Tip of the day...you can do both--count down and watch the action. At our supervisor's meeting this year we went over some mechanics on how to position yourself so that you could watch the action while having the clock in your field of vision. That applies without an assistant and it was a good technique. It puts you in a better position to know the time through-out the match and still keeps you in good position most of the time to see both the action and the clock. So there's no confusion, you don't sacrifice good positioning to keep an eye on the clock, you just position yourself as often as possible so that you can keep the clock in front of you. Generally, clock watching, by either the official or the wrestler is bad form....

With an assistant, the assistant does not need to be staring at the clock for the last ten seconds...most officials will have a system...the asst. will call out "10" and give a verbal count, if at all, from 4 down to "time."

As an assistant, there's no reason to stare at the clock once you confirm you are at four seconds, you can watch the action and count down in your head, which is what the head official ought to be doing as well as soon as he hears "4"...when you hit "1" in your head, glance up for a last, split-second, confirmation, if you must, that you are still in sync and yell "time."

That also works when you are working alone and realize the towel tapper is texting or chatting and won't be there to help you. Just grab a look at the clock in the last 10 seconds and count yourself down to zero without looking at the clock. EZ.

We are supposed to practice our NF counting so we get that right and not give points too quickly or slowly. There's no reason an assistant can't accurately count down the last four seconds without relying upon a visual of the clock for every last second.