One of the challenging parts of coaching a high school sport is working with umpires or other officials. Before I get too deep into a couple of stories I need to preface my comments with the fact that I was only tossed from a game once in all of my years of coaching. It was a summer game and early on a Sunday morning at a tournament in Parker. We had the umpire once before in the tournament and had a great game. It is summer and everything should be calmer than in the regular high school season. This was the case in almost every game or tournament we have had over the years. Some coaches and officials take it much too seriously but I have always had a calm demeanor when coaching summer games. Okay, I can hear some of you laughing at that but it is true and has been more so as I have gotten older. My head coach went out to discuss a call and things got heated quickly. I went out and got the head coach out of there and basically took his ejection. My fear was that the parents would be mad that a coach of their players got thrown out. I tried to slink past them on the way out but one of the parents called me over. I expected and was prepared for my second chewing out of the morning. When I got there he shared that they had some extra breakfast burritos and did I want one. I figured I must not have been too bad if they were offering me food.
I told that story to prepare you for a couple of umpire stories over the next few days. The first is short and simple. We had an umpire that was a little off from what we had expected from high school umpires. The first was that he was more talkative than I am. He would follow Jim and me around as we tried to hit infield for a warmup to a game. We often had to tell him that we will talk during and after the game but we needed to get ready. This had gone on for a couple of years but the most telling thing I ever saw was as were getting ready for a game. I look over as I am warming up the players and I see an RTD Access-a-Ride bus in the parking lot. I wasn’t too surprised because I figured it was a player’s grandparent and that they had come to watch the game. As I am looking over, out steps our umpire for the game. It was hard not to make any jokes but it was something that always has been a very telling incident. Over the years we have picked up umpires and we have taken them home after games because the regular RTD bus wasn’t scheduled for another hour after our game.