Top to bottom, likely the best crew I have ever seen. Having a great crew is an often-overlooked yet critical aspect of what makes a great tournament. This was our first year attending the TOC. We will definitely be back every year for many reasons, and the great officiating was one of them.

One ref in particular definitely stood out to me, perhaps just because I had never seen him before. If you took two steps backwards, Bill Halas would put the fist in the air. If you didn't attempt to stay in bounds, you were hit (without warning) for fleeing the mat. In our first match with him on Friday we were hit twice for stalling and once for fleeing. Afterwards I told him, "THAT'S how every high school match in Kansas should be called." He replied, "I drove down from Utah to watch wrestling, not to watch guys looking at each other."

And you know what happened? After that match we had a 2 minute team meeting where I had our guys watch him officiate so they would know his expectations. Then, from that point on when he officiated our matches, our guys were at their absolute best. Our guys pushed the action and they constantly attempted to score points, because they knew they were going to get dinged if they didn't. Great officiating and calling stalling without hesitation brings out the best in all wrestlers.

The other officials were fantastic as well. I don't want to leave anyone out, so as soon as I get the list of names put together they'll be posted here as well to get the recognition they deserve. Great job, zebras!

It'd help our kids' club kids on the national level if this sort of mentality was instilled during all of our local tournaments. Thank you for your post!

Damon,

Thank you for this post. The officials need to be raised up and not put down. Lord knows we are not gaining any referees. I am all for pushing the action. I think the officials are working through finding consistency and by the end of the season, we will see more consistent calls. As stalling goes, the wrestlers who only wrestled 15 seconds of each period and push a kid off of the mat with their surge of action should not warrant a stalling call to reward their long rest periods.

Either way, I know that the officials we have had over the last several years have done their best and no official has greatly impacted the results of our matches, which means that I may disagree with a call or two, but the officials aren't standing out as someone to blame. I see some coaches calling the referee to the table for every call and slowing down matches as a tactic. I would like to see more coach misconduct calls for wasting the official and the wrestlers' time.

Can officiating be improved sometimes? Sure, it can, but these guys officiate a ton of matches during the day and they are human. The most positive thing we can do is to compliment those who are keeping our sport alive and encourage more young officials and recruit more of our wrestlers to become officials--like Dylan Eck, who was most likely at the tournament Damon is talking about and he does a great job.

Stay positive and our wrestlers will learn not to blame officials for the results of their matches and we will retain and be able to recruit more officials. We need to train kids and parents to stay positive too. The kids level is where officials choose to keep officiating or not and there are too many coaches screaming at officials at close range and scaring them off, unfortunately, and this needs to be policed and changed.

This is a good post. Good comments. Important to keep in mind