In the early 2,000's, my son had just entered Little League in the teeball league of Little League. I was approached and asked to be a coach, they pretty much do that all the time in LL, it's all volunteer, learn as you go.
Fast forward several years and I was approached to be an LL umpire. I didn't want to do it after seeing how umpires were being treated but I eventually caved in but I told myself I wouldn't allow myself to be abused like some of these other umpires were.
Basically, our league was a lawless madhouse of parents that would get into fist fights with each other during games, call the other team's coaches and even 10 year old players foul names and direct cussing at them, yell at umpires the entire games and basically make it a very miserable experience.
I ended this when, as also being a board member, I initiated a zero tolerance policy (this is a really shortened version here). It was probably a thousand words long, had very clear policy directed towards behavior and intended action that would be taken against anyone violating the policy.
The first game we started this, I had the entire board out there. As parents started in on their ridiculous nonsense, I would stop the game, point at the offenders and have them removed from the premises completely. Probably half the parents were escorted out to the parking lot where they were instructed they could wait for their kid.
One set of parents hit one of the board members and the police were called. I don't recall if the parents were charged with assault, I do remember that after that night, the amount of bs from parents declined dramatically.
Fast forward again. I never claimed to be the greatest umpire on earth, but I was definitely all about crowd control. It wasn't really umpire's job to do that, but the situations we were encountering were drastic, outrageous and often times criminal in nature. The district administrator would have me officiate championship games, usually the ones with the most potential for unbelievably bad behavior being exhibited by parents.
I had the fortune or misfortune - depending on how you look at it - of being assigned as field judge for a do or die game. This game would decide who went to the state finals and who took their balls and bats - and went home. I was warned in advance by the district administrator about the potential for very bad behavior and so I thought, maybe it was a good idea if he found someone else to do it?
No, he replied, it's exactly why I want you to be involved with this game. Whatever people thought about me at the time, I had acquired the reputation for not putting up with parental or coach abuse at games. And so this night was one that I will never forget.
The game started, there was some 500 people in the stands and standing around watching the game. The stakes were high and emotions were high with it. These people took their Majors league championship game quite seriously and I didn't have a problem with that.
However.....
It was about 15ish minutes into the game and the yelling at each other started. It was so loud that players couldn't hear their coaches trying to yell instructions at them. What I heard was appalling. Grown men and women yelling insults at both the other team's coaches and cussing out other team's players, this was going both ways. They were cussing out the plate judge for his balls and strikes calls. It was so bad that I just stood there, looking around at this nonsense and wondering why the plate judge wasn't doing anything about it.
Well, it's because he was mortified. After a while of this I couldn't take it anymore and I stopped the game, got into a huddle with the plate judge and asked him why he was tolerating all of this, even with the game stopped loud yelling back and forth at a feverish pitch. He said "I don't know what to do!". Well, I did. I stopped the game and ordered the team back to their dugouts.
The yelling got much louder at that point, most of it now directed at me. I just stood there in the middle of the diamond. Like at least 5 minutes if not longer. I talked in a normal tone, which, of course, no one could hear for the noise of people still yelling insults at each other. But, people finally got a clue and once people were stopping with the bs, I yelled loudly that nothing will happen until everyone shuts up.
Yup, I told them to all shut their mouths. At that point, they didn't deserve and respect. The entire crowd of people eventually shut up. That's when I went off on the whole lot of them. Yelling at coaches, cussing out 12 year old boys, threatening to beat each other up. I gave them all a choice: You can either stop with the abuse or you can go out to the parking lot and wait for the game to end.
Did I actually have that authority? I didn't care, I did have the authority to stop the game and the league would have to make it up - quickly actually since it was finals. I didn't want to stop the game, I wanted these people to act their age. Be the role models they should be for their own kids. At this point, and alleged umpire in the crowd started calling me out, saying I couldn't do that and then, after I didn't back down, alleging that "you aren't an umpire at all".
Instead of arguing with him, I appealed to the crowd. You can either tell him to shut up or everyone is going to go home, the game will have to be decided by the league on how to move forward with it. This turned the attention away from me and on to the alleged judge whom everyone started yelling shut up!
Everyone just slumped and sort of caved at that point. You can't yell at other people's kids or coaches! Well what CAN we do? one vociferous lady yelled at me? You CAN cheer your kids team! Be as raucous about good behavior as your about acting out. Your own children are more adults than you are right now. I was laying it on them, it was quite disheartening to see people acting out like this. I know the stakes were high, but that doesn't excuse acting infantile at a youth sporting event.
I mean, this went on for probably 20-25 minutes. Everyone finally agreed - I made everyone that I could speak up and agree to my terms. I called the teams back out, the coaches figured out where they were when the game was abruptly ended and they actually thanked me. The coaches were no part of the ridiculous behavior, for their part, they were acting more professional than anything and definitely were focused on their players playing their best game, not chewing them out for mistakes or striking out.
Yes, it got loud again, but this time you could hear the parents yelling for their team. If there was any cussing or threats, I couldn't hear them and yes, I was listening.
You see, I was reading stories about how there is a shortage of umpires for Little League and other youth sporting events and even high school umpires. Well, nothing has changed after reading these stories. Umpires don't want to be subjected to that kind of abuse where parents are dissing them and disparaging them for whatever call on balls and strikes or plays made at the bases or home plate. Why should anyone have to tolerate that?
I know you need thick skin to be an officiate at a game, but this is beyond that. It is really up the league admins to deal with these problems and it's obvious they are not. I could teach a course on how to handle a league with bad parents, mostly it's get in their face with a list of rules and a zero tolerance policy and call the police where appropriate. There was a time when the police would park in between fields and wait their for the violence to begin, it was that bad. Our zero tolerance policy and heavily enforcing it got rid of that element.
It's the kids that suffer in the end if there isn't anyone that is willing to literally step up to the plate and volunteer or even get paid to put up with that kind of verbal and even physical abuse. It's hard enough to learn all the rules - Little League had some different rules than you see with MLB or higher up level of play. But regardless of the league or whatever name it is operating under, you need to deal with this situation head on.
If umpires know you have their back, you won't have a shortage of them for long. Umpires typically do the best job they can without bias towards one team or another. "Bad calls" tend to even themselves out with bad plays by one of the teams poorly executing plays during the game resulting in them losing. You might get a parent attempting to diss you on that one bad call until another parent from the same team says, yeah, but look how our team played tonight. They wouldn't have won regardless.
I have made bad calls. Not on purpose, it just happens. I had a parent follow me out to the parking lot, threaten physical violence on me and actually went to his vehicle to get a hand gun. Yes, you read that right, he was going to shoot me over a game. Well, I didn't wait around, I hopped in my truck and took off - and called the police. I did make a bad call and realized it after the fact. I apologized but that wasn't good enough.
This was a long time ago yet obviously, the situation hasn't changed at all. If you are involved in a league on the board of directors and you have a shortage of umpires, it will do you well to consider why you have that shortage. If it's anything like what I've been reading about abuse being heaped on to the official's heads and the league doing absolutely nothing to stop it, you can go look in a mirror and point the finger at yourselves.
Do something about it. It's your responsibility to enact a code of conduct and apply it to everyone attending games. In our case, it was a zero tolerance policy that ended our problems. After we applied that policy to everyone at one particular game and a couple of them afterwards, parents started policing themselves. If one parent did happen to lash out at anyone, the rest would tell them to stop. Get the parents on your side and you will see effective change.
BTW, if you have a kid on a team, considering volunteering. For Board, for umpire, coaching, whatever. These leagues don't run without an ample supply of volunteers making it all happen!
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