Most officials think multi-sport officiating will distract them from mastering their primary sport.
I used to think that too.
Then I started officiating wrestling alongside baseball.
What I discovered was the exact opposite.
Wrestling didn’t take away from my baseball officiating. It sharpened it. It exposed weaknesses I didn’t know I had. It strengthened areas where I lacked confidence. It forced me to grow mentally, physically, emotionally, and professionally in ways baseball alone never did.
And somewhere along the way, I realized this article is not really about officiating two sports.
It’s about pressure.
It’s about humility.
It’s about leadership.
It’s about becoming the kind of man who continues growing instead of settling into comfort.
Because comfort is where officials plateau.
Pressure is where they develop.
How Multi-Sport Officiating Changed My Baseball Officiating
Working multiple sports changed me because each environment exposed something different in me.
Baseball taught me mechanics, positioning, communication, and patience.
Wrestling taught me confidence.
The Army hardened all of it.
When I first started officiating baseball in Northern Virginia with MwhAC Umpires and NVBUA, I was still developing confidence in myself. I was learning mechanics, rotations, timing, conflict management, and how to carry myself professionally.
What accelerated my development was not talent.
It was curiosity.
At camps, while other guys sat in the stands talking, I sat beside evaluators listening to every conversation I could absorb. After my feedback sessions ended, I stayed there listening to how they broke down plays, positioning, communication, and decision-making.
I wanted to understand the craft.
Not perform it.
Study it.
Resources from Referee Magazine helped fuel many of these conversations around officiating growth, mechanics, leadership, and professionalism over the years.
That first year ended with me being named Rookie Umpire of the Year by the Northern Virginia Baseball Umpires Association.
That was the first moment I thought:
“Maybe I actually belong here.”
Years later, after retiring from the Army and returning to baseball officiating, I attended a three-man mechanics camp with Mid-American Umpires. Within hours, a respected evaluator pulled me aside and said:
“You need to come work for me.”
That was another one of those moments.
The game had slowed down.
I walked different.
Carried myself different.
Not because of ego.
Because confidence had finally replaced survival mode.
Confidence Is Earned Under Pressure
Wrestling accelerated that confidence faster than anything else.
The first thing wrestling taught me was this:
Being closer does not always mean you see better.
That applies on the mat and on the baseball field.
Young officials chase proximity because proximity feels safe.
Veteran officials chase angles, vision, patience, and perspective.
In wrestling, if you get too close, you start hyper-focusing on hands, hips, feet, or one tiny part of the engagement. Step back slightly, and suddenly you can see the entire sequence developing.
That transferred directly into baseball.
Angles over distance.
Patience over panic.
Observation over assumption.
Nothing happens until you make the call.
That lesson alone improved my baseball officiating tremendously.
But the biggest growth was internal.
Wrestling conditioned me mentally and emotionally.
You spend entire weekends inside hot gyms grinding through long tournaments, constantly moving, constantly observing, constantly making decisions under scrutiny while exhausted.
That develops something in you.
Conditioning matters because fatigue affects everything:
- judgment
- emotional control
- patience
- communication
- conflict management
- confidence
Tired officials rush calls.
Tired officials lose composure.
Tired officials communicate poorly.
Conditioning is leadership.
That’s true in officiating, parenting, marriage, ministry, and life.
The Game Will Humble You Fast
The second thing wrestling gave me was confidence under pressure.
Not fake bravado.
Not ego.
Real confidence.
There’s a difference.
Real confidence is visible in:
- preparation
- communication
- emotional control
- professionalism
- recovery after mistakes
- consistency under pressure
Anybody can act tough for one inning.
Real confidence shows up before you even step on the field.
It’s how you communicate with partners.
How you prepare.
How you recover afterward.
How you treat coaches when emotions rise.
How you carry yourself after you miss one.
And yes, officials miss calls.
That’s another thing people outside officiating completely misunderstand.
Most serious officials already know when they got something wrong.
We replay it in our heads for days.
We watch video.
Call partners.
Reread rules.
Review mechanics.
Question positioning.
Evaluate timing.
The game humbles you fast.
You do not need parents and coaches to do that for you.
The question is what you do after failure shows up.
Do you grow from it?
Or do you let it sink you?
That’s true far beyond officiating.
The biggest thing officiating exposed in me was my own ego.
It exposed:
- rushing judgment
- emotional reactions
- insecurity
- pride
- impatience
- validation seeking
- overconfidence
- indecisiveness
Officiating tells you a lot about yourself.
The mat exposes you.
The field exposes you.
Pressure exposes you.
And if you are honest, you either improve or you stagnate.
Why Officials Plateau
That’s why humility separates officials who keep growing from officials who plateau.
Just because you read the rulebook once does not mean you know the rules.
Just because you worked ten years does not mean you mastered the craft.
Some guys have ten years of experience.
Others have one year repeated ten times.
The officials who continue improving are the ones who:
- stay coachable
- seek feedback
- review film
- study rules
- prepare seriously
- stay physically ready
- remain curious
- continue learning
Ego blocks growth.
Humility accelerates it.
I’ve also written about how comfort destroys discipline in men, and officiating exposes that comfort quickly.
That lesson applies to everything in life.
What Parents and Coaches Don’t Understand
Officiating also changed me as a father.
Standing behind the plate and observing youth sports culture has taught me a lot about adults.
Too many parents push children with standards they don’t even hold themselves to.
We demand emotional control from kids while losing control in the stands.
We demand perfection while living undisciplined ourselves.
We project our ambitions onto children without ever asking what they actually want.
And the words adults speak around youth sports can leave scars.
You see it happen in real time.
The beautiful side of sports is that they can bring families together.
The dangerous side is they can also tear families apart when identity, ego, money, pressure, and validation replace purpose.
This connects directly to my essay on leadership beginning in the home because sports often reveal the strengths and fractures already present inside a family.
That’s why values matter.
Organizations matter.
Leadership matters.
Parents better pay attention to the environments they place their children into.
Not the shiny websites.
Not the accolades.
Not the social media graphics.
What values actually show up on the field?
That’s the real test.
Leadership Lessons Learned Through Multi-Sport Officiating
The same goes for officials.
If you want to reach a higher level, start acting like the level you want to reach.
Do the things higher-level officials do:
- pregame preparation
- rules study
- fitness
- recovery
- communication
- self-evaluation
- professionalism
Too many officials want varsity assignments while operating with JV habits. That never works.
I’ve written before about why standards matter under pressure because pressure eventually exposes preparation, discipline, and professionalism.
Organizations like National Association of Sports Officials continue emphasizing professionalism, preparation, communication, and long-term development for officials across multiple sports.
The Army used to say:
“If you want to be a soldier, look like a soldier, act like a soldier, speak like a soldier, and eventually you become that soldier.”
Officiating is no different.
And honestly, that’s life too.
Leadership is not yelling.
Leadership is not authority.
Leadership is steadiness under pressure.
It is emotional control in chaos.
It is understanding people.
It is knowing when to be calm and when to be assertive.
It is preparation before the pressure arrives.
And it is carrying responsibility when everybody else gets emotional.
The Internal Battle Every Official Faces
If there’s one thing officiating across multiple sports taught me as a man, it’s this:
“I’m capable of far more than I realized. But I’m also far from where I think I am.”
And the biggest battle I face is myself and the internal dialogue.
That’s the real contest.
Not the crowd.
Not the coach.
Not the assigner.
Not the partner.
The internal battle.
That’s the one every official eventually faces.
And maybe that’s why I believe working multiple sports matters.
Not because everybody should do it.
But because sometimes another arena exposes the parts of you that still need refining.
Maybe the next level of your development is sitting inside another arena you’ve avoided because of comfort, ego, or fear of starting over again.