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Minutes of the General Meeting, 2002 January 14
Welcome back everyone.
Introductions of the Committee and our Commissioner, Bart Henkle to the
membership.
Dues this year remain at $5. New people get their first year’s dues waived. New members introduced themselves. We had 10 new people turn out for the meeting. Please do what you can to help the new folk become a part of our organization: retention is important.
Updated addresses and contact numbers were collected. Please notify Bob Marcialis if any of your data have changed, or if have gotten an email address since last year.
Availablility forms were collected.
2002 Federation rule changes were reviewed by Mr. Robinson. 2002 in-State update: John Reigar is gone, Gary Welchel is his replacement. Rule books, Umpire Manuals, and Case Books were distributed. AIA Handbooks are on-order.
Committee member updates: Mike Bartling has resigned from the Committee. He will be replaced by Bill Cassarino. Don Boger will be the 2/3/4 Rep. Both victims (er, people) were elected by white ballot.
Next meeting (28 January) will be Coaches night. Rob Powell agreed to compile a list of Coach and Athletic Director email addresses. It is hoped that direct contact with these people will increase attendance at Coaches’ night in the future, by allowing us to short-circuit the vagaries of snail mail in the school districts.
At the beginning of the 2002 season, the amount of cash in our treasury is $XX.XX.
Our web site was announced; but if you can read this, you already know that! Please send your comments and recommendations.
Tonight was Coaches Night. We had 11 Coaches show up. Went over the rule changes and this year’s points of emphasis, and answered a lot of their questions. One question, regarding use of equipment (helmets, bats, etc.) not up-to-spec, in JV games was particularly important. Bottom line: DON’T let them use it. You are leaving yourself open to a lawsuit. Typically, we let little uniform violations go at the JV level, but potentially dangerous equipment and grounds conditions are a different matter altogether. If you must, have one team borrow equipment from another if they can’t supply their own safe items.
Coaches signed up for several scrimmages. Remember, all umpires are required to attend one scrimmage each spring. Thus far, scheduled scrimmages are:
| Location | Date | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Sabino HS | Wednesday, 13 February | 4 p.m. |
| Amphi HS | Friday, 15 February | 4 p.m. |
| Pueblo HS | Saturday, 16 February | 10 a.m. |
| Marana HS | Saturday, 16 February | 11 a.m. |
| Salpointe HS | Monday, 18 February | 4 p.m. |
The Mechanics Field Clinic will be 9 a.m. Saturday, 09 February at Golf Links Park.
Next week, a separate availability sheet will be circulated for pre-season tournament scheduling. Bart should have everyone’s regular-season availability sheets by now. If you haven’t turned your in, FAX it to Bart immediately.
Also next week, we will have a visitor at our meeting. Gary Whelchel, the new State Commissioner of Officials for the AIA (and John Reigar’s replacement) will speak to us. Gary also is on the Board of NASO, the National Association of Sports Officials. Please come with questions. In particular, we will discuss the standard uniform with Gary.
Also, we will review Rule 2, Definitions. Please review this rule and come with questions/situations.
Some of the members of the Committee bolted last night at the end of our meeting. Committee members are reminded to stay after ALL meetings; more often than not, we have a few minutes of business to deal with each week.
The on-field clinic will be held this Saturday, 09 February at Golf Links Park. Non-Certified officials should be there by 9 a.m.; Certifieds need not show until 11 a.m. If you must be excused from this required event, please address a letter to the Committee or Tom Carle before Saturday. Note: It is not required to show up in uniform.
Gary Whelchel, the new State Commissioner of Officials for the AIA, addressed the membership. He made the following points:
Regarding availability: Your availability must be FAXed to Bart Henkle by Friday, 08 February, if you want a schedule. Availabililty sheets for the CDO Tournament and BadgeR Tournament were circulated at the meeting. For these pre-season tournaments (and any others), priority scheduling will be given to Certified umpires, and only to those who were in attendance at the mandatory Move-up meeting last Spring. The Committee feels those Certifieds who chose not to attend the mandatory Move-up meeting should be penalized for shirking their responsibility.
Next week we will distribute hard copy versions of the Members’ Directory. If you have any telephone numbers, addresses, or email addresses to update, get in touch with Bob Marcialis, who will change the master copy.
A total of 56 people either attended the clinic, or took the time to write a letter to the Committee asking to be excused (concurrent college games, etc.).
The Members’ Directory was distributed. Already there are a few updates; the Web version is always kept current.
The CDO preseason tournament schedule was distributed.
Fliers for Emily Alexander’s Metro Phoenix Umpire School were distributed. It will be held at Phoenix College, 1202 W. Thomas Rd. on Saturday and Sunday, 23-23 March. The Registration fee ($40) must be received by 18 March. This School is highly recommended for rookies and veterans alike. Emily is one of only a handful of American umpires to work the Olympics, and is a Regional Coordinator for the NCAA in six Conferences and eleven states. Anyone attending this school will get credit for an on-field clinic and a scrimmage.
This year, Nogales HS will not play their home games at the High School. Instead, they will play at Fletcher Park.
Bart Henkle addressed the Membership. To summarize:
Scrimmages have been scheduled (see last weeks’ Minutes) and a responsible Certified selected to head up instruction at each scrimmage. All members are required to attend at least one scrimmage per year. Please, people: go to a scrimmage. Make your mistakes there, and not in a game where it has an effect. Get out onto the field and “knock off the rust,” Use a scrimmage to make sure your uniforms fit and that your gear is in order.
Sportsmanship/Ejection forms and Report of Violation forms were handed out. The latter are to be used in case something about the school isn’t right, e.g., broken base, home plate protruding above ground, something else dangerous on the grounds, or pertaining to umpire, athlete, or public safety. Both forms are available on-line from the AIA. Click on the AIA logo on our home page to access these, and other, forms in PDF or WORD format.
A very useful lineup exercise was presented by Tom Carle. Remember, this year all players and not just the starters may re-enter once. If you think about it, chances are you will have to alter the style of your recordkeeping to accomodate this new rule. It is also recommended you keep track of Courtesy Runners on the back of the lineup card. Be sure you know who the pitcher and catcher are for each team at the pregame conference, as they are the only players eligible for Courtesy Runners.
The test was handed out; it is due in two weeks, on 04 March.
Special apologies to Fred Gouby and Don Reed for not posting the minutes to last week’s meeting. It’s been a real zoo at work, and I slipped up. I will post the minutes ina more timely manner from now on.
Mike Bouchard announced that there will be no Greenfields tournament this year. He also assigned more JV-B games.
Assignments for the Tucson Badger tournament were distributed. There was some grumbling by a few Certifieds who didn’t get any games. Just because you are Certified does not guarrantee games; there are only so many to go around. Particularly this year, with the decline in the number of pre-season tournaments. There was also a turnback for the CDO tourney “because it isn’t worth going there for just one game.” This is not the sort of attitude that is conducive to being assigned in the post-season. Please, people: let’s all share the load. Realize that accepting an assignment is a contract and a promise. If your situation changes, we will try to help out. However, minimizing turnbacks is the best way to show you are a reliable resource. No one is such a stellar official that they can rely upon talent alone to get the best schedule.
After the Certifieds were dismissed, we discussed game situations. Two weeks into the season, just about every school has played once. In general the bat and ball situation is good. However, we did have a report of a Certified official playing a game with an unapproved ball. His rookie partner, understandably, decided to go along with the veteran’s decision. However, consider this situation: What if the third baseman took one in the face? Both umpires would have been equally liable, and the player would be going to college with no teeth. Good officiating involves consistency, and enforcing equipment rules is a part of your job. It should be one of the easiest parts of the job; a violation here is about as black-and-white as it gets. When everyone does their job, especially early in the season, problems disappear very fast. The Coach may be steamed, but in fact you may be saving him/her from a lawsuit as well. Think: one newspaper headline, “Umpire calls game due to lack of legal equipment” will help bring all schools in rapid compliance. It sends the message that we mean business. Have the chestnuts to do your job.
Regarding the ball situation, the following email exchange between Tom Carle and Bart Henkle is reported:
From: Meazsport@aol.com
Message-ID: <5f.23213b84.29ad3e37@aol.com>
Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2002 14:38:31 EST
Subject: recapping softball information
To: Aiaa1commish@aol.com
Bart
FYI Below are copies of our e-mails. I sent the original to you on
the 10th of Feb and you responded on the 13th of Feb.
Bart
Question from the umpire clinic on Saturday.
The rule book specifies the softballs provided by the home school must
have the NFHS logo and the cor . 47 rating stamped on the ball.
If we are provided softballs without either or both of these stamps
and neither coach could provide correct softballs am I correct in stating the
game would not be played until proper softballs were provided?
We need a definitive ruling on this matter prior to the meeting on Monday.
Thanks
Tom Carle
Tom-
As we discussed on the phone -- the umpires should attempt to find legal
balls (home or visitor, new or used), but if they can't the game should not
be played.
This is per Gary Whelchel.
Bart
Tom Carle announced several rulebook changes he got from the Federation web site. These changes are available on line.
Stretch Johnson was given an award for working a State Finals in softball. Congratulations to Stretch.
Game situations were discussed.
Joe Robinson mentioned that on Wednesday he had a conference call scheduled regarding the Federation bat policy. He mentioned they might say that the States can do as they please with the bat rule, but that they would be liable if they deviate from NFHS policy. So we pretty much will continue to enforce the bat rule as before.
After the Certified umpires were dismissed, several Committee members acted out a pre-game conference. The conference was dissected and discussed. Bottom line on pre-games: keep it short (30 to 40 seconds); check lineups; ask (an ADULT coach) if teams are properly equipped; have the home team coach give ground rules (go around the field and make sure it has a rule for all borders); save a flip until last thing. Once the flip is made, you won't have their attention.
Bart handed out another 2 weeks’s assignments.
Since Rincon High School is closed on April first, and the NCAA Basketball Championship game is also on this night, we have cancelled the meeting. A massive email will be sent out to all Members with email addresses regarding this.
Mike Bouchard handed out the final round of JV-B assignments, and many varsity assignments as well. The process took 40 minutes. If you have any ideas on how to speed up this aspect of our meeting, please see either Tom Carle, Mike Bouchard, or Bob Marcialis.
Tests were returned. The 5 most-missed questions were: 6 F; 45 T; 49 T; 54 F; and 99 F. If you did not earn the required grade to maintain your Classification status, you will have to retest during the next meeting (15 April). You will not be moved up if this retest is required.
Several situations were discussed. For one game, only 1 umpire showed.
Various aspects of the Post-Season selection process were discussed, in particular the perceived abuse of power in at least two other sports. Intelligent arguments were presented on both sides of the issue, and the Committee met to continue this discussion after the General Meeting. A vote was taken on whether or not to act on this issue, and the majority of the Committee decided that the proposed actions could do more harm than good.
Mr. Robinson reminds everyone not to use the word “bang” when referring to retiring a runner! (Nyuk, nyuk.)
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Bob Marcialis
Copyright © 2002 Robert L. Marcialis
Last Modified: 2002 March 19