I rarely comment in here anymore but thought I'd chime in on this. First and foremost I'd like to say I started officiating wrestling this year and in no way am I going to use myself as an example of what "good" is. I'm learning, relying on my experience competing in high school and working the sub-varsity matches I can get my hands on to improve. I also have a lot of experience officiating football and baseball, at the varsity and collegiate levels. My point is I've been around wrestling a little bit, and I've been around officiating a lot so I have following thoughts.

1) I agree with Will that a lot of officials are getting older and it would be good if the officiating crew got younger, their are however older guys who are doing a fantastic job. I certainly see crews getting younger at the college level in other sports. However, I'm a young person so I might be biased. I am, not however, campaigning for myself as a wrestling official. I wouldn't take a varsity tournament if it was offered to me simply because I still make too many mistakes on certain calls.

2) The problem with the assertion that the officiating needs to get younger is simply that while it's true, we have to have young officials (who are quality) to make it happen. Frankly there's a shortage of wrestling officials in the state regardless of age. There's like 263 wrestling officials. Over 1,000 football officials just for comparison. I'm rarely not the youngest guy on the mat, or field for that matter during baseball/football season.

3) Pointing out the problems are easy, pointing out solutions are difficult. Logically speaking, do I agree that hs officiating needs to improve? Yes. However, their is 1 way to make that happen and that's to have higher requirements, be it physical fitness, training, or a combination thereof. However, more requirements do 2 things. Drive up costs, for either officials, schools or the state, and drive officials away. We all know schools/state don't have any money. We already have a fairly light crop of officials so it leaves us in a tough situation.


I'll never sit here and be that guy who says that the officiating is great just because I'm an official. However, there's just logistical problems to improving it, especially in high school where money is tight and guys are doing it as a very part time thing.