Umpiring is a job that tends to get more hate than love, which is why two Agassiz-based softball umpires are on cloud nine after receiving awards from Softball BC for their longtime careers in blue.
Terree and Bob Cochrane have been ‘umping’ fast and slo-pitch softball in BC, Canada and overseas over the last decade.
This year, Terree was awarded ‘Official of the Year’ and Bob given the ‘Senior Umpire Service Award’ from Softball BC, an honour the pair can hardly put into words.
“It’s huge,” said Terree. “This award makes up for all the times that I’ve been yelled at,” she said.
Bob Cochrane’s career started in the Sardis area of Chilliwack, where he grew up playing ball with family and friends.
“Sunday on the farm we’d play baseball. All the family would be out there on the side lawn…all the aunts and uncles played and all the cousins, the Native kids we grew up with across the street, we had our own ball field.”
Those early days of ball turned into a lifelong passion when Cochrane started playing on leagues with friends.
Chilliwack Progress archives dating back to the late ’70s cover Cochrane’s career as an athlete, playing baseball on local teams – mainly his name appears as the hero of the game, making winning plays on the field.
By the early ’90s, Cochrane was an established umpire. It wasn’t long before Cochrane was ‘umping’ for leagues around the Fraser Valley, and in his later years umpiring national championships and provincials.
Meanwhile, Terree, a single mother, hadn’t played ball since she was a teen but was contemplating coaching her daughter’s fastpitch team.
“They had 14 girls who wanted to play and no coach,” she recalled. “I said, ‘I can’t coach, I don’t know anything, I haven’t played since I was 14.’”
She was hesitant, but her daughter’s league agreed to send her to an umpire course, and before long she wasn’t just coaching, she was umpiring minor league fastpitch in the Chilliwack area.
“I umped and did really well at it. It just clicked,” she said.
She remembers umpiring her first official slo-pitch ladies league game and being intimidated by the advanced teams.
When the back catcher asked Terree where she was from, she mentioned she had only umpired minor league games.
Terree says she’ll always remember how the back catcher replied: “Blue, we’re just minor ball kids who can drive ourselves to the games.”
“It relaxed me right away,” she said with a smile.
An umpire power couple
Not surprisingly, Bob and Terree met through umpiring, and both agree that the marriage is rooted in their mutual dedication to the game.
And they have each other’s backs, something that helps them both deal with the onslaught of backlash they, like most umpires, endure on the job.
Does Terree get treated differently as a female umpire? They both nod without hesitation.
“‘I’d call him and say, ‘I quit, they said I’m horrible.’ And he’d say, ‘no, no,’ let me talk to them,’” remembers Terree.
The couple agree that umpiring requires authority, conviction and the ability to shut down an unruly team.
“I always say, ‘Coach do you want to talk to [your team] or do you want me to talk to them? cause you won’t like it if I do it,’” said Cochrane. “There’s a game being played within this game, once you figure that out, it’s easier to umpire. Just know that they’re working you, and that’s what you should be looking out for.”
Under Cochrane’s direction, Terree has learned to put her foot down too.
“We’re officials, we call what we see,” she said. I don’t care if they won 30-0… we just yell what we see…Sometimes it just takes a stern: ‘That’s enough’ or ‘Coach this is your warning,’” she added. “If they swear right at you, they’re gone, off the field.”
Bob Cochrane is now semi-retired, but still umpiring. And after 38 years as a carrier with Canada Post, Terree is about to retire and wear her blue umpire uniform more than she ever has. She’s hoping to umpire fast pitch at the Canada Cup, and says the award will push her to do even more with her ball career.
“We’d like to be really humble…but this is huge.” says Terree, doing a little dance.
“It goes unrecognized. It’s like any job, what you get credit for are the bad things. Nobody phones when you’ve do a great job. So to be chosen is huge.”
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nina.grossman@ahobserver.com
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