A little intense.

Last day of preseason training. The MAWOA was at Lambert High School(a new school in Forsyth County)for a preseason USA wrestling tournament. We had a little over twenty officials to cover 4 mats, with about 70 matches per mat. There were very few High School wrestlers involved. I was assigned to be head official on a mat, and had 5 other officials with me. I was told to spend more time teaching and critiquing than officiating, so I only officiated a hand full of matches. When I looked around at the wrestlers on my mat, I saw several state placers, and some returning champs.
As head official, I called the first match of the day. It was a solid match with two talented wrestlers. Unfortunately during the match one of the coaches chose to coach me, by my first name instead of his wrestler, and I was forced to call my first official coaches misconduct. I was kind of hoping to save the first coaches misconduct for Sean Moistner, but it's gone now.
We had some great discussions, and plenty of learning moments throughout the 70+ matches on our mat. We had opportunities to practice positioning, signaling, table communication, and the quick decision making necessary to officiate wrestling. One of the officials on our mat had a tough match, and made several stalling calls. The coaches involved were more than a little frustrated with the calls and voiced there opinions a little too aggressively. Another coaches misconduct call. The official handled the situation very professionally, and did not get emotionally involved in the situation. He explained the call, and I told the coach I would discuss it with the official as well. As the official and I rehashed the match, and he explained what he saw, I agreed with his calls. While we were rehashing the coach who had now settled down came over, and we explained the calls, and even though he was not happy the tension of the match was gone, and he had some coaching points for his wrestler.

The highlight of the day goes to a first time wrestler. One of the Dads asked me if he could have a little brother wrestle his older brother in an exhibition match when we were done. Older Brother was in a finals match for the last official match of the day, and gutted out a tough three period win. He immediately came back out onto the mat to wrestle his much littler brother. We followed all normal match procedures, and it was a blast. Little brother scored about seven takedowns before he finally got the fall over big brother. It was a great way to end the tournament.