Akron teacher is first woman to umpire Big Ten baseball game
![Kelly Dine, of Hudson, recently became the first female to be an umpire in a Big Ten baseball game. [Lisa Scalfaro/Record Courier]](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2022/04/09/NREC/2de1c1e7-a709-410d-8cb0-fbde2fae3cb3-Kelly_Dine_040922_LS02.JPG?width=660&height=444&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp)
Kelly Dine fell in love with baseball the way many fans of the sport do – courtesy of a parent. Her father, a World War II veteran, loved all sports and she absorbed it.
“It was me and my brother, my mom and my dad. and growing up, we were very, very athletic so we were always outside playing football and playing baseball,” Dine said. “And so I played baseball, with my dad coaching us and my brother and I on the same team when we were younger. And then I just, I’ve always loved sports.”
Ultimately, Dine’s passion led her to her role as a trailblazer when she recently became the first woman to umpire a Big Ten baseball game.
Dine’s love of sports continued when she and her husband, Jeff, started their family and she took an active interest in their Little League games, eventually coaching and leading her down the path to umpiring, beginning at the Little League level.
A Hudson resident, Dine also built a career with Akron Public Schools, where she works as a biomedical pathway instructor at North High School.
She became just the sixth woman to umpire in the Little League World Series and the second to be a crew chief and home plate umpire in a Little League World Series championship game. Dine, who also served in the U.S. Navy, earning the rank of lieutenant commander, worked her way from Little League through high school softball and baseball.
By her own admission, she never expected to land at Ohio State University’s Bill Davis Stadium on April 5 when the Buckeyes played Youngstown State.
That’s some distance from Little League.
Kelly Dine takes in the moment
“So I really hadn’t even expected to work Division I baseball. And then the next thing I know, I had a Division I non-conference game in my schedule,” she said.
That first Division I first opportunity came when she umpired the Malone University-Kent State game in April 2019.
“And I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, wow — this is another goal that I achieved,’” she said. “And then I thought, ‘Maybe I’m at the pinnacle there.’ ”
Not even close.
To hear Dine speak of umpiring at Ohio State is to understand the hold that institution, with respect to academics and sports, has over many.
“I mean, working at Ohio State last week was just, it was exhilarating. It was a feeling I can’t even describe. And that turf, the turf itself was just luxurious,” she said. “I mean, I’ve been on turf, I’ve worked turf 1,000 times, but the turf was just beautiful.
“I mean, it was turning around and seeing the Buckeye on the scoreboard and thinking, “Okay, it’s not because somebody’s advertising the Buckeyes. It’s because I’m here. I’m on the field at Ohio State. And it didn’t matter that it was just cold and rainy. I had this phenomenal crew that I was working with. The three best guys I could have ever hoped to work with, and it just was awesome.”
![Kelly Dine of Hudson walks on the field to umpire behind the plate at a recent Mid-American Conference baseball game between Bowling Green and Kent State in Kent. [Lisa Scalfaro/Record Courier]](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2022/04/09/NREC/63eae033-b2c7-4003-8984-8b381764a945-Kelly_Dine_040922_LS01.JPG?width=660&height=480&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp)
Kelly Dine’s unexpected success
The prestige for a college umpire comes in working conference games because they are typically more important, she said. In that respect, she is very much on her way after she umpired in two Mid-American Conference series — the University of Akron-Toledo series in March and the recent Bowling Green-Kent State series in Kent.
“It’s not that I gave up or set my expectations anymore. I just know that to break into Division I baseball, you’ve got to be really good. I know that there’s a lot of minor league umpires. They’re professionals,” she said. “I mean, they’re pro umpires. We’re the minors and they’re typically the ones working D-I baseball, because like they say, they’ve gone through all that training.”
She realizes what she’s accomplished on the field and off the field.
And she acknowledges there’s a hint of pushback because she’s a woman.
“I have dealt with resistance,” she said, “and how much, it’s hard to quantify. I’ll know it when I see it, let’s put it that way… Yeah, you feel it in your gut, you just know as soon as it happens, right? But yeah, initially it was from people who just didn’t take me seriously. They just saw somebody who didn’t look like your typical baseball umpire.”
But she has generally found acceptance, she said.
“I just keep moving forward,” she said.
MLB still lags behind other sports
That’s not to say she doesn’t understand hurdles still exist for women who want to serve as umpires.
Although Major League Baseball’s San Francisco Giants hired Alyssa Nakkan in 2020 to serve as the league’s first female coach, there currently are no women umpires in MLB.
Only two women, both of whom Dine counts as friends, are umpires so far in the minor leagues and, by her count, fewer than 10 do so in college baseball.
She laments the fact her chosen a sport is behind the country’s other pro sports in the area of officiating.
The NFL has two officials, Sarah Thomas and Maia Chaka. The NBA, the league often viewed as being the most progressive, has six full-time female officials.
“Baseball, football, major league soccer, those main sports, for so long, they have not had females. They’ve not been very diverse,” she said. “And I do believe that football, major basketball, major league soccer, perhaps, maybe not soccer, but certainly football and basketball, are working hard to be more inclusive.
“And it’s been decades and decades of all of your officials looking the same. It is really hard then to break into that. And I know I’ve talked to Black umpires and brown umpires who have told me the same thing.”
A road to Major League Baseball?
That doesn’t mean that barrier won’t eventually fall in Major League Baseball. However, given the amount of time and her career as a teacher, getting to the majors isn’t on Dine’s list of goals.
“Basically, the only way you get into Major League Baseball is through the minor leagues. And the minor leagues is a six- to eight-year internship,” she said.
Dine understands that goals change, but she emphasizes that she never expected to be where she is now.
“My goal is simply to work college baseball,” she said. “and so the first game I work in college baseball is just exhilarating, because I’m like, ‘I’ve achieved this goal.’ “
Reach George M. Thomas at [email protected] or on Twitter @ByGeorgeThomas.
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