What a week off.

As of Friday, I was off school for a week, but I was pretty busy.
11/20 Collins Hill for Jv duals.
11/22 Washed the exterior of my house, and worked in the yard in preparation for home inspection.
11/23 Central Gwinnett Varsity/Jv tri meet.
11/24 Newton County Varsity Duals.
11/25 Two thanksgiving dinners, pinata breaking, and a hoe down.
11/26 Youth tournament at Oconee, and another thanksgiving dinner.
11/27 Varsity Duals at Grayson, and write new blog.
Sunday is my vacation day.
Monday I will be back to work, and I will only have three officiating assignments for the week.
It is hard to get in shape for officiating, so I tend to get sore, tired and worn out by tournaments, but my conditioning is pretty good right now. Nothing I have done gets me in shape for the constant ups and down on the mat. You constantly have to change levels with the wrestlers. I feel good today, I guess my preseason work paid off.
I had plenty of interesting experiences, and enjoyed my busy week.
The Tri at Central ended up being more of a dual and a half. One of the teams showed up late, and one team left early, so Central is the only team that wrestled twice. I officiated all of the jv action, and one half of one of the varsity duals.

The varsity duals at Newton had some exciting matches, and strong wrestlers, but the day started of on a sour note. I arrived early despite the detours I had to take, to find one of the other officials was earlier than me. The bad news is that the other two officials were MIA. I got on the phone, and we managed to wake up a young official that had overslept. He arrived about an hour late. We were not able to contact the fourth official at all. I looked around and found a dad who I knew used to officiate, and he agreed to fill in. We got him a shirt, a whistle, some wristbands, and a flip disc, and we were good to go.
I felt like I did a good job all day long, but you can't make it through a full day of officiating without missing something. One of my other friends who is a big stickler for the rules (even had a rule book in his back pocket) told me I did a good job, but had made a mistake. I told him I missed a call in an out of bounds situation. The offensive wrestler had turned the defensive man. I had a one stroke and the defensive man got out of bounds. The offensive mans' coach asked if there were any back points, and I told him no. The defensive man got out of bounds before the two count. That is where my mistake was. I should have awarded the offensive wrestler a point because the defensive wrestler was fleeing the mat. That is a technical violation. If near fall points have been earned you can get out of bounds without penalty, but if no near fall points have been earned it is fleeing the mat.
Later, I had an offensive wrestler do a trip to a trap armed side. I blew my whistle and called it potential dangerous, but they still hit the mat. The coach argued that it was illegal, and I said not when I stopped the action. I could have called it illegal, but it did not effect the outcome of the match, and gave the coach a story to tell.
Now for the ironic parts of the day. The dad who was officiating (Ronnie Milhoff)was getting pretty tired, so he went to the mat that he thought would finish first, and his sixth dual of the day did finish first, unfortunately there was a seventh dual on that mat. Sorry Ronnie. The young official who woke up late got some karmic retribution as well. He had a keyless entry system on his car so he just locked his keys in. For some reason, when he went to get in his car, the battery was dead. Since his keys were on the inside, he could not even jump the car. He had to call his parents for help.
On a side-note, there was a young coach at the tournament who was constantly coaching his wrestlers while they were on the mat. Unfortunately many coaches spend a lot of time telling the officials how to call the match which does not help their wrestlers at all. I made sure that I let the young coach now what I thought about the job he did, and by the way, his team won the tournament.
Thanksgiving morning, I was called and asked to cover the Oconee youth tournament. I said yes, but had a feeling that I would be called of later. I knew that the number of entries was lower than expected, and they would not need as many officials as they booked. Thursday night I did get called, and was asked to work still. When I showed up, we ended up with one to many officials. I told the other officials that I would stay as a Team Georgia rep, and act as a sounding board for the coaches. The tournament was going Well when one of the officials asked me if his elbow looked swollen. It was huge, and looked deformed. I told him to ice it, and let me know if he could stay. He made the right choice and headed home. I gave the rest of the officials the choice to work through without an extra, and I would give them bathroom breaks, or to put me in rotation. The chose the breaks route. I called one great match. It was all tied up with very little time to go. The defensive wrestle got free, and faced the offensive wrestler as he went out of bounds. The offensive wrestler quickly shot in and grabbed a leg, but finished out of bounds. It was good action, but beyond reaction time so I awarded the escape. No more points were scored, and the escape artist won.
Today I was at Grayson, and everything was smooth as silk. I felt like I was strong as an official today, and enjoyed myself. I am doing a much better job of keeping up with choice, which saves a lot of time, and makes you look more professional. I met some great young men and women today who were wrestling, and working the tables. It was a big reminder of some of the things I love about this sport.
Next week will be kind of light. I will be at Salem on Wednesday, Social Circle on Thursday, and Lambert on Saturday. I am kidding about that being a light week, on top of a full time job, it is very busy. If I wasn't officiating, I would just be going to watch.