ASK AN UMPIRE
A day in the life What it is like to be a professional polo umpire By Dana Fortugno
This month, rather than a question, let’s have a little fun. Instead of the same old rule analysis I give you most of the time, how about an inside look at what it is like being an umpire for the USPA? Could you do it? Would you do it? Next time you are complaining about your team loss and how it was the umpire’s fault, think about this article. Let’s see if you have what it takes to do what our 27 USPA umpires do all the time. Just for fun, we can skip over the qualifications and move to the job itself. We will assume you are qualified, meaning you have played polo for about 20-plus years, reached at least a 3-goal handicap (most have reached over 5 goals) and you have a solid concept of the game of polo. You have been trained by the USPA Umpires, LLC and passed all its evaluations. You have a few seasons under your belt. Now, here is what its like: The piercing alarm wakes you from a deep sleep on Friday at 3:30 a.m. You slip out of bed quietly, trying not to wake up your spouse, who hates it when you travel because she must stay behind all alone. You need to shower, eat something and be out the door by 4:30 to make your hour-long drive to the airport for your 7:30
Your umpire equipment takes up the room in your carry-on, so clothes go in a backpack.
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flight. It is a good thing you packed your bags last night! You manage to fit all your polo gear into a carry-on and your clothes into a backpack. You are off to your destination, hoping the flights are on time because you are scheduled to be on a horse at 3 p.m for the first of two games you are scheduled to umpire. You made it to the airport and thru the TSA checkpoint after explaining that your pick-up stick is not a weapon of any kind (you have an 80% chance it will not be taken from you). If they take it, that is $50-$100 out of your pocket and you better find one for the day’s games. Assuming all goes well, you land about 1 p.m. and are about an hour from the field. Great, you have enough time to get your rental car and a bite to eat, change into your whites and head to the field. That is, if the flights weren’t delayed, the rental car company didn’t lose your reservation or run out of cars. You get to the field at 2 p.m. and nobody is there. At about 2:30 the trailers roll in and the manager comes over to you, unloading the club drama on you in all of 10 minutes. All you hear is they are running a little late and they need to find you horses for the first game (you hope the horses are not green, you can only hope). You are ready to mount at 2:50 but you wait for everyone else to start mounting up. You finally mount up at 3:20 and blow the whistle. After answering a few questions and listening to how much
