You're Out of Here! Coaches ejected from college sailing regattas

I'm not sure any coach in the country is upset with the ejections. If they are deserved then eject them. Throwing around F-Bombs at an umpire, race official, competitor, or another coach is uncalled for. Anyone see what happened to Kobe Bryant when he threw a derogatory slur at the ref the other night...yea...$100K fine. Give it a warning I agree with, but if you cross the line, your out, competitors and coaches. You can disagree with calls and 99% of umpires are completely fine explaining why they made a particular call after the race. But if your asking about it, you can do it appropriately. BTW, umpires can be tossed too? Probably at the discretion of the PRO/Ch-Ump?

I think it was a bit absurd that both coaches were asked to leave the premises. I can't be for sure, but i think that set of sailing instructions is the only one in the country that includes the "decorum" section. We agree it is good to treat our umpires with respect and we appreciate the difficult job that they undertake. But throwing coaches off premises? A bit extreme. It might be better to take a page from a basketball or soccer referee and give a warning or a warning card to the coach when he/she is acting out of line.

In theory it makes sense to give umpires the discretion whether to toss coaches. However, as umpires receive greater discretion, they should also have greater accountability to the competitors, coaches, and the sport. I do not think the analogy to professional sports is correct, since those referees, who have a great deal of power, are also strictly regulated and get performance reviews from their respective sports' governing bodies.

While college sailing is a way from professional baseball, for example, I believe three reforms are needed to provide a meaningful check against umpires using and abusing their discretion. Since ultimately college regattas are a training ground for team racing umpires, everyone has an interest in how college umpires are regulated.

1. Hold a "rules compendium" where all parties in interest, including but not limited to sailors, coaches, and umpires, decide how discretionary calls will be made for the year. Discretionary calls would include but not be limited to black flag redress, extra penalty turns, and tossing coaches.

2. For major intersectionals, require that each team select an umpire. Require that the umpires come from a pre-certified overall pool so that teams can't bring in randos. This way, the host team is not supplying all the umpires. Make it so that a given team can't select the same umpire every regatta.

3. Set up a performance review system so that parties in interest can rate umpires' performance relative to the standards established in Sec. 1. Set up a process to decertify umpires that do not follow the standards all parties agreed upon. This will ensure the pool of certified umpires conforms to standard.

These rules would probably entail higher cost for using umpires. However, if we're going to be granting umpires greater discretion to eject sailors and coaches, and, with other discretionary calls, change how the game is played, the greater cost is justified.

I do want to mention that one of the coaches who was "asked not to be on the premises" for Sunday did something very admirable. He spent his Sunday himself as an Umpire/Judge at another Team Race Intersectional in the district, giving back to the sport, as well as putting himself in the position which he was penalized for criticizing. His unique way of placing an additional self-punishment was good for him, the sport, his team, and the teams at the other event he then helped officiate.

Just so it doesn't seem as if the events at that one regatta are the norm in college sailing, I want to report that I've just finished umpiring at four top-level events in the Mid Atlantic Collegiate Sailing Association (MAISA), including last weekend's Prosser Trophy, which was a qualifier for the Nationals. All of these events were fiercely contested. I did receive lots of comments from both competitors and coaches, some of them questioning my calls after races. Every single one of those conversations ended with the competitor or coach saying "Thank you." One example: I and my fellow ump made a call in the last race of one regatta, and the boat we penalized called us over after the finish. We had other business to attend to, but eventually came alongside the boat on her way back to the dock. As I started my explanation of the call, the competitor interrupted me, saying "No, no, I have no question about the call. I just wanted to thank you for doing this."

There are lots of things that keep me doing this stuff, including the opportunity to watch some of the world's best sailing and boat-handling at close quarters. But comments like that are by themselves enough reason enough to come back.

This rule should stay and be used more widely. The bigger challenge is having the stones to enforce it. This had to be super embarrassing for the coaches involved and the kids that they are out there coaching. It doesn't matter if your having a bad sailing day and your coach pulls you for the "freshmen" or if you're having a bad coaching day and you're told to go hike the Freedom Trail, it feels crappy to be pulled. Not a good look. I'm sure that no one feels good about this.

Maybe there needs to be a better avenue for coaches to provide feedback to umpires and regatta officials without having the umpires feeling attacked by the coaching panel. Match racing events have pretty cool de-briefs after racing. Why not college sailing.

Yep, just that simple. You made it to the Nationals. It is time to grow up and sail yourself instead of having a coach hold your hand. All coaches should be off the water and put of contact with competitors "dock to dock". Enough of this coaching nonsense.

If the umpire(s) in question would not own up to an obvious mistake, well they may deserve a little bit of pressure, but there is adn always should be a line that should not be crossed.

if it had anything to do with Franny ensuring that the corinthian elements of the sport were being addressed with some degree of decorum, then I'm surprised it's even an issue? Having known Fran since our college years at Tufts sailing on the Jumbo Sailing Team, it takes an extraordinary circumstance to ruffle Fran's feathers--- e.g. it would've been OTT on steriods to have MIT's umps misbehaving inappropriately? Had that been the case or not, why didn't they throw the coach(es) out of the sport of sailing? Throw them in the "penalty box" for a few hundred years (or be umpires themselves for 1,000 races?). Don't you think? Tufts Friis Trophy and MIT regatta notwithstanding. Hearsay may be hearsay. Would you be arguing with a "smart" policeman or a "dumb" policeman when you were pulled over for doing a 100 mph?? NOT. Learn how to sail first. Once you do that, then learn how to go fast. If you even know how to do that, then learn the rules. Then shut up and sail fast. If you can't, you ain't sailing. :)

An intercollegiate regatta can be an intimate setting with coaches, sailors, the race committee, umpires, protest committee members, and fans all mingling informally. This puts a burden on everyone to behave well--and they usually do with everyone ready to help make sure that the event is successful. I was the race committee chair (1970's speak for PRO) at a regional championship four decades ago. A coach was lobbying us to shorten the race course in the hope that an announced 10 race day for each division might possibly become a 20 race day (which would coincidentally give that coach's team a chance to dig themselves out of a deep hole in the standings). He was so forceful that I eventually had to call the graduate secretary of the regional association and ask him to put the coach in his place.

umpires let it get settled on the water. they make all the easy calls correctly, can see what someone commits a professional foul, and are useful for when someone actually luffs someone too hard etc or something that wouldn't stand in the protest room. when you put yourselves in their shoes they almost always made the more logical call based on the simplest rule. The biggest problem is they are volunteering (which is nice because it means they love the sport and are generally therefore quite experienced), but they aren't going to volunteer to get yelled at. Now if they made a profession out of umpiring I would say yell away, but thats never going to be the case. That said, not every single umpire out there has team raced at a high level or knows exactly what's going on enough to make quick, accurate, complicated rule situation calls. And It's hard to make the testing process to become an umpire more difficult as they aren't getting paid and there aren't many of them. There's no easy solution or perfect answer and it stinks, but its sailing.
I'm surprised coaches would yell at the umpires because, surprise-surprise, there aren't that many of them and they will remember you. So as of now its in no one's best interest to yell at an umpire. Yell at yourself for leaving it in their hands (you were probably playing catch-up if you needed an ump call to win).

"All competitors shall be responsible for their coaches' behavior and coaches shall be responsible for their competitors' behavior. Any negative commentary by a competitor or a coach towards the volunteer and professional judges or race management team will result in immediate ejection of the coach from the venue without a hearing. The PRO or any judge will be empowered to make this decision. If the ejection occurs after sailing it will take effect for the entire next day of competition at both venues."

What exactly were the umpires doing wrong? I'm confused. Part of the deal with umpiring is that there will be a fair number of mistakes made, but at least situations are closed on the water (for the most part). It's fairly unthinkable to have a legitimate TR event these days without umps- the old days of spending hours after sailing dealing with protests are something we don't want to return to.