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    • Appleton umpire wins honor from Wisconsin high school softball coaches
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    Appleton umpire wins honor from Wisconsin high school softball coaches

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    APPLETON – Appleton’s Pat LaTour is a longtime sports official, in his 29th year as a referee after starting when he was 16.

    LaTour was recently named Umpire of the Year by the Wisconsin Fastpitch Softball Coaches Association.

    The Post-Crescent spoke to him about the award, his career as a referee and the concerns he has for the future due to the ongoing shortage of referees.

    What was your reaction when you heard you had been voted referee of the year?

    “That was so humiliating. I actually heard it from a coach who was saying congratulations before he was told. I said, ‘Congratulations for what?’ And then he sent me the picture of it. I found out about it on Twitter (X), to be honest. It’s very humiliating. It’s a coach’s award and that’s a big deal.”

    You started refereeing when you were 16. How did you become interested in that aspect of sport?

    “Well, I was never really a great athlete, so I would go to my brother’s baseball games and I thought I could referee in the summer. That’s how it all started and then it just kind of blossomed into a whole bunch of things.

    “I’ve refereed five sports. Up until last year, I played basketball. I play football, baseball, softball, volleyball and college softball. I’m a busy guy. I’ve been to the Babe Ruth Baseball World Series seven times and I’ve been all over the country. Not a lot of people in the area know that. A lot of umpires know that, but not a lot of other people.”

    To be a good official, you have to be able to do more than just quote the rulebook. What does it take to be good?

    “A lot of patience. That’s probably the best description. If you’re not a patient person, if you get upset easily, you’re not going to be a good official. You need a lot of patience. You need a lot of understanding. You need to be able to communicate. If you lack any of those things, it just makes it harder.”

    We hear about a shortage of officials and the need for more people to don the striped shirt. How big is the shortage?

    “For every new official we get, we probably lose five or six. That’s probably conservative. I think in baseball we’ve lost maybe 30. A lot of that is just aging and the nature of the business. It takes away the youngsters from being involved. Most of the new guys that come in are in their 50s. They’re empty nesters. Their kids have played and gone to college. There’s nobody home anymore, so they pick it up. We have a ton of high school kids coming in, but a lot of them are still playing. It’s hard to work around their schedules. We get a few, but just not a lot. At this point, it’s become a six-day a week job, especially during the high school season.”

    Is part of the shortage due to the increasing number of games at the high school level? Basketball, for example, used to be an 18-game season with varsity and JV. Now there are freshman games and 24-game seasons on varsity.

    “There are also youth games. Since I started, the youth games have probably quadrupled. When I started, you had high school and community teams that you worked for. Now that’s expanded to AAU basketball, softball, baseball, and you have tournaments. Probably 20 years ago, there were maybe two tournaments here in the summer. Now there are five or six every weekend. It seems like there are more and more. The number of games that people are working is almost unbelievable.”

    Earlier we talked about the qualities you need to be a good official. How about learning the rulebook? It’s a lot of pages with a lot of fine print.

    “It’s a huge book and you’re dealing with three books. A lot of people don’t understand that. It’s not just one softball book. You have the Federation book for high school games, you have the NCAA book for the NCAA and USA Softball for most of the summer tournaments. They all have little nuances and differences. It’s one thing to learn the book, but it’s another thing to apply the rules to the game that you’re working in. That’s what separates the good officials from the bad ones.”

    It is hard to understand how civil servants can see everything that is happening. How do you do that?

    “You’d be surprised how much video we use for football these days. We basically use the same type of training that high schools and colleges use with Hudl. We go in and draw on our video, cut out pieces, and we watch that stuff monthly. We have meetings and huddles and do stuff like that. A big part of it is that you’re only as good as your team and your partners that you work with. I’ve been fortunate. I’ve had great partners over the years. I’ve had good people to work with that have taught me things — what to watch, what to look for.

    “I always say that as an umpire, you have to slow down. It sounds funny because everything is fast, fast, fast. But I always think, ‘If you think you’re going too slow, you’re not going slow enough.’ You slow the game down in your head. What’s a penalty? What’s a foul? Ball, strike. Safe, out. Bang-bang plays. The more you do it, the more comfortable you get at it, the better you get at it, and the better you can see those things. I have a hard time watching a Packers game because I’m not looking to see who’s catching the ball. I don’t watch a Packers game as a fan. I watch it as an official. Same thing with baseball. I’m not looking to see who’s at bat. I’m looking to see what’s happening on the field and I focus on different things by being an official instead of a fan. I look for different things. It’s still the same. Fair, foul. Safe, out.”

    If you had to run a recruitment campaign for people who wanted to become civil servants, what would you say?

    “It’s the best place to be. You’re right up front at the game. To me, there’s nothing better. It’s like being in the front row at a baseball game. That’s the most important field to me. I love the game, so that’s a big part of it. And you’re outside. You get to work with the kids. You do it for the kids.”

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