Kate Withers
Blake Gittos may only be 17 years old but he boasts the wisdom and resilience of someone well beyond his years.
On Saturday he became the youngest person in the Latrobe Valley Umpires Association to umpire 200 games of football. He has learnt a lot along the way.
On how he deals with the inevitable flack and criticism that comes with umpiring, Gittos said he rarely takes it personally.
“When you cop a spray you just need to brush it off,” he said.
“They’re not angry with you. They’re angry because it didn’t go their way and they’re upset with themselves so I don’t let it get to me.”
The double century came in the Mid Gippsland senior competition between Hill End and Yarragon and the umpiring fraternity turned out in full force to celebrate the milestone.
After six years in the business Gittos has come to revere his peers who have become somewhat of an extended family.
“It’s pretty much another family for me,” he said.
“Being an umpire, I love it because you have another family and it’s an easy job because there’s no resume needed and there’s always other people out there helping you.”
He started off on the boundary as an 11-year-old umpiring players much the same age as himself in an under 12s game.
He progressed through to fourths, thirds, reserves and then senior football and marks last year’s run on the boundary for the Gippsland League grand final between Leongatha and Maffra as a highlight.
“It was a really strong game, plus there were a lot of argumentative people because it was such a big game,” he said.
“The boundary [umpires] do cop a lot more than the field but I can ignore people from the boundary side which was pretty good.
“Even though it was a grand final it was just a normal game, except at the end there’s only one top team so I just thought of it as a normal game,”
The year 11 Churchill Kurnai student used to officiate up to three games a weekend, totalling nearly six hours of football on a single day, but said “you don’t have to be really, really fit” to be an umpire.
“It’s pretty easy. As long as you can run 10 kilometres … you don’t have to sprint the 10 kilometres,” he said.
