Quality competition.

I was at the Northview qualifier today. I got to officiate about 100 quality matches. I went in early as a Team Georgia Representative to help out with morning weigh-ins. I know there were at least thre kids who missed weight, and there were some boarderline skin conditions that only got by after being approved by a Doctor on site. Jeff Hormell was taking care of business, and the tournament ran very smooth. There were solid tableworkers who kept the tournament moving. The wrestling was very clean. There were several aggressive matches, but they were far from dirty. No hard crossfaces, no slams, and only incidental ilegal holds. I was impressed with the way the kids wrestled. The coaches were not bad either.
We managed to complete the morning sesion with time to spare before the afternoon sesion started. There were 5 mats, and 6 officials. That gave us all a ten minute break every once in a while, pluss we got a break between rounds. We rotated mats to stay fresh. That gave us a chance to see other wrestlers and coaches, as well as a chance for them to get a break from us.
After we completed the tournament, we had to wait around for a little while for the tournament staff to count bout sheets, and figure out exactly what they owed us. I enjoyed talking with a few kids who were excited about Team Georgia practices, some coaches who just seem like old friends, and the other five officials that worked the tournament. After everything was said and done, i made enough money to fill the tank of my smart car twice, pluss the first monthly payment.
Quote of the day came from a kid in the morning sesion. he was having a hard time getting his offensive starting sequence correct. I told him to go belly button before he touched the elbow. He put his belly button on the deffensive wrestler, touched the elbow, then the belly button. I stopped him, and explained that he had to put his hand on his opponents belly button. He said "I can't find it".

Too long in stripes.

Wednesday,Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. That was a heck of a long weekend. I was happy to take the assignment of GHSA Traditional State Championship Weigh-in Official. What the heck is that you may ask. It means I spent several hours in the bowels of the Gwinnett Arena, wearing my stripes, making sure that the competitors in the championships made weight. I missed certain rounds of wrestling because my fellow weight masters and I were weighing out wrestlers for the next day, but I got plenty of opportunity to see wrestling from close up.
It took several individuals to handle this operation on Wednesday night. . We needed a couple of people to control the traffic into the skin check area, a person at the door into the weigh-in area making sure the wrestlers did not attempt to leave without weighing in, and several officials manning scales. I was assigned to weigh-in the 103, and 112 pounders. I had 256 High School wrestlers to weigh-in, and that was only 1/7th of them. Here is the scary/uncomfortable part, in High School you must weigh-in wearing underwear or less. A large portion of the boys were cutting it very close, so they had to weigh-in naked. That's right, I spent a good portion of three days weighing in naked boys. That is not the best job in the world. It was an important job though and I was treating it as such. While i was concentrating, several wrestlers stopped and had something to say on the way to their weigh-in areas. One stopped by to show off his super hero bikini briefs, while another had to comment on the fact that I got assigned to the smallest guys. All of the wrestlers were accounted for by 10:00pm.
I was back early Thursday morning to make sure everything was OK. There were a few wrestlers that had weighed-in, but were not on the list. We marked a bracket as well as the wrestlers arms. Fortunately the wrestlers that we thought had not weighed in had there arms marked properly, and we were able to verify them, and get them into the tournament. We got a chance to watch the one, and out round till about 10:am when we had to start the entire procedure over again for the single A wrestlers. We stayed in our previous assignments, but I only had 32 wrestlers to weigh-in. That was a pretty easy shift. Next came weigh-outs. Everyone 2A-5A who was still n the tournament had to either weigh-out, or fill out a waiver to weigh-in Friday morning. We did not have skin checks, so we were able to spread out the duties a little bit and work it in shifts. I weighed in the 103, and 112 pounders again, and worked the door after that. I enjoyed working the door(at least they had on underwear). I had some great conversations with some of the wrestlers I knew, and many I didn't. I found out some interesting opinions about some of my friends that are Coaches. We got done around 11:00pm, and since I live close, I promised to come back in the morning to do weigh-ins.
It was Friday morning, and I was back early to do weigh-ins. There were only a couple of dozen wrestlers to weigh-in and it was easy. Our next assignments would be to do weigh-outs during the consolation quarters, and after the semis. I volunteered to work the door during consos, so that I could watch semis. I was making sure everyone had checked their weight, had all of their things, and had just won their match. If they could answer yes to every question, I let them into the weigh-in area, and congratulated them for getting to the last weigh-out, and being a State Placer. That was pretty fun. I found someone to relieve me, and was able to watch the semis. I saw some great matches. I stayed and made sure that weigh-ins were complete, and volunteered to come in in the morning for the last 10 or so to weigh-in.
I was at the Arena by 6:30am, and got everything set up for weigh-ins. They all got there, and got weighed, and my work was done. I made sure all of the scales were locked up and except for some menial tasks I was done.
The most enjoyable thing I did during the entire tournament was sitting at the 5A mat in a spare chair for the consolation semis, and finals. There were two chairs right at the side of the mat, and there were three officials assigned to the mat. Two of the officials were on the mat for every match, and the third was in the other chair. The three guys working the mat were some of the funniest guys at the tournament, and also some of the top refs in the state. I enjoyed our conversations as much as the wrestling. I spent the break helping do small things to set up for the finals, then I went up in the stands to sit with my family and enjoy the finals. We sat in front of the guys from NWW, and behind the folks from NG. There were some great conversations during the matches to go along with the superior wrestling. I was near an aisle, and saw some families heading down to watch their sons in the final. I talked to several I know, and all of their boys won. I shook plenty of hands, and gave out lots of hugs. One of my old wrestlers pulled off what I would have to consider an upset, and come and got my son and I to have a picture made. I did not mind missing a little bit of wrestling for that at all. The best surprise of the night was a big empty box inside my truck. When I went to eat with my family, I ran into Scott Ross, and he asked If i saw my present. I said yes thanks for the empty box. He said there is something in the box. I said I just threw my bag in there, I hope i didn't ruin it. There was a bottle of Original Ross Sauce in it. Thanks Scott.
Sunday came, and it was time to start again. I agreed to officiate a Sunday USA tournament at Central Gwinnett High School. Since it was Sunday, we did not start the tournament till after noon. there were about 350 wrestlers on 7 mats. We had 9 officials, and rotated onto the 7 mats. I took extra time with the coaches and kids explaining my calls so that they could make adjustments this week before the qualifiers next weekend. The kids were screaming, crying, grunting, and even being pulled off the mats by their coaches. Nothing unusual, but it has been a while since I worked a youth tournament. I did have a very talented young wrestler accidentally hit a beautiful Belly to back suplay. Unfortunately it was a folkstyle event, which made it an illegal slam. The other wrestler hit his head pretty hard and was not able to continue within the two minute recovery time. I explained it to the kid, and although he was not happy, he did understand. I have worked USA tournaments as an official or volunteer for years, so I know plenty of the coaches, wrestlers and parents. This one was only about 15 minutes from my house, so I knew even more. The quote of the day had to come from someone I don't know though. There was a match in which I had a bit of a slow pin. I checked both shoulders several times before I realized that they were down. They were probably down for 4 seconds before I called the pin. After the match, a guy I don't know came up to me at the edge of the mat, and said " I know your perfect and everything, but don't you think you called that pin a little fast". I think he may have been being sarcastic with the "perfect" comment, but I blew it off, and explained that he was pinned for about 4 seconds, and went on with my next match.
I will be back at it in some capacity for the next few weeks in preparation for Qualifiers, Big kids State, Little kids State, and the new Freshman State Championships. i look forward to FS/G after that. For now it is time to be a Soccer coach again. I have a game this week. Wish me luck, I may need it.

The Grind

I had volunteered to help the ATA set up brackets for the state tournament, but Bud asked me to go work the Georgia grind instead. Cheryl asked if I would come help set up and help with weigh-ins on Saturday since the High School action was canceled, and I told her I would be glad to help. I ended up meeting some of the faces behind the names with USA Nationals that I had never met. Set up and taped 6 mats with a nice guy from Utah, and then proceeded to weigh-ins.
We had some professionals doing skin checks, and they caught two cases of staff, and a ringworm.We did weigh-ins off of weigh-in cards like they do at Fargo, and SER. It was extremely efficient. As a weigh-master, you did not have to spend any time looking up a name, you just checked the weight, wrote it on the card, and wrote it on their arm. We zipped through weigh-ins pretty rapidly.
Sunday came, and it was tournament time. We had ten mats, and ten officials. I take pride in having quick transitions, and there were no breaks. I kept my mat moving and was one of the first mats done. I was consistent on my calls, and only had one conference at the table about a call. In an overtime match in which both wrestlers had been warned for stalling, wrestler A had wrestler B in a front head lock. Wrestler B pulled wrestler A straight backwards off the mat to break the hold. I awarded A 1 point for B stalling, and that ended the match.
I had the large middle school weight classes on my mat all day long. We had a few slick technicians, and a lot of crushing bruisers. It was a good mix of matches, and I enjoyed it.
After I finished the last extra match on the middle school side, I got paid, and was packing up to leave. I got called out to one of the last mats working to call some matches. Some of them were finals, and some of them were challenge for second matches. The wrestlers in the younger age groups showed the most unsportsmanlike behavior from all the matches  called. I even had to ask a Dad/coach to watch his language. Wrestling is a highly charged emotional experience for some of the parents, and I do my best to ignore them, but when I am hearing swearing about a little boys performance, I am going to say something. I am about to go out on a date with my wife. It is valentines day after all.

Officials survey

Officials please take the time to take this brief survey. I am gathering information for Team Georgia in an effort to increase the number of officials we have for Folkstyle as well as freestyle, and greco. we want to improve the level of training available to our officials as well.
I will tell you from personal experience that the lessons I learned at South East Regionals last year improved my officiating at a rapid rate. I will also commend the MAWOA for the training they offered during the preseason.. 

Bad Luck!!!

Am I the black cat of wrestling officials? I do plenty of volunteer work for the wrestling community. I have helped run practices, help run tournaments, supervised wrestlers on out of state trips, and worked with several organizations on the back side of wrestling. I do most of my Fs/G officiating for free also (the money I save Team Georgia goes to help fund wrestlers). I do get paid when I officiate most folkstyle events. Make no mistake about it, I enjoy it, but I do want to get paid. I was double booked for both the JV King of the Hill Tournament, and a USA Youth Tournament at Peachtree Ridge. I was told to go to the USA event, so I contacted Danny only to find out that the tournament was canceled due to the basketball team making the playoffs. Oh well, I would still get to see some good wrestling that weekend.
Next I got booked to officiate at Oglethorpe on the same weekend. I contacted Dustin, and got the tournament information. Friday before the tournament he called to inform me that it was canceled due to the impending snow storm. Oh well That shot that oppertunity.
I have since been booked to work this Friday at Social Circle. So far, so good for the quad on Friday night. I was also booked for a youth tournament on Saturday. The numbers for the tournament are very low.There are still less than 50 wrestlers signed up. More bad luck.
Somebody does not want me to buy that Smart car from tricky Tom.