.