The Journey · Day 17
Building the Umpire Program — Why I Put Eddie Woods in Charge
Journey Marker: Spring 2016 | Bouse Sports Complex, Choctaw — Building the People Behind the Games
Eight fields don't make a sports complex.
Games do.
And games don't happen without officials.
Once we had the Bouse contract and started preparing for leagues and tournaments, one of the first people I called was Eddie Woods.
I already knew Eddie through Deep Fork Valley football. He had been the football coordinator at Jones, and he had experience officiating high school sports. More important to me, I trusted him.
I didn't want to run the umpire program.
I had enough on my plate trying to operate a sports complex, work with the City, schedule leagues, organize tournaments and deal with everything else that came with Bouse.
What I wanted was somebody who could take ownership of that part of the operation.
Firsthand Memory
My recollection is that I told Eddie, in effect:
This is your program. Develop it. Train them. And when somebody has an umpire problem, they're coming to you.
He thought about it for a few days and accepted.
From there, I turned the umpire operation over to him.
Giving Someone Real Responsibility
Eddie wasn't just assigning names to games.
He recruited officials.
He trained them.
He evaluated them.
He umpired himself.
And when there was an issue involving an official, Eddie was the person responsible for handling it.
That is how I remember building BCM Sports.
I didn't want everything flowing through me.
If I could find somebody capable, give them responsibility and trust them to do the job, that made the entire operation stronger.
From the Historical Record
The later BCM Sports research summary describes Eddie's UIC role as a defined operational component of the Bouse model rather than simply a supporting role.
The later research framework identifies Eddie Woods as responsible for officials recruitment, training, evaluation, assignment and management during the BCM/Bouse operating era.
We Had Teams. We Needed Umpires.
I remember having roughly 60 teams connected to the league operation we were putting together.
The problem was finding enough people willing to umpire.
I first advertised rates around $20 per game.
Not much response.
We moved higher.
Still not enough.
Then I advertised $40 per game.
My memory is that the response changed almost immediately. I later described it as more than 100 people expressing interest practically overnight.
I don't present that number today as a verified workforce census. It is my recollection of how dramatic the difference felt.
What stuck with me wasn't the exact number.
It was the lesson.
Compensation mattered.
The next season, I remember structuring the rate as up to $40 per game, with Eddie helping determine where an official belonged based on experience and performance.
At the time, I wasn't studying labor economics.
I wasn't building an umpire-workforce model.
I was trying to get games played.
Looking Back
Years later, when I began developing the research that became Integrity of the Game, I came back to those nights at Bouse.
The later financial records showed just how significant officials were as an operating expense.
And our later research described the BCM experience as an early laboratory for understanding the officials workforce.
Lower compensation produced recruiting difficulty.
Higher compensation expanded the labor pool.
A strong UIC structure gave the workforce leadership and accountability.
That language came much later.
In 2016, it was simpler.
We needed people.
We needed them trained.
We needed them dependable.
And we needed someone responsible for the program.
Eddie gave us that.
Remembering Eddie
Eddie later passed away during the COVID era.
I still think about the role he played.
I have even thought about whether someday there could be an Eddie Woods Umpire School or something similar connected to the larger effort to professionalize and strengthen sports officiating.
Maybe that idea comes from Brian too.
When you've experienced loss, you begin to understand that names matter.
Stories matter.
And the people who quietly build something important deserve to be remembered.
“I didn't bring Eddie in just to fill umpire slots. I gave him the program and trusted him to build it.”
Question for the Reader
When organizations say they can't find enough officials, volunteers or workers, how often is the real issue not a shortage of people—but compensation, training, respect and giving people meaningful ownership of their role?
Next on The Journey
Once the leagues were operating and the umpire program was taking shape, another part of the youth-sports business began coming into view.
Outside tournament providers wanted the fields.
And I was about to learn that operating the complex, running the tournament, collecting the gate and controlling the event revenue were not necessarily the same thing.
Next on The Journey: When the Tournament Companies Came to Bouse — Learning Who Controlled What.
The Journey is a continuing first-person series tracing the path from family and memorial work through hands-on youth-sports operations and, eventually, toward research and reform.