Jones v. Farmer - 3rd Takedown

[SLAPtheMAT1313]

This is a tough topic for many reasons

1st: Humans are not perfect, nor should we expect them to be

2nd:  Refs are a starved market:  I agree, initially new (younger) refs may not solve everything...but it has to happen!  ALOT of the refs still doing this have significant arthritic conditions that prevent them from getting into the right positions to make calls, the only way to fix that is newer/younger refs

Also, I completely agree with the statement that wrestling has changed...there is a definite nuance to the complicated scrambles today's wrestlers get into and knowing when to blow the whistle/call a takedown/stop for potentially dangerous, etc is more complicated than ever...I can't pretend to know these things, but do believe that newer refs that grew up wrestling this way would have better understanding

 

My main issue, is that at times it seems like the issue is EGO over error...as mentioned above, the ref in question was offered the opportunity to correct the situation and chose not to take that opportunity.  There were other times in the tourney where other officials did change their call and got it right...I think the referees should have a procedure in place to at least report that the asst. saw differently in order to possibly see patterns of behavior...e.g: 10 different asst. referees report seeing calls differently and none were reversed...EGO...I also believe that coaches/parents should have an avenue to report at least Behavior by referees...if it exists, I haven't found it, but there was an instance earlier in season where an official was refereeing a heavyweight match...it happened to be between my son and Mr. Schott's son from above...the referee during the match on out of bounds and restarts slapped both boys on their backsides at least once apiece, twice for my son...which most might say encouraging them to keep going, however there was nothing encouraging about it... the entire match he was calling the "Ladies" and "Nancies" and calling them both for stalling and telling them to stop dancing and try wrestling...these are 2 ranked heavyweights, beating on each other!!  The match went to OT and he swatted my son again, brought them both back to the circle and said: "Now one of you ladies is going home!"  which was ridiculous, as it wasn't a tourney and both boys had 4 more dual meets left to wrestle!  There should be an avenue to report issues and behavior like that, best I could find was leave an email for the generic IHSAA website, but they dont even promise a response...It was just an ugly example of someone's EGO trumping the kids and their effort...my wife almost got tossed from the event trying to get his name...but he shouldnt be slapping the kids or being degrading to them for all their effort, because I dare him to put his toe on the line with either one of them.  Most of the refs are very nice and I appreciate them doing it, but there needs to be some recourse to protect against the bad apples for everyones sake

[BrodyHardcastle]

6 hours ago, SLAPtheMAT1313 said:

This is a tough topic for many reasons

1st: Humans are not perfect, nor should we expect them to be

2nd:  Refs are a starved market:  I agree, initially new (younger) refs may not solve everything...but it has to happen!  ALOT of the refs still doing this have significant arthritic conditions that prevent them from getting into the right positions to make calls, the only way to fix that is newer/younger refs

Also, I completely agree with the statement that wrestling has changed...there is a definite nuance to the complicated scrambles today's wrestlers get into and knowing when to blow the whistle/call a takedown/stop for potentially dangerous, etc is more complicated than ever...I can't pretend to know these things, but do believe that newer refs that grew up wrestling this way would have better understanding

 

My main issue, is that at times it seems like the issue is EGO over error...as mentioned above, the ref in question was offered the opportunity to correct the situation and chose not to take that opportunity.  There were other times in the tourney where other officials did change their call and got it right...I think the referees should have a procedure in place to at least report that the asst. saw differently in order to possibly see patterns of behavior...e.g: 10 different asst. referees report seeing calls differently and none were reversed...EGO...I also believe that coaches/parents should have an avenue to report at least Behavior by referees...if it exists, I haven't found it, but there was an instance earlier in season where an official was refereeing a heavyweight match...it happened to be between my son and Mr. Schott's son from above...the referee during the match on out of bounds and restarts slapped both boys on their backsides at least once apiece, twice for my son...which most might say encouraging them to keep going, however there was nothing encouraging about it... the entire match he was calling the "Ladies" and "Nancies" and calling them both for stalling and telling them to stop dancing and try wrestling...these are 2 ranked heavyweights, beating on each other!!  The match went to OT and he swatted my son again, brought them both back to the circle and said: "Now one of you ladies is going home!"  which was ridiculous, as it wasn't a tourney and both boys had 4 more dual meets left to wrestle!  There should be an avenue to report issues and behavior like that, best I could find was leave an email for the generic IHSAA website, but they dont even promise a response...It was just an ugly example of someone's EGO trumping the kids and their effort...my wife almost got tossed from the event trying to get his name...but he shouldnt be slapping the kids or being degrading to them for all their effort, because I dare him to put his toe on the line with either one of them.  Most of the refs are very nice and I appreciate them doing it, but there needs to be some recourse to protect against the bad apples for everyones sake

Did the coaches not hear this? If a ref is talking to my wrestlers like that then you can bet I’m getting a team point taken.

Edited February 21, 2023 by bigballerb

[aoberlin]

From the book Outliers. It was found when flying having the co-pilot be the more experienced pilot and having some authority caused less plane crashes for many different reasons. Just some food for thought.

[ReformedPoster]

Absolutely terrible call.  A close second would be the no takedown for Clark in the semis against jones.  I thought Hockaday's 2 NF were legit.

[HWTDAD]

Anyone see the last heavyweight match for Evansville SS?!?!?! Ref awarded 2 for reversal at the buzzer, then took it away and did not even give the kid the escape. Kids were completely separated and should have been tied and gone to OT.  Worst call I may have ever seen at any level. Refs were trash at points this post season

 

[rrschott]

19 hours ago, SIACfan said:

 

First, yes it would not be easy to have Officials being rated by other Officials. There would be other inherent issues with that.

 

But, a bad rating being cancelled out by a good one is not a given. A school may feel fortunate that they were the beneficiary of a bad call, but that won't necessarily mean they will think that this individual is a good Official & thus give them a good rating.

doesn't that kind of mean that it might have been a bad call?  If one school feels it was bad and they got the short end of it, and the other school feels it may not have been right but they'll go with it because they benefited, it would seem it was probably a bad call.

I kind of feel like you'd have better luck putting together a formula to try and deal with schools' biases towards refs than you would putting together a peer based rating system.

[rrschott]

13 hours ago, HWTDAD said:

Anyone see the last heavyweight match for Evansville SS?!?!?! Ref awarded 2 for reversal at the buzzer, then took it away and did not even give the kid the escape. Kids were completely separated and should have been tied and gone to OT.  Worst call I may have ever seen at any level. Refs were trash at points this post season

 

which match was that?  The last two matches were Jones/Farmer (ended in a pin), and Schott/Vanover (wasn't even close).

[SIACfan]

7 minutes ago, rrschott said:

doesn't that kind of mean that it might have been a bad call? 

 

Yes, that was the premise of my original point. Even the best officials make bad calls. And if one happens in a critical moment, you can end up with an excellent official getting a bad rating from a particular school for years over one bad call.

 

Quote

I kind of feel like you'd have better luck putting together a formula to try and deal with schools' biases towards refs than you would putting together a peer based rating system.

 

To be clear, I wasn't necessarily insinuating a peer based rating system, but rather more of an administrative based one. One where a certain group of experienced officials (i.e. Director of Officials) are responsible for rating the officials in their local association. I'm not sure that this is feasible, but you'd be more likely to get the best officials advancing through the post season from a system of this kind verses the current system where the officials are being rated by (in many cases) people who have never worked as an official in any sport at any level.

[rrschott]

2 minutes ago, SIACfan said:

 

Yes, that was the premise of my original point. Even the best officials make bad calls. And if one happens in a critical moment, you can end up with an excellent official getting a bad rating from a particular school for years over one bad call.

 

I got that.  What I was saying was that in a lot of cases, a bad rating for a good call that a team didn't like would be cancelled out by the rating from the other team that saw it was actually the right call.  Your example went on to state the other team might not provide that high rating because the call was actually questionable...

I'm all for improving things, especially if it makes for more consistency.  One area in particular is how different refs from different areas call stalling.  That seems to lead to a ton of frustration, both for the wrestlers and parents.  You go up north, stalling is called really quick; down south almost not at all (I don't think I saw a single point awarded for stalling in the EVSS).  Then you get downtown and it's not consistent from match to match.  (and to be clear, I don't care which way you go with it, I'd just like to see it consistent so the kids can adapt).

[Wrestling Bill Walton]

32 minutes ago, SIACfan said:

 

Yes, that was the premise of my original point. Even the best officials make bad calls. And if one happens in a critical moment, you can end up with an excellent official getting a bad rating from a particular school for years over one bad call.

 

 

To be clear, I wasn't necessarily insinuating a peer based rating system, but rather more of an administrative based one. One where a certain group of experienced officials (i.e. Director of Officials) are responsible for rating the officials in their local association. I'm not sure that this is feasible, but you'd be more likely to get the best officials advancing through the post season from a system of this kind verses the current system where the officials are being rated by (in many cases) people who have never worked as an official in any sport at any level.

College wrestling rates their officials based on an evaluator that travels to meets.   I used to live and ref in Missouri, and they paid some experienced officials to go around and evaluate the officials.  It could be done, but some one will have to find a way to fund the evaluators as there time wouldnt be free.

[Coach Brobst]

11 minutes ago, rrschott said:

I got that.  What I was saying was that in a lot of cases, a bad rating for a good call that a team didn't like would be cancelled out by the rating from the other team that saw it was actually the right call.  Your example went on to state the other team might not provide that high rating because the call was actually questionable...

I'm all for improving things, especially if it makes for more consistency.  One area in particular is how different refs from different areas call stalling.  That seems to lead to a ton of frustration, both for the wrestlers and parents.  You go up north, stalling is called really quick; down south almost not at all (I don't think I saw a single point awarded for stalling in the EVSS).  Then you get downtown and it's not consistent from match to match.  (and to be clear, I don't care which way you go with it, I'd just like to see it consistent so the kids can adapt).

Agree with consistency  of stalling. We have Mishawaka area officials come in for our Conference tourney and it is SO different than the rest of the year. 

 

One big area I tried to improve when I took over at HSE 5 years ago was ensuring we wrestled aggressively so I track stalling every year to see what positions we're getting hit in and what the context is (a stalling in the first/second period is very different than one when you're up by 5 and just icing the match in an individual tourney especially).

 

This past 2 years data with the Mishawaka officials at Conference are telling:

 

2021-22 Data:

Top Position Stalls: 7 (5 at conference by one official, 2 for not returning the guy quickly enough)

Bottom Position Stalls: 10 (6 at conference, the other 4 by one kid who legit stalls on bottom)

Neutral Stalling (including double stalls (only 1 of those): 12 (6 at conference, 3 at semistate (all by same official))

 

2022-23 Data:

Top Position Stalls: 6 (5 at conference, 3 by same official, the other was this past weekend by not returning to mat in 3rd place bout)

Bottom Position Stalls: 6 (4 at conference, 1 at Regionals)

Neutral Stalls: 8 (5 at conference, 3 others when we were icing matches)

 

My kids sometimes get out of position, but one of our strategies has been to have the deepest gas tank, keep scoring points, and stay on the gas even when winning. All this to say that most officials recognize this and we don't get hit with a lot of stalling as a program because of it. EXCEPT during one tourney where the officials come from a different part of the state. I'm not complaining about those officials, they do a great job, they just see it differently and call it differently. It's good for our guys to be exposed to that so they're not shocked by it in the state series.

 

As you stated, don't care which way we do it, but clearly there is a difference in how it is being interpreted and that needs to be streamlined so that we can coach it correctly for our kids.

 

 

 

 

[Wrestling Bill Walton]

25 minutes ago, rrschott said:

I got that.  What I was saying was that in a lot of cases, a bad rating for a good call that a team didn't like would be cancelled out by the rating from the other team that saw it was actually the right call.  Your example went on to state the other team might not provide that high rating because the call was actually questionable...

I'm all for improving things, especially if it makes for more consistency.  One area in particular is how different refs from different areas call stalling.  That seems to lead to a ton of frustration, both for the wrestlers and parents.  You go up north, stalling is called really quick; down south almost not at all (I don't think I saw a single point awarded for stalling in the EVSS).  Then you get downtown and it's not consistent from match to match.  (and to be clear, I don't care which way you go with it, I'd just like to see it consistent so the kids can adapt).

Stalling is always an enigma.  In my years of officiating, I'm always surprised how some coaches react to stalling even when its a warning and no points are awarded.   It drives some coaches nuts.  And i agree its partially due to the inconsistency of refs calling it.  I suppose the stalling calls equalize to the area of the state, based on the coaches reactions and consistency of officials and maybe emphasis put on in the associations meetings.   Ive hesitated before on calling stalling,  based on reactions of coaches.   Its kind of like a strike zone in baseball.   

[TeamGarcia]

GIVE THE COACHES 1 CHALLENGE, Championship Round 

 

LETS BRING IN REPLAY

Official Reviews 

Championship Round 

 

I think this 2023-2024 season in football  IHSAA will be debuting instant replay ? 
 

Let’s bring it to wrestling like they do in College . 
 

[HWTDAD]

1 hour ago, rrschott said:

which match was that?  The last two matches were Jones/Farmer (ended in a pin), and Schott/Vanover (wasn't even close).

Hmmm.... I thought it was the last match. I just looked. It was Mills vs Vanover to get to the 3rd/4th place match. That Mills kid got hosed. Not saying he would have won in OT but he certainly deserved a shot. Cost him his last chance to make it to state as a senior. Check out the last few seconds of the match. I think teams should get 1 challenge per event. This was def the worst call of the tournaments.

[Wrestling Bill Walton]

8 minutes ago, Coach Brobst said:

Agree with consistency  of stalling. We have Mishawaka area officials come in for our Conference tourney and it is SO different than the rest of the year. 

 

One big area I tried to improve when I took over at HSE 5 years ago was ensuring we wrestled aggressively so I track stalling every year to see what positions we're getting hit in and what the context is (a stalling in the first/second period is very different than one when you're up by 5 and just icing the match in an individual tourney especially).

 

This past 2 years data with the Mishawaka officials at Conference are telling:

 

2021-22 Data:

Top Position Stalls: 7 (5 at conference by one official, 2 for not returning the guy quickly enough)

Bottom Position Stalls: 10 (6 at conference, the other 4 by one kid who legit stalls on bottom)

Neutral Stalling (including double stalls (only 1 of those): 12 (6 at conference, 3 at semistate (all by same official))

 

2022-23 Data:

Top Position Stalls: 6 (5 at conference, 3 by same official, the other was this past weekend by not returning to mat in 3rd place bout)

Bottom Position Stalls: 6 (4 at conference, 1 at Regionals)

Neutral Stalls: 8 (5 at conference, 3 others when we were icing matches)

 

My kids sometimes get out of position, but one of our strategies has been to have the deepest gas tank, keep scoring points, and stay on the gas even when winning. All this to say that most officials recognize this and we don't get hit with a lot of stalling as a program because of it. EXCEPT during one tourney where the officials come from a different part of the state. I'm not complaining about those officials, they do a great job, they just see it differently and call it differently. It's good for our guys to be exposed to that so they're not shocked by it in the state series.

 

As you stated, don't care which way we do it, but clearly there is a difference in how it is being interpreted and that needs to be streamlined so that we can coach it correctly for our kids.

 

 

 

 

Coach Brobst,  you bring up some good points on stalling and consistency.  I like you're data perspective of tracking stalling calls.   It brings up  a novel idea.  What if we had a statistic based on stalling calls per match.   Maybe Track wrestling could add this statistic, then we could track this data by tournament, region, season  and even by official.   Maybe we could evaluate officials better and get more consistency in the most inconsistent call in Inidiana wrestling.   I know it would be difficult, but seems possible to me.

 

 

[rrschott]

1 hour ago, Wrestling Bill Walton said:

Stalling is always an enigma.  In my years of officiating, I'm always surprised how some coaches react to stalling even when its a warning and no points are awarded.   It drives some coaches nuts.  And i agree its partially due to the inconsistency of refs calling it.  I suppose the stalling calls equalize to the area of the state, based on the coaches reactions and consistency of officials and maybe emphasis put on in the associations meetings.   Ive hesitated before on calling stalling,  based on reactions of coaches.   Its kind of like a strike zone in baseball.   

it's definitely like a strikezone in baseball, but I'd argue it's way more impactful and you have much less of a chance to acclimate to it in competition; especially when it will change from match to match within a tournament based on the official.

[rrschott]

1 hour ago, HWTDAD said:

Hmmm.... I thought it was the last match. I just looked. It was Mills vs Vanover to get to the 3rd/4th place match. That Mills kid got hosed. Not saying he would have won in OT but he certainly deserved a shot. Cost him his last chance to make it to state as a senior. Check out the last few seconds of the match. I think teams should get 1 challenge per event. This was def the worst call of the tournaments.

I didn't see a second of that match; I was watching my son wrestle his ticket round match at the same time which was on the other end of the arena.

I certainly see where you're going with the coach's challenge, although I'm not quite sure how you work that out without adding replay.  Coaches can already raise objections, and the officials confer.  Without replay, I don't see how you get them to alter the call they've made after they discuss it. 

[SIACfan]

1 hour ago, Wrestling Bill Walton said:

Stalling is always an enigma...   Its kind of like a strike zone in baseball.   

 

This is a good analogy.

 

In baseball, you constantly hear coaches pleading for officials to just be consistent with it. But they are not talking between officials, they are meaning that if an individual official is calling a tight strike zone then be consistent with calling it tight. If an official has a big strike zone then just be consistent with that. Baseball coaches will claim that if an official is just consistent with how it is called then they & their athletes can adjust.

 

I believe this is how wrestling coaches & athletes need to approach it. As long as an individual official is consistent with how they call it, then coaches & competitors should be able to adjust. It may not be perfect but I got news for you - humans are not perfect.

 

[HWTDAD]

26 minutes ago, rrschott said:

I didn't see a second of that match; I was watching my son wrestle his ticket round match at the same time which was on the other end of the arena.

I certainly see where you're going with the coach's challenge, although I'm not quite sure how you work that out without adding replay.  Coaches can already raise objections, and the officials confer.  Without replay, I don't see how you get them to alter the call they've made after they discuss it. 

Yeah I meant replay.

[Y2CJ41]

2 hours ago, Coach Brobst said:

Agree with consistency  of stalling. We have Mishawaka area officials come in for our Conference tourney and it is SO different than the rest of the year. 

 

One thing I liked to do as a coach was get out of our area to not only seen different competition, but see different refs that call things differently. We always noticed a different when we went to Westfield, Al Smith, Merrillville, etc. We learned not only about our competition, but also which refs tend to call things such as stalling differently. It helped tremendously in the state series.

[rrschott]

15 minutes ago, SIACfan said:

 

This is a good analogy.

 

In baseball, you constantly hear coaches pleading for officials to just be consistent with it. But they are not talking between officials, they are meaning that if an individual official is calling a tight strike zone then be consistent with calling it tight. If an official has a big strike zone then just be consistent with that. Baseball coaches will claim that if an official is just consistent with how it is called then they & their athletes can adjust.

 

I believe this is how wrestling coaches & athletes need to approach it. As long as an individual official is consistent with how they call it, then coaches & competitors should be able to adjust. It may not be perfect but I got news for you - humans are not perfect.

 

It definitely is a good analogy.  And within a dual meet, it's pretty easy to adapt to an individual ref; within an individual tournament, it becomes a little more problematic.  It would be like getting a different umpire every batter.

[Coach Brobst]

Just now, Y2CJ41 said:

One thing I liked to do as a coach was get out of our area to not only seen different competition, but see different refs that call things differently. We always noticed a different when we went to Westfield, Al Smith, Merrillville, etc. We learned not only about our competition, but also which refs tend to call things such as stalling differently. It helped tremendously in the state series.

I like this idea

We’re in the middle of shaking up the schedule now.

That’s one big priority of mine is to get out of town a couple times

Right now we get to Lafayette once and other than that we’re in the Indy Metro area all season.

 

Plus I think Coach Pendoski and I get tired of seeing each other sometimes 6 times during the season (Westfield, Kyle Osborn, Mooresville, our dual, and then Sectionals and Regionals)

 

This year’s example was Gallagher and Lang. They wrestled at every one of those meets. With Gallagher going 5-1 against us. Lang only lost 8 total matches.

 

I anyone out of the Indy area has openings, hit me up. We’re actively looking for at least 1, probably 2 weekend tourneys in December to shake up.

[Tobin Fortune]

17 hours ago, HWTDAD said:

Anyone see the last heavyweight match for Evansville SS?!?!?! Ref awarded 2 for reversal at the buzzer, then took it away and did not even give the kid the escape. Kids were completely separated and should have been tied and gone to OT.  Worst call I may have ever seen at any level. Refs were trash at points this post season

 

I think you are referring to Austin Vanover's ticket match. Let's just say Greg argued successfully and Owen Valley didn't even go to the scorers table to object.  Schaefer in your corner is 2 points.

[HWTDAD]

3 hours ago, Tobin Fortune said:

I think you are referring to Austin Vanover's ticket match. Let's just say Greg argued successfully and Owen Valley didn't even go to the scorers table to object.  Schaefer in your corner is 2 points.

Not sure what that means but the two kids were COMPLETELY separated at 1 point. That was without a doubt an escape and the kid should have been awarded a point. 

[HWTDAD]

4 hours ago, Tobin Fortune said:

I think you are referring to Austin Vanover's ticket match. Let's just say Greg argued successfully and Owen Valley didn't even go to the scorers table to object.  Schaefer in your corner is 2 points.

And they did come to the table and argue for loss of control which it absolutely was. You can pause the video with the Mater Dei kid on his knees with both hands on the mat. Worst non call of the whole post season IMO