Is it just me or does it seems like there is a huge power struggle between refs and their egos? I have a lot of respect for refs and know that no one is perfect. However, I do think so refs take advantage of the powers given to them to the extreme. Our club, in the past, have been criticized for being too loud or having too many people mats side… … but in the last three weeks I have experienced something very unique… I’ll call it the offensive and the defensive ref.

THE DEFENSIVE REF

I’ll take about him first because he is the most fun. The defensive ref is the one who blows a call then refuses to correct himself no matter how much he knows he/she is wrong. I have experienced this ref several times in the past years. He normally has a happy trigger finger and loves to hear himself blow the whistle and make calls. Then when he blows the whistle on a blown call he runs over to you and tries to explain himself just to justify his call. His pride tells him that he is the ref, he is perfect, and his judgment is final, but his heart, however, says otherwise.

I call this ref defensive because he goes out of his way to defend himself (herself) no matter what’s the situation.

THE OFFENSIVE REF

Not that I like defensive refs but I can’t stand the offensive ones. I encountered an offensive ref this past weekend and at state (funny how it was the same guy). At state one of my kids got pinned after being on his back for half a second. As you know coaches can get emotional as you really want your wrestlers to do well. Well after this spit second pin, my mouth dropped so fast that nothing could come out. He races over and tell me my wresters was really down for 3 second (one second more than the required two) before I even said a word to him (his intuition must have been in high gear) thus provoking me to question his 2 second “judgment” then of course I was threaten/ and reminded that he had the authority to remove me from the building…

The same ref this weekend in District 1 reffed a match we were in. During the match I screamed “that’s a reversal” the ref looks over at me and starts talking to me during the middle of the match… he says “coach you need to handle your business over that and let me handle mine in here I don’t need your help…” while he was yappin he failed to give us the reversal till 10 second later… can we say personal???

Another match at the Wichita Classic… I went to the table and stood there, and as ignored until I walked directly inform of the timekeepers. The ref comes over and start to yell at the top of his voice so I yell back.. “Can I speak” He says “ok” then listens to what I had to say.. in his defense, after the match he did come over to me any apologize for not letting me talk.

Now I know there are some coaches who like to provoke arguments with officials… and I’m not talking about them. I’m talking about the coaches, who show up, are cooperative, and just have a question about a legit questionable call.

The question I pose is… Is it against the rules for a coach to yell out calls? Like an illegal hold, out of bounds, or takedown. Should refs hold conversations with coaches or anyone during the match? Should refs threaten to kick you out the tournament because you disagree with them?

Keep in mind I have not nor have any coach in our club have ever been removed from a tournament. However, if I walk up to the table and ask for an explanation I don’t want to be yelled at or threaten by a ref. I know that there is nothing anyone will do to stop me from yelling and cheering for my wrestlers. If I am correct, the refs are paid to officiate thus should do so with professionalism, and restraint again all other outside pressures and influence.

If more refs knew how to listen to a coach then explain how they saw it on the match and why they called a call. Most arguments would never arise.

Well I was going to write a detailed response to that, but everything I could say I've probably already did at some point this year on here so I'll just summarize.

Officials are human, we DO make mistakes, but how much are you really going to whine about it before you realize that you are just talking to yourself?

Sometimes its much easier to place blame on officials than accept the fact that you lost a match. When you are down a certain amount of points and you perceive a quick pin, is it so hard to beleive that a kid was actually pinned for the slient 2 count which is all that is required for a pin?

The Most Important Point that could ever be made, before you go bashing on Officials and thinking that you have all the answers on what a good official should be doing or which are good officials and who are not, I suggest that as a coach you get yourself registered as an official and work about 3 tournaments. I guarantee you doing that time no matter how well you call matches, at some point you are going to hear at least 1/4 or more of the coaches you have contact with complain about calls which were blatently obvious. It is during this that you will realize why SOME officials have tured off their ears to coaches who "Just want to talk"

Nigel, how do you explain a refs position that does not do what is considered his job and gets removed from one gym to another because he simply does not know certain moves that constitute control or as simple as back points. I had seen 3 kids lose last weekend at Augusta because of this. I went to the other gym and he sat on his you know what and probably still got paid.
I understand you are a ref, but you also know that there is some refs that probably should not be out there because they cannot do there job. If they are inexperience then leave them to coach the novice where there is not so many high tech moves so they cannot hold the experience wrestlers back by cheating them of there knowledge.

While most refs do a good job under the circumstances, there are refs with grudges and power trips. We had an experience with on of those in Ottawa this past weekend. Our kid was in a head lock that appeared to have no arm. we were pointing it out to the ref, he kept saying there was an arm. While he was arguing, our kid put both palms down on the mat, while still in the headlock that supposedly had an arm in it. The ref refused to admit his error. Later in the match our kid was being choked, the ref again did nothing about it, (admittedly this time it was a judgement call) at the end of our match the boys father and a coach turned to me and said "that was bullshit". The ref then kicked him out of the tournament. While the language should not have been used, under the circumstances, the ref only through the coach out because of his own power trip. The missed call was huge, not so much in the match but for the safety of our kid. Most father's/coaches would tend to let their emotions overtake them when there is potential danger to their son. We had 2 kids in the finals, that had to wrestle without their coach, at least in part, because this young ref needed to show his power. By the way, for the rest of the tournament this ref gave dirty looks to anyone with our clubs shirts on, very mature and professional.

This isn’t ref bashing but just as coaches have expectations our officials should too. I can live with a bad call, or an official with poor judgment... I don’t like officials who are so arrogant that they feel like they don’t have to listen. There are some calls I will argue.. but a pin isn’t one of them (unless time is involved).. but like I said I can agree to disagree but if some refs knew how to handle themselves better a lot of problems would be resolved.

wrestling2005 I can admit there are some officials in our state who may need some help with their officiating. However to be perfectly fair, all of us have ways in which we can improve ourselfs. Heck even I still see new situations every week. However my point in this whole thing has been, I believe coaches and parents are going about this in a completly wrong way. So here is my suggestion.

If you have a problem with an official. And I mean a serious one, as in you are absolutly certain that said official is not calling something according to the rules, do not try to argue with him/her out on the mat because that is not going to yield positive results. Instead at some point in the tourny make it a point to find the head official, and ask them if they would be willing to watch the official in question to see if he/she is indeed not calling something according to rules. Please note you must not make it seem like you are whining about the issue, and that you have a genuine concern. The head official may be willing to take a look and if indeed he does see something being done wrong he may take the official aside and give him some coaching. I have done this in the past with other officials, and I've also been on the recieving side of this type of coaching when I first started officiating. This is the way we should be teaching our young officials and helping some who may have a wrong interpretion. It is a far better way than "Booing" a ref, or muttering things like "Oh that guy is terrible"

To be honest I have heard several officials this year say that they will not be back next year because they are tired of the abuse from coaches week after week, and they'd rather not throw people out. This is not a good thing for you coaches, if you don't give these officials time to develop you are just going to continue to get an influx of new officials every year and most of them won't make it more than a couple of years.