From Referee Magazine Barry Mano

You all receive Referee Magazine every month as part of your CCSUA/NASO membership. Are you using this resource? In each issue Barry Mano, founder of NASO and Referee Magazine publisher, has a column Publisher’s Memo. This is always good reading. In the current issue (November 2020), Barry discusses the impact the pandemic has taken on officials in all sports. Especially interesting are his thoughts about supporting you local association so it also survives these trying times. Some highlights:
• Your reaction during the pandemic should not be to completely pull back on all expenses associated with officiating. This is not an unreasonable reaction, but it could be one that dooms officiating to a lesser existence.
• It is in these times you should continue to support the individuals and organizations that have made you feel a part of this community.
• You could decide that since the game fees are not rolling in, you are not going to pay dues to your local group. That might make economic sense but does not make sense on a higher level.
• That level has to do with helping ensure that this community is able to survive, serve, and soothe all of us.
• If you decide to not pay dues because you did not get games, there might not be an association to come back to when you decide to pay dues.
• It takes money and resources to run associations; without those the association will either abate or will stop, not to be restarted. (He likens this to the restaurant situation -many have closed and will not reopen).
• We need to invest in our futures, which means continuing to spend some money on behalf of officiating. Pay dues to your association even if you do not have to.

One caveat – if you are an official who has lost a regular job, been furloughed or had to accept a significant pay cut, you can only do so much or maybe nothing at all with regard to the bullets above.

From the CCSUA Training Staff

Some counties and cities are now allowing their fields to be used for games; some are not. We are looking for games so we can conduct our fall ball observations for our potential new umpires. If you are aware of any games being played, please contact John Bennett with this information.

We encourage our umpires to continue with, or start up again, the important Roundtables. These are a great way to continue your year-round training as a college softball umpire. And with the access to virtual meetings (Zoom, Google Meet, etc.) this is easier than ever to conduct these meetings while following the health guidelines. The Training Staff will continue to suggest ideas on the subjects you could use for these roundtables. We will start with the recently posted Fall Clinic videos and tests. There are four modules to this training –Rules, Mechanics, Game Management, and Protocols. There are two parts to each module (video and test). Suggestion – use these modules for your next roundtables – perhaps one or two modules for each roundtable. And we will continue to post monthly tests, which also can be used as discussion points during your roundtable.

Related to this, we strongly encourage all of our umpires to read the monthly Notes from the Training Staff. Additionally, read the Arbiter mass emails sent by CCSUA and your assigners. Please!…read these carefully. Then, put them in a separate folder in your email account so you can refer to them as needed. If you have not created a folder in your email account for CCSUA, do so now. It is not difficult. For example, do you know where all the tests are located on the Locker Room website?!? The Dashboard page lists only the most recent posts, so as more articles/videos/tests are posted, some previous posts will not be on the Dashboard page any longer. Despite mentioning in every email that the tests are located in the Training Courses tab, we have received (too many) emails asking where the Fall Clinic tests are located. Again, please read the information sent to you by your assigners and CCSUA training staff, then retain this information so you can refer to it when needed. Thank you!!

Changes to Locker Room since last month’s posting of this document

New Videos
Training Information – All four Fall Clinic presentation videos posted. The tests for these presentations have also been posted – located in the Training Courses section.
Mechanic/General Mechanics – Timing when making a call. This replaces the video Timing on double call.
Mechanic/General Mechanics – College softball signals. This video replaces the two videos on signals previously posted (The Point Signal and The No infraction signal) and expands on other signals.