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.
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