Your Job Doesn’t End After the Game is Over

Most of the time, the game ends without serious conflict. However, there are some things you should think about immediately after the game.

Unless your specific sport’s responsibilities dictate otherwise, get off the court or field as soon as the game is over. Some sports (like hockey) require officials to watch the teams’ postgame handshake. In most cases, however, the official’s jurisdiction ends soon after the game ends.

When that is the case, there’s no point in hanging around the court or field, even if the game went well in your mind. Remember, competitive athletics is just that – competitive. Sometimes that competition brings out overly charged emotions against officials. If you’re hanging around in the area of players, coaches or fans after a game, you’re inviting trouble. Avoid the conflicts and get to the locker room or an area away from participants as soon as the game is over. Always leave with your partner(s); make sure they are right behind you if you’re in the lead to ensure all officials are safe.

Postgame locker room, parking lot, etc. Once you’ve found your way to the solace of your locker room, you can begin to unwind mentally. Keep in mind however, there will be times when participants (usually coaches) are so unhappy they’ll want to enter your locker room to confront you. Simply put, no one belongs in your locker room other than you, your partner(s) and possibly a game administrator (not the home coach!). Don’t let anyone else in to discuss your officiating or the game. Because of space limitations, many times your locker room is the home coach’s office. When that happens, before the game request to the game administrator that the coach wait to get into his other office after the game until after the officials have left the premises. That’s ideal, but frankly it rarely happens, especially at lower level games. If a coach does enter your locker room because it is a shared space, avoid conversation. Be polite if any response is necessary at all. If the coach enters your locker room and begins an inappropriate discussion about the game or your officiating, ask the coach to leave the locker room until the officials have left. If the problem escalates, contact the governing body (league administrator, assigner or state association, for example) to report the incident. When you leave your locker room and head for the parking lot, be sure to do so with your partner(s) if applicable. In rare cases, upset people will hang around in the parking lot after a game to confront you. That’s why you want your partner(s) around; they will help control the situation and also serve as a witness if necessary. If in cold weather, make sure all of your partners’ cars start properly before leaving the premises.

Reporting conflicts. In the officiating world today, writing reports is becoming commonplace. More times than in years past, officials are required to submit misconduct reports to schools, league offices or larger governing bodies, like a high school state association. Also, some leagues, schools, etc., require officials to submit a game report after every game – even if there was no "misconduct" to report. Why so many reports? Usually, the reports are used as a tool to protect the official, school personnel and any other entity responsible for a contest from the today’s litigious society. Thirty years ago, it was rare for a game incident to end up in court. Today, it’s more commonplace. If you’re involved in a court situation, you’re probably going to be asked to reconstruct the incident – possibly months or years after it happened. That’s a difficult if not impossible task without a written report done just after the incident.

Call first. If you’ve had an unsportsmanlike incident during your game, call the league administrator or assigner first, before sending a written report. Why? Most administrators want to hear about incidents from officials first – before an angry coach calls – so the administrator knows what happened and can deal with that angry coach appropriately. You don’t want your assigner to be surprised by the coach’s phone call when you’ve had time to give the assigner a briefing to the situation.

Pull Up a Chair…

Everyone who’s ever stepped onto a field, court or rink to officiate a game has a story to tell. Here’s a story about facing the prospect of retirement we might all recognize. (Do you have a story to tell? Write it down and e-mail to lastcall@referee.com.)

Extra Innings
By David Stubblebine

I’ve read this magazine for years and one recurring theme I’ve seen pop up every year or two is an article or a survey question on when it’s time to retire. My feelings had always been: "When they stop calling you to work games, it’s probably time to take the hint."

I don’t think I’m what you would call an "old guy" – I’m not even 50 yet. So I never gave those retirement stories much thought. "That doesn’t apply to me," I’d think and move on to the baseball section.

Then something happened: I got older. And it happened all of a sudden, too – that’s the weird part! While I was ignoring all of the Referee articles about when to retire, the doctors confirmed what the coaches had been trying to tell me my entire career – my eyesight was failing. At age 47, my eyes weren’t focusing clearly on objects in flight. Doctors said that failing was simply a function of age and there was nothing to be done about it. An inside pitch at the knees looked the same to me as an inside pitch at mid-shin; a belt-high pitch on the outside corner looked the same as a knee-high pitch well off the plate. Trust me – those pitches don’t look the same to the hitters and they don’t look the same to the coaches. I heard one coach comment from a dugout last year that my strike zone was like an amoeba. I’m still not quite sure what that meant, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t good.

Through the entire offseason, I struggled with what I was going to do. This was one of the most difficult, soul-searching exercises of my life. I loved umpiring; I loved being good at it. But I knew I wasn’t any more. I thought about my flippant remark about retiring: "When they stop calling you. …" I was wrong. If you wait that long, you should have retired years before. I had proudly thought of myself as a "professional umpire of amateur baseball," but that meant giving the players the best officiated game they can get. Anything less and you’d be cheating them. That sealed it in my mind, and I decided I could not return to varsity ball; but neither could I bear the thought of quitting altogether. I really couldn’t bear the thought of going all the way down the ladder either. I sure didn’t want to become one of those umpiring "has beens" you see floating around Little League lots with their wrinkled shirts, pot bellies, hairy ears and old stories. I was in a real pickle.

Then, just before the 2002 season, an idea began to gel. My association has long had a program where umpires were rated by one of the association’s rating umpires. The idea was that an umpire’s rating would help the assigner schedule the right level of umpire for the right level of play. A good notion, but flawed by the fact that nearly all of the raters were the association’s top umpires and they barely saw the work of the newer guys at the lower levels.

So I scheduled a lunch with our lead instructor and I made my pitch. I offered to work a season or two of JV games and rate the JV umpire talent pool for the association. If I had to step away from varsity, maybe I could help find my replacement. Since there was no one rating the JV staff up to that point, he jumped at the idea. He never said it, but I think I let him off the hook too. My worst three games from the previous season were games I worked with him. I have a hunch he may have spent that same off-season trying to figure out how he was going to let me go.

The 2002 season worked out well. I know I am going to have to face the question of full retirement all too soon. I am going to have to re-evaluate my status on a nearly continuous basis until the time I burn my chest protector for good. With a bit of luck, I’ll put off for another year or two what may be the worst curse in all of baseball: Having to watch the game through a screen.

David Stubblebine umpired amateur baseball for more than 30 years. He lives in Rohnert Park, Calif.

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