It All Started Here: Jen Pawol

When Jen Pawol stepped behind the plate to umpire her first softball game in the early 1990s, the West Milford (New Jersey) High School student had no idea she was beginning a barrier- breaking journey.

On August 9, 2025, Pawol, 49, made history as the first woman to umpire a Major League Baseball game, earning a bases assignment for a doubleheader between the Miami Marlins and the Atlanta Braves.

Pawol’s officiating career didn’t start with big league aspirations, but from a suggestion of a high school teammate.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Pawol credited her start in officiating to Lauren Rissmeyer, a third baseman at West Milford, who asked if she wanted to umpire games for $15 each one summer. What began as a small opportunity quickly turned into a passion.

“I was hooked,” Pawol said.

A standout athlete at West Milford in multiple sports, Pawol was a two-time all-state first-team catcher who batted .548 and recorded 153 RBIs and 118 runs scored. On the soccer field, she recorded 30 shutouts as the team’s goalkeeper. In 2022, she was inducted into the school’s Athletic Hall of Fame.

Pawol went on to star at Hofstra University, earning three all-conference softball selections. She later played for the USA Baseball Women’s National Team and the Connecticut Brakettes of the National Pro Fastpitch League. In 2009, she committed herself to umpiring full time.

After officiating NCAA softball from 2010 to 2016, Pawol’s path shifted when then-MLB umpire Ted Barrett encouraged her to pursue professional baseball. Following a camp in Binghamton, New York, Barrett invited her to a clinic in Atlanta and then to an MLB tryout camp in Cincinnati in early 2015.

Pawol was later selected as one of 38 candidates for the Umpire Training Academy in Vero Beach, Florida, where she began her professional career in June 2016 in the Gulf Coast League.

Her steady climb through the minors included stops in the New York–Penn League (2017), Midwest League (2018), South Atlantic League (2019), High-A Midwest League (2021), and both the Double-A Eastern League and Triple-A International and Pacific Coast Leagues (2023). She also received Major League spring training assignments in 2024 and 2025.

According to the West Milford Messenger, Pawol has umpired more than 1,200 minor league games since 2016.

Including her historic debut, Pawol worked 18 MLB games as a call-up umpire last season. Hundreds of residents gathered at West Milford High School to tailgate and watch her debut, an event organized by the school’s athletic department. It’s been a long journey for Pawol, but her time as an MLB umpire could just be starting.

Jordan Morey is manager of communications and media relations at the NFHS.