At the recent 2009 Softball BC Annual General Meeting held in Kelowna, BC, an election was held for the vacant position of Umpire-in-Chief (UIC). The UIC position is a 2 year appointment and includes a concurrent 2 year appointment to the Softball BC Board of Directors.
Bob Henning of Surrey, BC, Canada has been elected as the new UIC of British Columbia.
Bob is highly respected as an enthusiastic and passionate instructor of softball officiating and is well known as one of the finest softball umpires in the world. He began his career working Little League baseball in 1967, and then elite level men’s Fastpitch in 1969, joined Softball BC in 1973, earned his Softball Canada Level V in 1988 and attained his International (ISF) certification in 1989.
Bob has umpired in 7 Canadian National Championships, 4 ISC World Championships, 15 Canada Cup International Women’s Championships, 2 NAIA National Championships, the 1994 World Masters Games, 2 International Challenge Cups, numerous West Coast Classic Invitational’s, the 2000 International Softball Cup help at the Olympic Stadium in Blacktown, ACT, Australia, over 25 International tournaments outside North America, the Australian, Canadian and New Zealand Senior Men’s National Championships all within one year and worked the 1993 ISF Junior Men’s World Championship at Red Lion Park in Auckland, New Zealand and the 2009 ISF Men’s World Championship held last July in at Bob Van Impe Stadium in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Bob has umpired in 7 countries and has taught seminars in Mexico, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil and has taught at most of the prestigious Softball Canada Blue Conventions. Additionally Bob taught at the Softball Canada National Umpire School and was an instructor at many of the Softball Canada advanced clinics. He also instructed 2 separate ISF clinics in China and stayed on to umpire the Chinese National Championship in Chungdu City, Sichuan including the Chinese National Games in Guangzhou, Guangdong.
Bob has been the UIC for numerous Provincial and Western Canadian Championships, the BC Summer Games, the Vancouver Challenge, many St. George, Utah Red Rock Invitational’s and was either UIC or DUIC at 5 Canadian National Championships including the 1990 Junior Women’s, 1991 Senior Men’s, 1996 Midget Boy’s, 2005 Junior Men’s, and the 2006 Junior Men’s Fastball Championships.
He will be in charge of a large program of over 1000 umpires that was previously run by the likes of Umpires -in-Chief Gordie McDonald (deceased), Wayne King, Tom Bell, Brian Van Os (presently the National Director of Umpires for Softball Canada), 1996 Olympic umpire Mike Hornak and the departing incumbent Michael Track.
Bob served on the Softball Canada National Umpire Staff for then NDU Wayne Brown, serving as a Deputy UIC in 2003 and was a member of the Softball Canada Officiating Development Committee (ODC). Bob is currently the Editor of the Softball Canada umpire newsletter ‘Between the Lines’.
You can contact Bob Henning at 604-790-1166 or e-mail him: brotherinblue (at) shaw (dot) ca.