Wild Wild West

I had a great wrestling weekend. Friday was the Barrow County Championships. I started this tournament 5 years ago and haven't missed one yet. It was a close varsity dual with Winder pulling ahead with pins in the last two matches. Apalachee's middle school program carried the night which put the traveling trophy in the hands of the wildcats. Saturday I was scheduled to work a tournament at Oglethorpe, but it was canceled due to the second blizzard of the year. I decided to travel to the center of the wrestling universe, Collins Hill. It was the King of the Hill tournament and I was going for my first time. I found my friend Cheryl Flatt and asked if She needed any help. She knew I meant it and had me help sort through the first round bout sheets to help get the second day of the tournament rolling. There was plenty of solid wrestling, and many of these young men obviously wrestle behind the best in Georgia because they would make many Varsity squads. During the first round I went back up to the head table and asked if they needed any help, but Gretchen was a little greedy with her bout sheets, and made it clear that it was her job and would beat me down if I touched a completed bout sheet. I took the opportunity to say hello to some of the coaches and officials as well as some of the wrestlers. I found out that Alexander would be wrestling a dual with Collins Hill Varsity during the tournament. Suddenly Gretchen was not so apposed to me helping enter results. I took over for her while she watched the dual. I only missed a little of the dual while I entered results. There were some exciting matches even though the dual was one sided.
The finals of the King of the Hill had some quality matches, and I enjoyed watching a couple of the boys that I had watched grow up in the sport win there first King of the Hill Championship. One of them was an 8th grader.
Sunday was a new day. I had contacted my friend Ken Knight earlier in the week and offered my help with his beginner tournament at Oconee. It was quite an experience. The wrestlers were allowed to keep wrestling after they had lost if the match did not go three periods. In other words, if they got pinned in the first period, the period ended, and the second period would start with the loosing wrestler having choice. There were about 300 total matches on 6 surfaces. I called a little over 50 matches, and it was fun. I spent plenty of time helping the wrestlers and parents/coaches learn the rules. I had coaches all over the mats, and I was making them go to a corner to coach. Most of them had no problem with it. In the third period of one of the matches, a coach appeared on the center edge of the mat right at the circles edge. I motioned for him to go to the corner, and verbally said coach from the corner. He refused, so I stopped the match and waived him to the corner again. He waived for me to leave the building. I walked over and explained that there could only be two coaches per wrestler, and they had to be behind the tape line in the corner. He was just a little upset, and I think that it bothered him that I did not get upset. He said I think he is done and forfeited the match. I told the wrestler the match was over, and moved on. Latter when the same wrestler came up, the same coach was in his corner, the wrestler finished his match, and everything seemed to be fine. It was kind of crazy in there, a little like the Wild Wild West. I had a lot of fun at the tournament, and the wrestlers got plenty of mat time.