Umpire School starts on Wednesday. I’m in the process of transit this week [1] and I should arrive at the La Playa resort in Daytona Beach on Monday night. You may ask, what is the Nachoman doing to prepare? Well, I’m gobbling as much Chicago-style pizza and Skyline chili as I possibly can. Such ambrosia is only available to me when I travel.
I have been reading the umpireschool.com message board, on which I can interact with students. I’ve learned that about a hundred prospective umps will be attending, including exactly one woman. The students hail from all over the country plus Canada; I will likely be able to meet a few other early arrivals on Tuesday night, as some of us are arranging to watch the Sugar Bowl together.
Now, the question on many of your minds might be, how will a 34-year-old physics teacher who hasn’t played organized baseball in twenty years fit in? [2] Interestingly, someone other than the Nachoman hesitantly asked about the ages of attendees. Those who responded were all 19 or 20. That doesn’t mean that everyone is that age… I chose not to respond to that question, preferring my classmates to infer my geriatric nature for themselves.
The whole situation is an eerie role reversal from my graduate school experience. I jumped into Northwestern’s mechanical engineering graduate program right after college. At 21 I was the youngest of a mostly 22-25 year old class. But then there was Bill… Bill was 34, entering grad school after a career as an engineer on a nuclear submarine. We whippersnappers got along very well with Bill, even though had some mind-boggling old man traits. [3] When my friends would get together to do our course work, Bill was always a step behind. He’d catch up with us eventually, but he just didn’t think fast enough. “Wait, wait… can you explain that to me again? I lost you back there,” he’d say. On many occasions, he felt moved to sheepishly remind us that he *used* to work as well and quickly as the rest of us, but that he’s been away from science for too long, that his fundamental math and problem solving skills had eroded. We felt sorry for him, and we always helped him out… but I have to say that a good way to test the mettle of a prospective physics teacher might be to make him or her attend problem solving sessions with Bill.
So this time, I will be the old man – without Bill’s colorful and endearing Navy anecdotes, of course. More to the point, while Bill once had been capable of high-level physics, I have *never* been capable of playing baseball beyond high school junior varsity. Will that matter? Possibly not… perhaps my past experience listening to the obnoxious complaining of spoiled parents in Chicago and Boca Raton will be of more use than baseball expertise. That said, I don’t think it will be long before my relative baseball incompetence will be exposed. We’ll see…
[1] Meaning, playing gin rummy with Burrito Girl for an hour while waiting for I-65 to start moving
[2] Reply hazy, try again
I have been reading the umpireschool.com message board, on which I can interact with students. I’ve learned that about a hundred prospective umps will be attending, including exactly one woman. The students hail from all over the country plus Canada; I will likely be able to meet a few other early arrivals on Tuesday night, as some of us are arranging to watch the Sugar Bowl together.
Now, the question on many of your minds might be, how will a 34-year-old physics teacher who hasn’t played organized baseball in twenty years fit in? [2] Interestingly, someone other than the Nachoman hesitantly asked about the ages of attendees. Those who responded were all 19 or 20. That doesn’t mean that everyone is that age… I chose not to respond to that question, preferring my classmates to infer my geriatric nature for themselves.
The whole situation is an eerie role reversal from my graduate school experience. I jumped into Northwestern’s mechanical engineering graduate program right after college. At 21 I was the youngest of a mostly 22-25 year old class. But then there was Bill… Bill was 34, entering grad school after a career as an engineer on a nuclear submarine. We whippersnappers got along very well with Bill, even though had some mind-boggling old man traits. [3] When my friends would get together to do our course work, Bill was always a step behind. He’d catch up with us eventually, but he just didn’t think fast enough. “Wait, wait… can you explain that to me again? I lost you back there,” he’d say. On many occasions, he felt moved to sheepishly remind us that he *used* to work as well and quickly as the rest of us, but that he’s been away from science for too long, that his fundamental math and problem solving skills had eroded. We felt sorry for him, and we always helped him out… but I have to say that a good way to test the mettle of a prospective physics teacher might be to make him or her attend problem solving sessions with Bill.
So this time, I will be the old man – without Bill’s colorful and endearing Navy anecdotes, of course. More to the point, while Bill once had been capable of high-level physics, I have *never* been capable of playing baseball beyond high school junior varsity. Will that matter? Possibly not… perhaps my past experience listening to the obnoxious complaining of spoiled parents in Chicago and Boca Raton will be of more use than baseball expertise. That said, I don’t think it will be long before my relative baseball incompetence will be exposed. We’ll see…
[1] Meaning, playing gin rummy with Burrito Girl for an hour while waiting for I-65 to start moving
[2] Reply hazy, try again
[3] For example, he was married. Weird.
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