Don College staff have a wide range of experiences outside their work day, which enriches their contribution to student learning. In this newsletter we are featuring Darren Close, who when he is not teaching English, is a highly qualified cricket umpire on the national stage.

Darren began umpiring cricket at the age of 12, due to a lack of umpires in the North West. At 14 he umpired his first ‘A’ grade game and was fortunate enough to progress to First Class cricket (Sheffield Shield) at the age of 18 - a world record. He went on to do 20 First Class games and in this time umpired the likes of David Boon, Merv Hughes and Dennis Lillee. In his mid-twenties Darren got wanderlust and travelled to the UK where he lost touch with umpiring and ended up staying for 20 years. On returning to Tassie fiveyears ago, Darren returned to umpiring. Quickly progressing through the umpiring ranks he was selected to be on Cricket Australia’s Supplementary Umpire Panel (a group of six umpires from around the country who sit a level below the 12-member National Panel). In this role he has been called on to travel around the country and umpire two National U19 grand finals, two Women’s National Cricket League grand finals, numerous WBBL televised games (both on-field and as third umpire) as well as a fourth umpire role in many BBL games. He has also been lucky enough to umpire two international series, Australia v Pakistan U16s and Australia v Sri Lanka U19s.

Darren explains the following:

'When umpiring you have to show dedication, concentration and unbending impartiality. We take our performances very seriously and in Cricket Australia games we are required to do comprehensive self-assessments of our performance in each game. This involves reviewing decisions (using video footage) and your own performance on the field in terms of technique, field-craft, decision making, teamwork and areas for improvement. Attention to detail and PREPARATION are the keys to successful umpiring and are also very applicable to life in general. It’s a cliché saying but very true – Fail to prepare, prepare to fail! Each game we umpire is viewed by a match referee who prepares a written report and gives verbal feedback at the end of each day and game. This is very similar to the feedback we give as teachers to our students – What have you done well? What do you need to develop/improve? How can you do that? This feedback is then viewed by our umpire coach who we work with to take any necessary actions to help us get better (just like a teacher). These processes are similar to how you learn at college and are very applicable to life and certainly in the sphere of high performance sport and umpiring.'