A career Marine, Maj. Mike Gervasoni enrolled in a Major League Baseball Umpire Camp a couple of years ago to revisit an interest in sports and explore if officiating was an option for his life ahead.
He was struck by how similar it was to the life he had.
The qualities MLB's instructors stressed as vital for umpires were many of the same he learned and valued as a Marine. Gervasoni saw more than just an outlet for him; he saw an opportunity for the Marines. After a class he approached a baseball official, Rich Rieker, with his realization and an idea took root quickly and branched into an unexpected area: umpiring as an academic pursuit.
"Discipline. Authority. Commanding respect. The timing. The attitude. The preparation. The focus. The quick decision-making," Rieker said, listing the shared traits. "They're trained in focus, poise, preparation and watching things and making an instant call. That's the essence of umpiring. We're embarrassed that we didn't think of it sooner."
Two Marines are attending the MLB Umpire Camp in Compton, Calif., this week as "pioneers," according to one official at Columbia College in Columbia, Mo. With the assistance of MLB, Rieker and Gervasoni, the college has offered a course for a professional certificate in officiating. It is the academic equivalent of the certificates the college also offers in crime-scene investigation, human resources management and many other specialized skills.
The weeklong camp, which opened Sunday, is the capstone of the course, and after finishing it and a few more credit hours, two San Diego-stationed Marines will be the rookie program's first graduates. The plan is to offer the certificate every year, and the hope is that it grows from a Marines-only program to other military branches and then ultimately the general public.
"What we want to do is see how it goes with the first (class)," said Terry Smith, Columbia College's dean for academic affairs. "There are unlimited possibilities to this. Expanding to another Marine base, expanding to other branches (of the military). ... I'm confident in this program, and that it will be expanded."
The two Marines in camp and their studies represent the merger of three very different worlds: campus, ballpark and military base. Columbia College has vast experience in two of the three, with 18 of its 34 extended campuses housed on military bases and one of every four students at Columbia College being in the military or a military dependent. In 2005, an Army sergeant came up to Smith after a graduation ceremony to share a picture of himself hunched over a laptop, in full gear. He was taking a final, online, during a mortar barrage in Baghdad.
He passed the test.
Rieker, a St. Louis native and former big-league umpire, helped create the MLB Umpire Camps, which were launched in 2006 as an outreach program that featured on-field training and classroom work. The camp employs active and former major-league umpires as instructors, and while it's geared to help officials aspiring to umpire anywhere from American Legion to the American League, MLB does scout for prospects at the camp. Rieker said 25 umpires from the camps have been placed in the minors as umpires.
Gervasoni, who has been in the Marines for 23 years, attended one of these camps, sat in on the lessons, lined up in the boot-camp formation the umpires use for drills, and couldn't escape the parallels. He described the umpires as having a familiar "esprit de corps."
"A lot of the traits they're looking for are the same traits we find in Marines," said Gervasoni, who oversees recruits west of the Mississippi and their arrival at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego. "We say the Marines' job is to make Marines, win battles, and bring back to society a better person, or a more well-rounded citizen. That's all a part of it. This was a chance to give folks a set of skills that they can go back and utilize from day one in their communities. This can help something we always talk about — the transition out of the service and back into the civilian life."
With Gervasoni's help, Rieker and MLB's Department of Baseball Operations held several one-day umpiring clinics for members of the military. Rieker, who became an umpire supervisor after nine years as a major-league umpire, called one of the clinics his "best day on the job." From those, the academic aspect took root.
Columbia College already had the campuses available to Marines in Southern California, and led by Smith the school was eager to experiment. MLB reserved some spots at the weeklong camp for students. With Rieker's help, Smith pieced together a curriculum, drawing from liberal arts disciplines, for a course in officiating that would be offered only to active-duty Marines at the bases near San Diego. Twenty students enrolled, and in March, 15 were close to completing their first course: Psych 260.
This week's camp is considered the "internship," and the two students who have made it this far have already finished online courses in Applied Psychology, Understanding Human Communication and The Sociology of Sport. (A third Marine completed the coursework but was unable to attend the camp.) All of the courses were selected for how they related to managing egos, imposing authority, conveying rules and other things an umpire may have to do in a minute or less. The theory presented in the classes is set to be applied in the camp.
"It's a little early to talk about whether it's been a success until after they've gone through the camp," Smith said. "The biggest surprise is that this started with 20 brand-new college students. They had never taken a course before. They jumped in at the deep end of the pool. We did have some attrition, but starting off college online on active duty — that's a tough way to do it. They're kind of the guinea pigs."
One of the Marines who has reached the camp, Sgt. Lalaine Reyes, said she didn't play sports until joining the military and happened upon the course "kind of by random." She has spent four years in the Marines and saw an opportunity to pursue higher education and prepare for a potential career.
"I've learned a lot about the mind-set that it takes," she said this summer while completing the psychology course. "You don't have to look for trouble (as an umpire); it will come find you. How do you handle that? ... The important thing is to have them play the game the right way."
Her only hesitation about the certificate is the sport.
She'd like to ref basketball.
Some active major-league umpires, on their way through San Diego for a Padres series, visited the students in the program this past season, and served to show how difficult it is to reach that level. The program's coordinators are careful to tell students that the certificate is not an invitation to the majors. Like the course itself, it's a start. It's possible that the course will be offered at other Marine bases, then with other military branches and ultimately, as Smith said, "to all other students."
Rieker said the long-term goal is three-pronged: "Help Marines transition into civilian life, get the education element that will help them down the road and, yes, identify some potential prospects," he said. That last prong could become a scholarship to umpire school.
The Marine with the original idea conceded that he was disappointed by the class shrinking from 20 to two, and Gervasoni added that a culture of "prove it" might mean the program needs a few years to gain traction. He described the program as blending the two "common desires for military folk, Marines especially" of being involved physically in something and pursuing higher education. Getting a former Marine, his or her Columbia College certificate in hand, behind the plate in a community would be a good first step toward expanding the pool of students and then expanding the reach of the course.
"The real success would be the day that you do this interview with someone who was in the program and is getting ready to ump the College World Series or a major-league game," Gervasoni said. "There are a lot of small steps along the way, but that would be validation. ... It just has to start somewhere."
