Insider Info

Sports officials have to love their game! No matter if it's baseball, ringette, football, swimming, rugby or volleyball, sports officials really enjoy their sport.

Many of today's sports officials once were amateur sports players themselves. Take softball umpire Sidney Baker, for instance.

"My dad always used to 'ump' our games, and we would always rag him about mistakes, real or imagined, that he made. One day, we were playing a game and I got into an argument with him about whether I was out or not. He handed me the whistle and told me to do it myself if I didn't like it."

Baker took his dad up on the offer. At 16 years old, he started his career as an official. Now he officiates national-level baseball games all over his region.

You wouldn't know by watching him now, but he had a rough start as an official.

"[It] was my first shot at it, and according to everyone else at the time, it should have been my last! I was terrible."

Since then, Baker has redeemed himself. He continued his career as an umpire, working in the amateur and semi-professional leagues for over 20 years. He then completed several examinations, and began calling lower-level professional games.

The switch from amateur to professional softball wasn't easy.

"Even the bottom-level professional games are so much more intense and fast-paced than the amateurs... It's also a little scary, the first time you walk out there and know that you're the one in charge -- and the one everyone will blame."

Still, Baker wouldn't go back to the amateur leagues.

"The rush when you do a good game is like nothing else," he says.

Most people can relate to what it feels like to have a boss or supervisor looking over your shoulder. It's stressful. Picture that stress intensified by about 25,000, and you have the anxiety level of a sports official's job.

"You need to be good enough to stand in front of 25,000 people, look at the same thing they're looking at, extract the rules you need from about 100 pages, weave four or five rules together to cover the situation, and then make a call," says Florida umpire Craig Friedley.

Most of the time, sports officials are able to deal with all the pressure and make the correct call. Like most human beings, sports officials make occasional mistakes. But here even the slightest error can be viewed as favoritism when athletic careers, millions of dollars and game outcomes are at stake.

"The difficulty of this situation is that people assume we don't make mistakes -- just deliberately good or bad calls," says Friedley.

Friedley has experience with mistakes on the field, but in his case, there was no doubting his call was an error. During one game, he lost sight of the bunted ball and called it foul before realizing the batter had grounded out. The pitcher was holding the ball in his hands, preparing to throw the ball to first base.

"I wound up bringing the batter back, which was really embarrassing, but it did teach me a valuable lesson: Never take your eye off the ball!" says Friedley.

Friedley isn't the only sports official to make a blunder, of course.

Phoenix football referee John Rosenblatt admits he was once booed by 15,000 people for a gaffe. However, mistakes are rare among professional referees, especially given the number of tough calls they make every day.

Diana Drury is a soccer official in Kingston, Ontario. She knows about the pressure of officiating. It may be difficult to cope with, but officials have no choice but to cope with it.

"I think officials today are abused, and they get very little respect for the tough job that they do," she says. Young people considering officiating as a career have to be prepared for this reality.

"They need to go in knowing they're not going to get a lot of praise and that they will be yelled at a lot. They have to remain consistent, fair and assertive -- those are very important characteristic traits," says Drury. This will take practice and determination.

"Stick with it and try to develop a tough exterior, so that people's comments, from players, fans and parents, don't get to you personally."

Making tough calls is not the only thing officials do. They have a wide scope of responsibilities. Sports officials make decisions on game plays, athlete or coach discipline, and crowd safety.

Once Rosenblatt was working a playoff game in front of a crowded stadium and the media -- including broadcasting trucks and even television helicopters. A thunderstorm blew in during the second inning.

"I suspended play and instructed the team personnel to retire to the locker rooms for their safety. We had the stadium announcer tell the crowd to get under the stands, rather than stay exposed. I consulted the weather people from the TV station and watched the local radar on their screen," says Rosenblatt.

Then, with one eye on the sky, Rosenblatt began an ongoing dialog with the athletic director -- who was responsible for the venue -- and shuttled between the head coaches to keep them informed. The storm finally let up after 45 minutes, and Rosenblatt made the call to resume play.

It was a difficult decision, and he faced some opposition from coaches and players. But as an experienced sports official, Rosenblatt had the confidence and the expertise to make a controversial call and delay the game. When you've worked as a sports official, you get comfortable with controversy.

Although people in this occupation have to be confident and decisive on the field, keeping an open mind is also important. Officials who do best in this field are the ones who are firm, but willing to learn from the job on a day-to-day basis.

Despite the fact that Friedley has officiated everything from amateur to professional games, he's still willing to learn how to improve.

"The job is never the same and every year I see something new, so I am able to keep improving my performance."

Becoming a sports official takes lots of dedication. It takes years to work up to the pro leagues. Many have to volunteer their services and then work up to games where they're paid $35 to $50 a game, says Bob Still of the National Association of Sports Officials.

Part-time officials also need time away from their regular jobs in order to officiate. They need flexible schedules or understanding bosses in order to do this! For instance, a high school game might start at 4 p.m., which doesn't fit with the 9-to-5 job, says Still.

For this reason, many officials are self-employed or hold management-level positions. This way, they can set their own hours.

In the end, it doesn't matter what you do. Everyone -- insurance salesmen, production line workers, and lawyers -- can officiate. All that matters is that they love the game.