Officiating sport contests requires much personal control and poise, self-confidence, and a thorough knowledge of the rules and mechanics. Accepted as a part of sport, through exhibitions of improper player, coach, and spectator behavior, is criticism of officials. The impact of such criticism on the self-esteem of the official appears to be a key question and prompted this research. The study problem was to determine the gender and rating difference in self-esteem, if any, of Amateur Softball Association (A.S.A.) officials of the Greater San Joaquin Valley (GSJV) Metro. Specifically, the study compared the self-esteem level of: (1) softball officials and the normative population; (2) female and male softball officials; and (3) rated and unrated softball officials. One hundred softball officials were used as subjects for this study. The officials completed the Culture-Free Self~Esteem Inventory (CFSEI) and a Biographical Data Questionnaire. The inventories were hand scored and the t-ratio technique was used to compare the mean scores of the officials and the normative population, while the APP-STAT program analysis of variance was·used for the female/male and rated/unrated comparisons. All null hypotheses were tested at the .05 level of significance. It was determined that (1) Softball officials had a significantly higher level of self-esteem than the normative population. (2) No significant difference of total self-esteem between females and males was discovered. However~ the females had significantly lower personal self-esteem than the men. {3) Rating status was not a significant factor in the self-esteem level of softball officials. It was concluded that {1) The self-esteem level of A.S.A. officials, of the GSJV Metro, greatly exceeds that of the normative population. {2) Gender and rating status are not significant factors in differentiating self-esteem levels.