First time readers.

For those of you checking this out for the first time, the intent is to show the perspective of an official. We always here plenty from coaches, and parents (I have been both), but rarely from officials.
It was a long week due to the thanksgiving break approaching, and the kids in school getting a little nutty. I broke up a fight between a couple of girls Tuesday morning, and was calling Eastside's Wrestle-offs by Wednesday night. The week finally came to an end, and Saturday would be my official kick off to the season.
I was at Collins Hill this morning for a Jv meet with four different schools. They ran duals on two mats, and had a third mat for extra match-ups. All three officials worked a dual on all three mats. The matches were well run, and we got a ton of wrestling done in about three and a half hours.
I felt like I did a good job today. I had one scramble that I awarded a reversal for, and the defensive wrestler reversed again fairly quickly. It might have been a nonscoring situation, but no real harm done. Near the end of my third dual, I used a coin toss for choice at the beginning of the second period. Now if you are paying attention you are saying why the heck did you do that. I ended up giving the wrong person choice, and he won by techfall. If the coaches were paying attention, they could have requested bad time, and had the second period rewrestled. They didn't notice, but if they are reading this, they will more than likely notice next time.

There were several pins with inexperienced wrestlers. Some of the wrestlers did not know what had happened. I even had one ask me, what happened. I said you won by fall. The kid still didn't understand, so I said you pinned him and raised his hand. It was funny.
There were several wrestlers there in their first GHSA event, who I have known since they were preschoolers. Man I felt old.
The most common question asked by officials early in the season came up. For some reason it is very common for us (officials) to pull a brain fart when it comes to back points. The standard confusion comes from a two count being two points. I am not sure why, but it is commonly confused that a three count is two points. I have seen this every year I have been involved with wrestling.
I updated my billing spreadsheet, and will be emailing it a little latter.
Next week I will be at Central Gwinnett, Newton County, and Grayson next Saturday. Somewhere in their I guess I'll eat some turkey, and think about all of the starving wrestlers.