OB, thank you. Sincerely, the time away was so cathartic. I have many good friends who officiate and yes, there are great men and women who DO take officiating seriously.
But let’s face it, we have a severe shortage of talented officials. It’s the 2nd toughest sport to effectively officiate (Hockey gets my knod here simply because those ppl do it on skates). Having Anticipation is the intrinsic ingredient. Knowing where the action is taking you to be in the proper position to make the timely call isn’t natural. As the movement is going clockwise, often times the official needs to move counter clockwise to allow the action to come to them. Takes time and experience. Working high level, bone on bone matches requires total focus throughout the entire match which can be mentally and physically draining.
Yet, the overall quality of officials working an OHSAA events is down. There really are no incentives for the individual official to improve their craft while at the same time you keep marginal people because you need to fill assignments and there is no one to replace them. Perfect recipe for mediocrity. It ain’t pretty.
At its simplest, a wrestling official needs to protect each athlete first and foremost and then award earned points. That’s it. Nobody paid to see me officiate or said “hey honey, let’s gather the kids up and go see the match tonight. I heard Vince is officiating.”
If you’re officiating a State Finals match and your wrestlers tumble off of the platformed mat onto the ground during competition (I’ve seen it twice), can we agree that the official is not protecting each athlete? It happened in the Kilgore vs Roddy match, some say it was controversial...