ccbig Posted January 11, 2010 Share Posted January 11, 2010 During this season I have noticed a very large difference in the quality of the referees skills. I know the refs have a tough job, no one is perfect and many calls are judgement calls.... but it seems like (IMO) some ref's may need more training. How long is a referee trained and how much experience do they have refereeing before they are allowed to referee a H.S. match on their own? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
littlevito Posted January 11, 2010 Share Posted January 11, 2010 There is no training, and all a person has to do is get a 75% on an open book test. This shows why there is some poor officiating out there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MAJAM152 Posted January 11, 2010 Share Posted January 11, 2010 How long has that been the case? I thought there was some kind of training, before your able to schedule a varsity match. I remember (early 90s) you had to work unpaid with some expirence referees on a couple saturdays at a non varsity meet . From there you were able get paid and start JV, Middle school or any other non varsity matches you can find, until you built up your "reputation" (in other words got some expierience). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twmaurer Posted January 11, 2010 Share Posted January 11, 2010 There is a lot of good ones and a few bad ones Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tangarrray Posted January 11, 2010 Share Posted January 11, 2010 There is no "required" training to complete before being able to do a varsity match. However, there are various rules meetings and clinics as well as the local officials associations which hold regular meetings. A new official should be participating in some or all of these as well as working lower level matches ( frosh/soph, jv, middle school) before working varsity matches. I've also seen where rookies tag along and shadow a veteran and sometimes work in for experience too. Schools should also practice good judgement when hiring a newer official before they are ready for varsity. I'm not saying don't hire them, but don't hire them to do a high profile meet too soon. Maybe a less competitve dual to get their feet wet. Too many times a rookie is chased away because they are working a big meet before they are ready and are screamed at by coaches and fans and they end up not officiating very long, where if they had started slow and worked their way up we might have a larger officials pool to choose from. Take it easy on these guys, in a few years alot of the experienced officials will be hanging up their whistles and someone will have to step in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D2d Posted January 11, 2010 Share Posted January 11, 2010 sat at north newton they did a horrible job, all 3 of them > > > Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheAncientElder Posted January 11, 2010 Share Posted January 11, 2010 Question, What sort of annual rules interpretation meetings have you attended this year? The rules change from year to year. You might be hollering about a rule that has been changed and you are not aware of it. TAE Afterthought: Try ref?ing a match just once. You will get a whole new outlook on the matter. Split second calls are rough. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tangarrray Posted January 12, 2010 Share Posted January 12, 2010 +1 TAE Where you been hiding Elder? Haven't seen you on very much this season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheAncientElder Posted January 12, 2010 Share Posted January 12, 2010 tangarrray, Slow season on the board. Not much to comment on. TheAncientElder (TAE) The Imperial Potentate and Grand Poobah of Classless wrestling in Indiana. I wear my Fez with pride. www.theancientelder.net Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Regionrat1 Posted January 12, 2010 Share Posted January 12, 2010 Question, What sort of annual rules interpretation meetings have you attended this year? The rules change from year to year. You might be hollering about a rule that has been changed and you are not aware of it. TAE Afterthought: Try ref?ing a match just once. You will get a whole new outlook on the matter. Split second calls are rough. The ole rat has some major respect for da zebras. However I know a few who should go to lens crafters for some specticles. I tink what ever Lambert eats he should mass produce for da aarp memebers. Dat guy has a set of guns on him !!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimtown 138 Posted January 12, 2010 Share Posted January 12, 2010 Question, What sort of annual rules interpretation meetings have you attended this year? The rules change from year to year. You might be hollering about a rule that has been changed and you are not aware of it. TAE Afterthought: Try ref?ing a match just once. You will get a whole new outlook on the matter. Split second calls are rough. What he said... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shortstack Posted January 12, 2010 Share Posted January 12, 2010 D2d, I was at North Newton this past Saturday and I don't recall the coaches really complaining much on any of the calls. How many times did they take the refs to the scoreres table to discuss a problem? Maybe you should get yourself a copy of the rule book and READ it before complaining? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awood2 Posted January 12, 2010 Share Posted January 12, 2010 Just b/c someone isn't complaining that doesn't mean things are going well! Sometimes a coach just avoids the confrontation b/c it may make things even worse. A guy with officiating experience like Razo knows when you can reason with a guy and when you have to cut your losses and move on. Razo was one of the best young officials in the state. It undoubtedly has impacted his skills as a coach. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MattM Posted January 12, 2010 Share Posted January 12, 2010 Best thing I can say is have your AD and coach (or the one for the events you are attending) find the best rated refs you can find. Their are plenty of experienced and decent refs out there (yeah they miss stuff but we all would) if you will spend the time to find them early enough. That helps your chances of at least getting fair calls. Now if they go your way or not is another story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D2d Posted January 12, 2010 Share Posted January 12, 2010 I think the topic was referee consistency, they were not I do not need a rule book to know this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awood2 Posted January 12, 2010 Share Posted January 12, 2010 I reffed when I lived in Arizona. We had a huge multi-team, multi-day tournament at the school I taught at and among others we brought up two officials who did college matches. They taught me a few things that I think could really help refs be more consistent. 1. Don't get too close to the action. If you watch college wrestling, you will see alot of officials well away from the action. They will walk around the perimeter of the mat and circle as the anticiapate which way the wrestlers are likely to go. This allows you to get a wider view of the wrestling. This is a good idea, even when they are on the mat. This helps you see illegal holds and technical violations. Obviously, you will get closer if you need to to call a fall. But staying away helps you see things that you cannot when you are too close. 2. Wait to make your calls. Sometimes refs get excited and throw up calls before control is established. In some of the lower level matches, you will see all that flopping around and waiting can save you some trouble. Watching college wrestling, you will notice that officials are in no hurry to make calls except in the case of riding. Since there is no riding time in hs, you can sit back and make sure of the scoring when kids are on their feet or on the mat. 3. Let coaches vent. It helps diffuse situations when you let the officials talk to you. You don't have to explain your calls too much. Letting the coach gripe for a while and then saying something like "That's the way I saw it" without being confrotational is good reffing. Wrestling coaching can be extremely emotional, the referee should not be. The ref will have more control if he is not a poo poo head. Did they ever show you the pictures in the back? Seriously, it's called the photo index. When a referree can't/won't call it like the PICTURE (and I have witnessed this), the coach has every right to loose it. Consistency... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCWrestling Posted January 12, 2010 Share Posted January 12, 2010 Best thing I can say is have your AD and coach (or the one for the events you are attending) find the best rated refs you can find. Their are plenty of experienced and decent refs out there (yeah they miss stuff but we all would) if you will spend the time to find them early enough. That helps your chances of at least getting fair calls. Now if they go your way or not is another story. I agree with you MattM, but if you only hire the experienced refs, then what is going to happen in ten years? The refs all have to start out somewhere...I know it can be frustrating when refs miss a call, but they are human and they make mistakes. Deal with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shortstack Posted January 12, 2010 Share Posted January 12, 2010 I think the topic was referee consistency, they were not I do not need a rule book to know this So what are your examples of these inconsistencies? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D2d Posted January 12, 2010 Share Posted January 12, 2010 lets start with stalemate calls , one ref does not call it after 39 seconds of niether wrestler being able to gain advantage in a scramble, in another match a wrestler has legs in and is turning his opponent and in about 7 seconds stops the action calls stalemate, this costs the top wrestler. I know you should not leave it up to the ref but this was a very close match, cost one of them. coashes did complain, VERY INCONSISTANT. VERY BAD JOB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebestthatneverwas Posted January 13, 2010 Share Posted January 13, 2010 D2d after the match did you go over and talk to the officials? We would love to educate or discuss in a cival manner with fans that are orderly as to what went on. Or did you just set up in the stands and yell? ;D A stalemate is the wrestlers best freind, and should be called more, as an official gets more experience, but when we call it sometimes right as it is called one of the wrestlers will try to run something and from the stands you people will react because of what happens in the seconds or less as we recognize the stalemate. :-* The official does not have a crystal ball to know after waiting for something to happen he finally calls a stalemate. I have seen some that should have been really great matches end up being a 2-1 nose picker because a stalemate wasn't called the whole match. :'( It comes with experience but we tell our younger officials to take a mental picture of what just happened go back through the thought process and what would you have done differently? ;D The only thing is they didn't call any stalemates, but that will come with expereince and even then when we do call one on occasion the wrestlers will finally try to hit something or switch off to another move but we have already called the stalemate, it happnes and we move on. 8) I wasn't there at North Newton but maybe that is what you saw and didn't understand it, but if you would approatch the official after the match and introduce yourself and ask. You might be better for it, as well as look at things in another lite. As far as first year officials working varsity matches in a perfect world we would like for them not to do varsity matches but we are in a position where when sectionals come around these guys are getting sent to officiate a sectional, and the question I have for you is would you rather have these new guys just jump into the sectional with no varsity experience? Or would you rather they get a few varsity matches under they're belt and learn a few things good bad or in different? I think we both know the answer to that one, but like the ELDER said go to a practice and if nothing else officiate a challenge match or work a open tournament on a Sunday and see how easy it is, and you never know you might just get the bug orfind out wow this isn't as easy as it looks from the stands. :-* :-[ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rookies03 Posted January 13, 2010 Share Posted January 13, 2010 D2d, you described to very different situations when calling stalemate so to say it was inconsistent isn't fair to the ref. If the ref would continuely call stalemate on one wrestler in the top position and not the other than you have an arguement but not in two different situations. Awood, I think it is funny when coaches or fans say " there is a picture in the book". Those are still photos with captions that describe the situation. For example some of takedown photos say "when the croth lift no longer prevents the takedown this is control". Control is always felt and getting these calls right takes experience. And learning the intricacies of the rules can definately help understand calls and consistency. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shortstack Posted January 13, 2010 Share Posted January 13, 2010 I'm wondering if anyone ever compliments these refs for the job they do? Have you ever noticed at the end of a dual meet when the teams and coaches form lines to shake each others hands in a display of good sportmanship? I have, but I don't remember many times seeing anyone shake hands with the ref. We can't have wrestling without someone being out there officiating our great sport. Maybe we should all make more of an effort to say something nice to the officials when they deserve it. I don't agree with every call they make but, I do agree with most of their calls. Remember they are closer to the action then everyone else except for the wrestlers. The way I figure it, is if the ref is down on the mat looking to see if a persons sholders or scapulas are touching the mat for 2 seconds he has a much better view then I do from up in the stands. Also, how do they aviod being kicked when they are down there so close? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rookies03 Posted January 14, 2010 Share Posted January 14, 2010 shortstack, Very great point. I thanked an official last night after a dual meet because your post made me think of it. Should probably happen more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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