I worked the table at mat 8 all day Sunday. I can remember about 6 or 8 different refs that switched in and out throughout the course of the day. Some were awesome at their job, they made eye contact with me before each start and were clear and sharp as they awarded points. Others, however, would start the match without even acknowledging the table, were sloppy when awarding their points and I saw one ref repremand a wrestler for not stopping on his whistle. I only mention the whistle repremand because of all the times I've seen wrestlers stop from a whistle on an adjoining mat, I have coached kids to wrestle until they are touched by the ref. Maybe I'm wrong for coaching this, but the awesome refs that I mentioned earlier were up and down and in and out and all over the mat with an eagles eye on the action. The ref that(in my opion)was much " harder" on the wrestlers then need be never even bent over at the waist during the matches he oversaw. As a coach and a wrestlers father, I have learned that in words similar to those of Forrest Gump, "Officials are like a box of chocolates, you never know what your gonna get". The truly awesome officials will get their recognition, while the others will just get a paycheck. My point is, we take the good with the bad, the lucky calls that go in our favor and the ones that seem to help our opponents and at the end of the day we hang up the singlets and look forward to the next chance we have to rule the mat, hoping that we don't get that same ref.(ha ha)
