I think that after yesterdays display of one refs knowledge of moves and assignings points that maybe some of them should be ejected from tournaments. I will say that after several kids receiving injustice the official was finally asked to leave the gym. My question is why does it take so many times for this to happen? I had seen 3 kids lose matches because the official did not have a clue on how to give points and another almost lose from the same. I believe it pretty bad when it takes the refs and coach disagreement to have another ref intervene and tell the ref that made bad calls he was wrong. Unfortunately 3 wrestlers went home thanks to one bad ref.

I have to agree. And you can probably agree that some refs partiallity over some kids. Particularly if they do not like a certain Club. I know one of my boys while he was with a certain club to remain nameless had a lot of bad calls and lost a lot of matches due to a ref not giving points that should have been. That is being very unfair to the wrestlers. If they earn the points give it to them. Forget who they wrestle for, or you do not like the coaches. The kid is the one who is going to hurt from it not the coach.

last week in the finals of sub district i asked a official why my wrestler did not receive two points on a throw that he ended up on top and would have put him ahead for good insted of having to go two over times before we won and i was told he did not want to. all the people that were watching it asked the samething. they do make mistakes and the anser i got should never been said in this way and if you think a lot of coaches would have walked away like i did your wrong, we did win the match but the way he said it just maid a lot of people mad. this is one reason there are so many people mad in the sport of wrestling its not just the coaches that make for a bad feeling its also a few of the refs. please coment of your thought.

I agree with you. It seems that these refs are getting careless and lazy. In District 2 we have seen a couple that rather than them laying on the floor to watch for the pin, they will count the near fall from their feet. Why? What in the world can they see from up there? Are they going to clap for the pin? Yes some refs do make mistakes and the good ones will admit to it, but what is wrong with the others????

My favorite refs are the ones you don't remember cause they do such a good job. I may not like the ref's style, but if they are consistent then they have my respect. Then there are the ones you groan when they walk out on the mat - the ones who gaze in the stands instead of watching the match, the ones who won't get on the mat. There was one last weekend I swear had to be drinking, his behavior was so odd.

I will be the first to make sure that if a Ref is doing a good job whether or not my team wins my wrestlers will shake the refs hand. As for last Sat at Dist 2 my son was one to head home very mad and thinking that the ref had something against him. When we stepped on the mat he was already upset by the fact that the ref was one in which wrestled with him a couple of years ago. He had a controlled take down for over 30 seconds and refused to give him the points. In the 3rd period he had the crossbody ride and had met the criteria for back points and the ref refused to give it to him. The only thing I know is my son is not going to state and he did his job and should have but on the other hand the ref is not going to state either. at least there will be 1 less bad official at state this year.

It's hard to wrestle your opponent and the ref at the same time.

Aparently its a lot harder to take responsibility for your own self and instead blame it on a referee. My coaches used to always say "Don't ever let the match be close enough where an official would get the chance to decide for you"

Easier said than done sometimes. When kids are evenly matched it is the responsibility of the referee to make sure he is making the correct calls.

Nigel you are right on here. You should never put yourself in a situation where an official can make a call that will determine the outcome of a match...I tell that to my wrestlers all the time. What we are talking about here are officials who go out and do not give 100% each match. I have in more than one occasion had officials talk to one another, actually turning their head away from the action, during a match. Walk around to check back point criteria and stand on the edge of the mat with their whistle in their mouth and officiate away from the action. This is not about a judgement call or even an interpritaion of a rule. This is being a position to make the right call. Officials are on the wrestlers to keep the action up, so the officials should at least be able to move with the aciton and keep their attention on the match at hand. I feel as a coach we can argue postion on the mat to make a call and we can argue their attentiveness to a match. The bad thing about this is I know that the officials I am talking about here would take that as a judgment issue and give the line "that is what I saw, coach." And there is nothing I can do after that. They should be working as hard as the wrestlers to ensure that the match is called correctly. We can not continue to allow lazy officials out on the mat. After that, I would like to commend the officials at the DII tournament that did work hard and I think that other coaches should do the same. They are out there for the love of the sport and deserve to be recognized. Those who don't should be open to CONSTRUCTIVE CRITISIZM by other officials and coaches and realize the needed room for improvement. And as always keep up the hard work. See you all at state.

My biggest complaint against some officials, are the ones that think they have to get their big butt down on the mat before they actually start the backpoints count. By the time a couple of those guys get to the mat, they should have had at least a 2 or 3 count, but by the time they get there, the kid fights his way out of it, and the ref gives us the ole' "rollthru" signal.

Most refs do a fair job. LIke I've said on here before: you usually have a bad call go your way, for every bad call that goes against you.

nigel-
if a wrestler is pretty evenly matched with another kid and they both wrestle well the ref could screw it up. while your advice sounds great, we all know(including you) that it is not practical. if you wrestle a high level and get a good wrestler who is wrestling well there is a close match. and if the ref says that he doesn't give you two points becuase "he didnt want to" then thats wrong. you cant say, well, you should have won by 5 so it wasnt an issue...while i dont advocate bashing refs on a questionable call, there are some horrible situations out there.

I hate to see officials feeling for the pin instead of actually looking for it. Isn't that a big no no? It was when I officiated!

JAB it can be done either way, quite honestly sometimes you have to feel rather than look because you can't see, the best example of this is a cradle, you usually can't see under the nesr side shoulder but you can get your hand in there.

Brent, I know the official who made the comment "He didn't want to" And I also know the circumstances behind it. I will share with you just to clear the air. The official in question did not feel like he was obligated to explain why he made the judgement call that he did. Maybe he made a bad call, maybe he didn't. Iregardless it WAS a judgement call. But instead of saying something tactful like "That is what I saw" He choose to use the phrase he did. Do I agree with that? Not really, however I do understand the frustration on his part, After hearing coaches whine about calls all season long when most of them were probably right you can imagine how some officials can get defensive. You really can't win no matter how good of an official you are, everytime a judgement call is made, one side is going to be satisfied and the other is going to be mad. I myself have only had the displeasure of having a coach question me 3 or 4 times this year over judgement calls, 2 of those times they went overboard and I ejected them.

No. I disagree. All you need to do is be in the right position. There is not a cradle I know of that you can't see near fall.

If you say so, why don't you stop by Manhattan sometime, and I'll demonstrate it for you.

Which reminds me there are also situations where you have to jump from side to side to make sure both shoulders or pinning area are down, and by the time you get to the other the other shoulder may be up, its much easier to get a hand under there to be sure.

By the way the answer to your original question is no, in fact not not feeling for pins in situations I described earlier and many others is likely to make coaches more mad than not.

How does a an official get ejected? That makes no sense.

Yes I agree it is for lack of better words a stupid post and a stupid idea. I suppose from now on we'll just have votes after every round to see which officials shoudl stay and which ones will go?

I agree on the topic of ref misconductI have been around the wrestling scene for over 20 years everything from local to state to nationals, and I have never seen the amount of bad calls as I have this year. I worked a table for the older kids at subs and the ref we had on our table made bad calls all day. It seem like almost every 2-3 matches coaches and the ref would meet for discussions on the mat. The ref was even shown the book on one bad call and instead of admitting he made a mistake his response to the coaches was I'm the ref deal with it. When I was at the Witchita tournement on a mat by the one my son was on I saw a kid put leg sciss ors on a kids neck no arm, and the kid kept them on the kid even when the kid recieving the move stood up. The kid recieving the move dropped back to the mat, and eveyone watching the match yelled at the ref the move was illegal. Another ref watching the match ran out to stop the match because of the move, but the ref on the mat slapped the mat for a pin and both refs let the match end that way. Everyone makes mistakes but don't penalize the kids for that.

This is not a stupid topic at all yes there is probably no way to eject a ref because tournaments only hire enough refs to cover the mats at the tournament, and a few extra to alternate in. Although at state the refs are selected on performance from that year or years past. In all other sports the better refs are selected when the playoffs come along why not wrestling?