Shaniel May looks set to become youngest netball umpire in history

BY: André Lowe

11 year –old Campion College student Shaniel May is already creating shock waves in the local netball fraternity as she is tipped to become the youngest ever umpire in the history of the sport.

Jut shy of her 12th birthday, Shaniel has already accomplished the challenging feat of mastering the Jamaica Netball Association (JNA) umpiring exam and is now only one step away from securing her official umpiring credentials.

It is indeed an aberrant occurrence for someone to be even remotely interested in netball umpiring at such a young age however, a few minutes with the youngster and it becomes forcibly clear that Shaniel is anything but a conventional high school girl.

The question of her introduction to the sport and the discipline of umpiring however, beg an answer. Shaniel explains that she has been playing netball and attending training sessions with her mother - who represents the Jamaica Defence Force in the national leagues and is credited as being her biggest inspiration - for as long as she can remember.

She further explained that she was at times asked to ‘umpire’ during pick up games between her mother and her friends, little did she know that she was sowing an ever-growing seed and advancing her theoretical knowledge and understanding of umpiring.

She is also a well-rounded player of the sport, with the ability to play at almost any position on the court and has represented her school at the under-13 level.

After over five years of ‘umpiring’, her mother’s pick up games, Shaniel was encouraged by a number of persons to participate in the umpires theoretical courses and sit the exam. Despite the fact that the exam generally returns a pass rate of less than 20%, with a slight shrug and a wide smile, Shaniel described the paper as simply “a little tricky”.
She believes that her playing knowledge of the game has contributed to her adoption of key umpiring fundamentals.

“As a player you realise and are able to determine the elements of umpiring and it becomes easier for you to develop an understanding on the umpiring,” she remarked.

Top JNA umpire Sylvester Campbell sought to further explain the magnitude of the youngster’s achievements.

“A lot of persons fail the exam for whatever reasons, the pass rate is usually extremely low…maybe most are simply just not prepared but it (exam) can be a little challenging,” he said.

Campbell, who has been perfecting his craft for over 20 years and has officiated at major tournaments such as the World Netball Championship and the Commonwealth Games, was ecstatic at the possibility of Shaniel’s addition to the JNA umpire core. He called for a renewed effort towards attracting younger persons to the field and advocated the establishment of more lucrative incentives as a pulling factor.

“The worst thing is that umpiring is not attracting young people or new persons to the game, so you find that the same set of persons come and take the test every time, so you find that the local umpiring fraternity has it’s hands tied behind it’s back. We really don’t have many options as far as personnel are concerned,” he lamented.

“We need to make it more lucrative or attractive so that more persons will be interested. We need to establish a programme, which will find ways and means to encourage others to come on board,” he continued.
While finding a balance between two different things is not the easiest task, but this has been Shaniel’s greatest accomplishment as she has been able to discover and cleave to the equilibrium of academics and sports.

Apart from spreading her time between netball, swimming, volleyball, squash and athletics, the youngster is also very determined to maintain her very high academic standard. She confessed that her balancing act does at times become challenging but shared confidently that she has determined a successful formula.

“I am very balanced naturally but it is challenging at times…you have to know how to manage your time and plus I genuinely like to study so academics is not affected by all the other stuff,” she asserted.
Despite her multi-faceted abilities, Shaniel is focused squarely on attaining her dream to become an international netball umpire and a lawyer. In a convincing and decisive tone she assured, “I will become an international umpire and a lawyer and I’m doing them both at the same time.”

She will however have to satisfy a few other requirements in particular the completion of the rudiments of practical training, through which her ability to actually umpire a game will be seriously tested.
Campbell was less than brave enough to doubt her ability to complete the training successfully.

“I have a very good feeling about her, she seems very mature for her age and she is highly intelligent. I am very hopeful that she takes it all the way…Umpires are the nucleus of the game and can make the difference, so we definitely need quality among our ranks,” he shared.