Fall Football Meeting August 24, 7 pm Sal's in St. Joseph
Softball Communication 2024 - 2025
Year in Review
Tom Keller
12/27/20241 min read
Greetings ADs, school staff, and section softball coordinators:
Here is a recap of the 2024 softball season
●We assigned 706 umpires to 308 regular season games.
●We assigned 95 umpires to 42 section games.
●We visited 7 schools to discuss new rules, and appropriate interactions between players, coaches, and umpires and presented m material to attempt to recruit new umpires.
●Working together to reschedule games to alternate days of the week, we could assign umpires to all but a few JV contests and one varsity contest. Thank you for using alternate days to get your games played!
●We conducted an umpire mechanics clinic in the early season dome games to improve our umpires' mechanics and field movements so that they are in the proper position to make quality calls.
●We proudly report that we had seven SCOA u m p ires selected for the MSHSL State Softball Tournament.
Please offer any suggestions to improve the assigning process!
Items I stress to our umpires are:
Check in with the AD or Designated School Representative 2 days prior to the game to confirm the date, time, and location of the contest.
Ask for the representative's cell number in case of travel issues.
Be professional with communication and appearance.
Know softball rules and apply them as written. I can defund judgment but not a misapplied rule.
Allow the coach to ask questions, and answer the question with appropriate rule references.
Please offer any compliments, and items that we are doing well, so I can pass that along to our umpires!
Moving forward to the 2025 softball season we will again offer to visit your schools to discuss rule changes, in interactions between coaches, players, and um p ires, and attempt to recruit new umpires for the future. This year I would like to invite your players' parents to the recruiting meeting. We find that many parents try umpiring after their student-athlete has completed their playing career.
Mission
St. Cloud Officials' Association (SCOA) trains, mentors, and assigns high school & local college officials in the sports of Baseball, Basketball, Football, Softball and Wrestling
With over 200 members, SCOA was established in St. Cloud MN in 1986 and is a Minnesota State High School League. member. SCOA provides officials to schools throughout Central Minnesota.
Over our proud history, SCOA has had members assigned to MSHSL Championship games and many have moved up to officiate in the NCAA.
The mission of the St. Cloud Officials' Association is to support its members in becoming more skilled and effective athletic officials.
SCOA will accomplish this through clarification and interpretation of rules. Promoting efficient and standard officiating techniques in Baseball, Basketball, Football, Softball, and Wrestling. Each Member will be involved in the following
Rules Knowledge
Instructional Meetings
Professionalism
Promoting Sportsmanship
Instructional Meetings
Professionalism
Promoting Sportsmanship
About SCOA
Board Members
President: Lukas Pohlmeier
Vice President: Dustin Overcash
Treasurer: Dave Gunderson
Secretary: Dave Leom
At Large: Nate Moeller
At Large: Pat Ridpath
At Large: Adam Utsch
Advisor: Mike Bukowski
Assignors
Football: Casey Pack and Emmett Keenan
Basketball: Paul Conrad
Wrestling: Roger Wilson and Kevin Beehler
Baseball: John Gerads
Softball: Tom Keller
Business Information
St. Cloud Officials' Association
1239 2nd St N
PO Box 23
Sauk Rapids, MN 56379
Email: stcloudofficials@gmail.com
Contact SCOA Webmaster for questions regading this page