ASK AN UMPIRE
Tried and Tested A look at the umpire certification process By Dana Fortugno
I am asked about umpire certifications all the time. Many players think we no longer certify umpires—that is simply not true. We do certify umpires. In fact, we certify them all the time and any of our professional umpires can certify. Boom! Who knew? I did. We are, however, considering some improvements to the certification process and yes, technology is driving these changes. I am going to tell you all about the process—what it was, what we are considering, and how being a USPA certified umpire is different than being a USPA professional umpire. First, the way it was: Before the shift in Umpires, LLC management, we used paper forms when certifying a club umpire. Only one staff member could certify outdoor umpires, and one could certify arena umpires. We had rules we had to adhere to. For example, umpires would have to be evaluated every three years or they would no longer be certified (we had to keep track of this). Umpires had to pass the rules test, of course, but we could complete the certification forms before they took the test. So, many umpires were observed umpiring on the field but only a few took the test. We had to somehow figure out who did not take the test and separate them out. By the way, the test answers were floating around out there as a PDF file and players used this to cheat on the test (an open book test). Who cheats on an open book test with no time limits? Polo players do. I heard a rumor that one polo 16 POLO P L A Y E R S E D I T I O N
mom (of a very notable polo family) would take the test for all the young players in her house—nice example, mom. Those players never learned to navigate the rule book, so I guess they can just call mom if they have an issue on the field. Then, we had to store the paperwork and manually keep up with hundreds of forms and no system to categorize and search them. It was a mess. That is the history, and I am happy to leave it in the past. It is an understatement to say that we have come a long way. We now focus on doing a great job, killing our mission with innovation and enthusiasm (instead of trying to just keep our jobs by staying under the radar, so to speak). Yup, I said that and it’s true. Second, as promised, here are some changes we are considering making and why. We had to solve the following problems before we could begin with a new
