Umpire Profile

Umpire Profile

Collin Agee

By Gary Reals

Blues, where do we begin with Collin Agee? There’s just so much there. It’s kinda like Mardi Gras. Which way do we turn? And there’s no such thing as a bad turn.

Collin’s been a top flight umpire with NVBUA for a quarter century. “I love it! It’s been very rewarding,” he explains. As a young man, growing up in Cleveland and western New York State, Collin was an ace baseball pitcher and slugger. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy, West Point. While there he hosted a weekly comedy show on the cadet-run radio station, WKDT. He did the play-by-play of Army basketball during the early coaching career of Mike Krzyzewski, who would later become famous as “Coach K” in a dazzling career at Duke University.

Upon earning his degree and an Army commission at West Point, Agee spent the next 20 years deep in military intelligence. It all began with field training and war games in the Mojave Desert. He vividly recalls one day the temperature hit a sweltering 117-degrees. We’ll get back to his career in military intelligence in a little while. But, Blues, let’s get down into the weeds, to the really important stuff, eh.

Beginning when Collin was a youngster growing up in Cleveland, he’s been a die-hard Cleveland baseball fan his entire life. Most of those early years the Indians were more or less a .500 team. But the young Agee boy indulged them. You see, Collin had an “in” with the Indians. His grandfather was a member of the team’s medical staff and the young grandson got to tag along with Grandad to attend the annual team picnic! Screw the games. Let’s go eat and meet!

When Collin was still a youngster his family moved to the small town of Clymer in far western New York State. In that small town with a high school of fewer than 100 students is where Collin Agee shined brightly both scholastically and athletically. As a slugger and captain of his high school team, his batting average was .400. He was elected to be the Secretary of his Class. Those accomplishments at Clymer High School paved his way straight to West Point.
He arrived there in 1976 in the Bicentennial Class. Collin majored in national security and public affairs. He was a left-handed pitcher with an era of 1.13 as a rookie on the JV baseball team. However, it was by no means all studies and sports at West Point. Oh, no.

For those of us who’ve had the pleasure of partnering up with Collin, you probably became keenly aware of his propensity to occasionally crack a joke with a coach, player or parent, often starting pre-game and ending post-game. It goes back to his days at West Point, Blues. That’s where the young Agee guy hosted the weekly comedy hour on WKDT Radio. And West Point also is where he became the voice of the Army basketball team in the early days of Coach K.
Second Lt. Agee earned his degree in 1980 and, of course, was sent directly to the Mojave Desert which was the first of so many stops in his 20-year military intelligence career. Now if you’re going to be an intel analyst, it might come in handy to be a jump master, ya know it? Now Blues, hear Collin: “Whenever I jumped, I was afraid. That led to making good decisions under stress.” And this distinguished baseball umpire sees a “certain synergy in this ability to function under stress” with some of the whining and crap that occasionally arise on our baseball fields, even if it is a little closer to the ground.

During both the military and civilian phases of his career, Collin served with the likes of Gen. David Petraeus and Colin Powell among others at the US Embassy, Baghdad, during what was called the Surge in the early years of the newly formed Iraqi government post-Saddam Hussein. On one occasion while Gen. John McCain was doing a live interview with CNN, Collin recalls they were shelled by Iraqi resistance. Fortunately, no one was injured. During much of his 10 months in Iraq in 2008, Collin helped lead the effort to combat Improvised Explosive Devices (IED’s). Suffice to say he had his hands full.

In 1994, Agee spent 5 weeks aboard a ship as part of the multi-national, UN approved mission to overthrow the dictatorship in Haiti. It came to a peaceful conclusion when Pres. Jimmy Carter led negotiations with the Haitian leadership in what was the first time ever the United Nations authorized the use of force to restore democracy in a nation. Col. Collin Agee was there.

After all that action, Collin chose to retire from active duty after being assigned to command US Army recruiting operations in Los Angeles. It just wasn’t his cup of tea, thank you.

Naturally his prestigious military stint led to a civilian career in intelligence for 25 more years. One of his first positions as a civilian intelligence analyst brought Collin back to the Pentagon. The year was 2002 and of course the sprawling headquarters of the US military command was then undergoing renovation from the September 11th attack. And it was just a few years later Collin found himself back in Iraq, this time providing intelligence in part to government officials in the new Iraq, post-Sadam Hussein.

But Blues, just as Collin was launching the civilian phase of his intel career, this old baseball player and fan entered another entirely new beginning. Agee took another jump, this time dropping into the MAC umpire world! It was a smooth landing indeed.

“I caught on pretty quickly,” he recalls. “As a former player, one has a second sense of what MAY arise,” he continues, “but all the stuff you thought you knew was not always the case.” One of Collin’s main “go-to’s” in those early years was NVBUA rules guru Greg McEvoy. “He was extremely helpful,” Agee recalls. Actually Greg says Collin “keeps me on my toes. He’s so damned inquisitive, he wants to be a complete umpire, knowledgeable of all aspects of the game.” Collin confesses “I always called him later if a rules issue arose during a game.” And McEvoy doesn’t begrudge him a bit, “I became a better instructor because of his inquisitiveness.” And Blues, 20 years later, they still chat occasionally on rules related issues.

Another MAC umpire Collin got to know earlier from the convergence of their military intel careers was Brian Pedrotty. “I think the world of him,” says Brian. It’s not just Collin’s inherent knowledge of the rules and control of a game, says Pedrotty, “it’s his honest evaluations and suggestions on how to improve that’s so important for young umpires.”
Yang Xie is another NVBUA Blue who’s spent much time with Collin over the years. “He really knows his stuff,” says Yang, “and we always have a great time. He makes it really easy for me. I don’t have to worry about anything….just myself.” Yang continues, “you always learn new baseball nuances working with him.” Ah, but Blues there’s an extra component with Mr. Agee: FUN!

Brian Pedrotty observes, “there’s an endless supply of funny jokes….or, not so funny. Sometimes he’ll walk over to the fence and just start telling jokes.”

Yang Xie has experienced it too: “It’s one of those things with Collin. You know it’s going to be great. He makes it easy. You just have to endure his humor.

Blues, what you need to grasp is Collin Agee’s umpire life is multi-faceted. “Fundamentally, all those years I played baseball, someone umped for me and now I’m giving back to the game. I love it! It’s so rewarding.”
Of course there’s the physical aspect too. “For years my job has been extremely sedentary….sitting at a desk and going to meetings. So, I like the physical activity.”

And there’s the social aspect of it too….with the players: “I enjoy talking with the kids especially in rec ball.” And with the other umpires too: “It’s so cool to have a good partner and to know that you and he did right.”

Brian Pedrotty points out the beneficial aspects of such an umpire attitude: “He has such good control of the game and he’s so good-natured those coaches tend not to get too rattled.”

As another baseball season rolls along here in 2026, Collin Agee is showing no signs of slowing down or petering out. He worked several early state tournament games. And just a couple of weeks ago, you could have found him at 1st base in the Class 5 State Championship along with Mitch Evans, Darren Schuberg and Dave Maher.

The high-level affair pitted Glen Allen vs Great Bridge High Schools. Unexpectedly Agee was a little disappointed in his maiden voyage to the state finals country. He says the game was “completely uneventful and uncompetitive.” Dave Maher, who was Collin’s neighbor over at 2nd base, got most of the action with a few bangers, but agrees overall it was pretty uneventful. Maher also agrees Agee had a pretty relaxed night over at 1st, “the calls he made were not difficult.” In the end, Great Bridge came roaring back to win the Championship by a wide margin.

So what’s next for Collin Agee? He’s working less on the intelligence front, which previously held him back from college baseball assignments. Not surprisingly, he says “it would be really cool to do more college and higher level games.” But the other side of the coin: “I recognize I’m getting older.” He now has a personal trainer. Collin is fairly content presently, “I’m putting my expiration date off a few more years.” And Blues, a few more years are sure to offer up a lot more strikes, double plays and jokes.