Mr. Cokeley,
I do appreciate your well spoken thoughts on this subject. However, I would still suggest that it may be more suitable, and cause less problems for all, if officials attended tournaments as officials only. Not, official/coach/father. I understand that there are extra officials available for tournaments for relief. I can just tell you that I would never knowingly hire an official who was a coach of a team attending, or who had a kid wrestling in the tournament.
Most officials earn every bit of the pay that they get by working tournaments. Tough job, lots of stress. I openly say that I could not do it, and do not want to do it. And yes, I would say that I saw this official make some terrible calls, and forget to give points (until prompted by coaches) in his hurry to get the kids back into the middle to continue wrestling. (That is not the sign of a good official) Yes he was checking out the other mat in between matches. No, I don't think he "pinned" anybody that was not pinned. (Regarding your comment on contacting the tournament director: When your sitting 10 rows from the ceiling of the building, cheering for and then consoling your kid who just lost because of a terrible call, w/o a coaches pass, it is pretty hard to make it down through the crowd, onto the floor, find the tournament director and tell him about a problem like this, that happened 2-3 matches past. As most parents who come to watch their kids wrestle would agree, this would be a tough point to make stick w/ a tournament direct in the middle of the states largest tournament.)
Still, I do question your thoughts on this being a "bogus beef". Correct me if I am wrong on this, but I believe that you are the same guy who thought it would be OK to work as an official at your own clubs tournament last year. Not to mention working as an official at this weekends Salina tournament, in which your club, and your son, wrestled.
I welcome additional comments from others on this topic.