FAIRVIEW, Tenn. (WTVF) — Finding your voice isn't always easy, especially when everyone around you is ready to question it.
That's the challenge young aspiring umpires, referees, or officials might face. In Fairview, Major League Baseball umpire D.J. Reyburn is leading a free six-week leadership program through UMPS CARE Charities.
The clinic teaches kids the rules of the game, but also something bigger: how to handle the curveballs.
One of the first lessons? Make your call — and stick with it.
"So you make your call and you make your call confidently," Reyburn said to a group of the kids. "You make your decisions, stick with it, you'll be good."
The program also addresses one of the realities every umpire faces: getting yelled at.
"It's going to happen," Reyburn said. "So what we teach these kids is how to deal with it. So we give them the skills to be able to have that confidence when that does happen they don't internalize it and say, 'oh, I'm getting yelled at so I must not be very good."
Instead, Reyburn encourages the young officials to reframe the moment.
"You're not getting yelled at because the person behind wanted their son to be safe or out and you called the opposite," he added." And so you made the right call, and so have confidence in that and go home, hold your head up high and know that you did a good job so that they come back the next day,"
Beyond building character, the clinic is also addressing a practical problem.
"First off, there's a national shortage of umpires," said Jonathan Snider with Fairview Recreation Association. "We are trying to solve the shortage here within our local ballpark by creating these opportunities to teach these kids a valuable skill they can take with them throughout their entire lifetime,"
For Reyburn, the program is also personal.
"This is how I got started and so to be able to go back and kind of re-live that," he said. "I had some awesome former minor league umpires and college umpires that taught me."
Whether or not these kids make it to the big leagues, the lessons they're learning on the field may be their biggest call yet.
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