Officiating?

Is there a clinic you must attend, in order to be a ref at a kids wrestling tournament? If so, then, in my opinion, many of the "officials" at the tournaments I have been to need a refresher course. For example, I am not a scientist, nor do I possess a physics degree, however, I maintain the fact that it is physically impossible to stand straight up, at full height and determine whether or not a wrestler(at your feet) is pinned.

There are clinics as well as area meetings...do kids officials "have to" attend...no. The best thing people can do for officials is find out names of the "good" and also the "bad". Go after and get the "good" ones for the big tourny's. The problem is that..there are so many tourny's going on, on a given weekend..both kids and high school. That there are not enough officials...esp in what people want.."good" officals. People do talk about the dislikes of what the "bad" refs do...start talking about what you like and see the "good" officials do. Maybe some officials will read and try and change to what coaches, wrestlers, and parents like seeing from the "good" refs.

Excellent point, I'll try to point out what I liked about the officiating, and maybe the refs will start to understand where I feel improvement is needed!

As a tournamnet director there are for sure Ref's I have asked not to be hired for our tournament.

They all make good call and bad calls, but the consistant bad positioning leading to bad calls is one thing I look for which means there are some lazy refs.

I heard awhile back one of them stomping and blowing the whistle for a pin, did this happen?

I can't confirm, but I believe it was in the High School forum about ref's being physically unable to perform their job.

I still laugh about it when I think of stomping and blowing his/her whistle for a pin.

It is certainly possible to see a fall while standing...for crying out loud....have someone lay on their back and just look--are both shoulders flat? That's a fall. If you can't see that while on your feet you need better glasses. What I don't think is possible is to see what is going on when you are 40 feet away in the stands.

I keep thinking that I'll start officiating some kids' tournaments...but last year I actually went and watched...after about an hour I decided there was way too much yelling, crazed family at matside, and folks who didn't understand the sport much less the rules.

So your basis is seeing a guy bridging on his back at your feet, you can tell if both shoulder blades are touching the mat without getting down to mat level?

Uneducated post! If for some chance you are an official who stands on there feet to judge a pin, please retire! On top of that, good luck finding officiating jobs!!

My point exactly Mr. Moses!

We had a match this weekend where a kid had a defensive pin that wasn't called and the kid ended up losing. After the match the ref came over and said he would've called if he had gotten over there to see it. I realize officiating is difficult, but their job is to make sure they get there to make the calls.

You didn't give that example in your original post. If a kid is bridged, he probably isn't pinned. And there are a hundred different situations where you might not be able to see a fall from your feet, that's why you do get down to see what's going on.

I think what you probably meant to say was that officials should use good mechanics which includes being down on the mat for near fall situations. The rules book and case book emphasize this very point and say that many near falls/falls are missed because the official is not in position.

No offical should call a fall while on his feet, that too is poor mechanics, whether he can see it from there or not. Get down and slap the mat.

Maybe you shouldn't call a fall from your feet as an official, but as a coach, I call falls from my feet weekly, and think I'm right......

On a serious note, and not to hi-jack your thread, but I appreciate when an official will start counting backs while he works to get in position to look for the fall....

A good source of info I was given to by an old ref quite a few years ago:

http://wrestlingref.com/

A tough job that to many take for granted. As a side note, I've found HS refs for the most part are a lot better then most of the kids refs, but like anything, people make mistakes. I've seen some bad HS refs too!

At the same time I try to live by the saying "never critize a man until you've walked a mile in his moccasins."

A lot of the kids coaches look rediculous arguing calls at kids tourneys...just saying from an observation. You can't argue judgement calls, thats just the way it is. It's a human judgement, based on what they saw, not what you think you saw. And that's ok. In the end it's still kids wrestling, hopefully it's some good mat time for kids that may or not maybe strong when they're in HS, hopefully strong and helping their HS team. Hopefully not disenchanted with wrestling because things didn't go their way and a coach or parent told them it was the refs fault and not theirs even though it was that close for the ref to call. Kids need to know if it's close and the ref makes a call that doesn't go their way and they lose a match, it's their fault it was that close.

Keep them accountable for their performance. It's not about wins or losses, but about how you perform. If you perform to the best of your ability then regardless if you win or lose, you wrestled well. In wrestling as in life, you will lose some close ones and you will win some close ones. People get caught up in the Wins or Losses and if a ref pushed it towards a loss, they look to blame them. Wrestling gives a tough platform to help kids get good training for life. You must pick yourself up after a loss and not blame anyone else, like a ref. Tough sport this wrestling. Wished my kid would have played tennis sometimes.

I did have something happen in Tulsa I couldn't figure out.

My boy my son was wrestling clearly got an escape towards the end of the period, no doubt.

The ref awarded the point and inbetweeen periods the other coach argued the call. It took 3 minutes to get the coach to realize the ref gave his wrestler the point. Holy cow I was laughing inside (eventhough we just allowed a late point)

Just thought of that when Paratroop said how goofy we look sometimes.

We (coaches and parents) know its just "kids" wrestling. But to most of these kids each and every match is a big match in there eyes. We ask our kids to give 110% every practice and every match. So I will never discount a match by telling a kid it just "kids". I feel that an official should treat evry match..yes every match, as if it was a championship match. If an official cant do that then take a break and get refocussed. The officials are, for the most part, only ones getting paid. Therefore, I feel they should be the most motivated to give effort and results. If official cant, then find places where matches dont mean anything and all is happy go lucky.
Yes I am a coach, parent, and even an certified official( i do high school down to kids). I feel I give complete effort in all 3 when I am involved in a match. Yes there are times when coaches and parents get zany( I myself a few times..lol) But for an offical to justify by saying "its my judgemnet" will lose credibility. I will always explain.."my judgemnt"..and what I base my call on. If coaches dont agree then I will tell the coach I am sorry and walk away..if I was in the wrong, then if possible we fix it, if we cant then I just apologize for the missed call and work harder to not let it happen again.
I have found that and after talking with other caoches and wrestlers, my style of officaiting is appreciated greatly. I just officaite how I like officails to do. Be verbal during the match(i.e. when awarding pts, counting nearfall, and when wrestlers get in boderline positions and holds). Coaches can hear what I am seeing and wrestlers know when control is gained or when scrabbling is still in neutrality.
Sorry for being so lengthly..but I feel some of this may help...Please get the names out on the "good" refs people like seeing and the likes they do.... Hopefully other will mold into what people like to see.

I encourage tournament directors to hire some of the younger officials. I watched a couple high school wrestlers ref @ the Burlington tourney they did a great job with their calls, very few coaches argued with any of their calls and with their youthful exuberance they dont have any problem gettin in position or up and down all day long! With all the complaints about the older refs, limited mobility, etc,.. its time to start giving the younger guys an oppurtunity.

Kevin Seybold

I have to agree with Schroeder that each match should be viewed as important to all involved. That's how kids gain the drive to move on and do better. I have seen too many officials that have the "its just kids club" attitude. Seems like its rampant this year.

I do have to disagree with AAA. While I have seen a few HS kids as officials that do well. However, more often I have seen the ones that are there for a paycheck and can't wait for the day to be over with the "typical" teenage attitude.

I try to give most the benefit of the doubt until I see a pattern. We had one kid a few weeks ago that had an obvious pin. Shoulders down and the bottom kid just layed there for a good 10 seconds and the pin wasn't called. The ref waited for the period to be over. He was down and watching too. Even the other coaches could see it was a pin. Started them again, our kid got down and he called a pin the second he was on his back (fighting). It's stuff like that that really gets you burning.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I have no doubt that folks have seen HS athletes officiate that did not do a good job. I happened to have hired 14 officials for our Burlington Open/Novice. I hired 4 High School student-athletes, 4 college age officials, and 8 experienced veterans with good qualifications. I asked the veterans guys to work with the younger guys. That seemed to work well also. We also kept our HS guys in with the 6, 8 and 10U group.

I was very impressed with how the day went for all 14 officials. Very few coaches called them to the table. Josh Lattimer was our head official and was only called in on 1 issue that went to the head official.

As Kevin and others have noted, we need to work these younger officials in to develop the next core group of officials for the MS and HS level.

It worked for us, and I hope others will consider helping these guys continue to develop!

Thanks for reading -
Doug Vander Linden
Burlington Wrestling