I used to think the refs officiating my kid weren't very good and I was sure I could do better. So when he graduated, I paid my dues and bought my shirt.Turns out those guys I didn't think were so hot were a whole lot better than I was....its a lot easier to officiate from the stands....you never miss a call from the cheap seats. I know, I made a million of them.

I've been officiating for 15 years now. I didn't start out "young" to begin with so I got some slack from the coaches and crowd because I was older so they figured I was experienced. I also did not start out in kids, which I'm forever grateful because I love officiating and if I had started at the kids' level I'd have quit after the first year. There is much more crowd control in high school.

A year ago, I was thinking about doing some kids officiating on a few Sundays because I thought it would be a good/fun thing to do. But before I made the commitment, I decided to go to a tournament and make sure. My son wrestled and I attended lots of meets as a parent/coach but that was years ago and I wasn't there as an official.

After about 2 hours of just watching, I decided I could not officiate a kids tournament. It was just too crazy. Small mat space, way too many people mat side, screaming that was not only loud, but really close to being insane. And very unskilled wrestling. I realized, yes, it was just like I remembered when I was there last a couple of decades ago.

I honestly do not know how you can find new guys to officiate at this level. Young guys do so because they are recently out of wrestling and love the sport and think it is a way to stay involved and earn a little money. They really don't know how to handle the environment and while they probably would be fine if left alone, they aren't left alone, so they often fail. They are badgered and pestered by folks who are looking out for their kids, which is fine, but its just too much negative energy.

New kids officials don't have a structured mentoring program or even a short course in "how to officiate" at least as far as I know. At the HS level, we have an annual clinic and a couple meetings and I think at that level there is more one-on-one help available. I know I was taken under the wing of a couple veterans my first few years and they helped me a lot. I knew the rules (that's the easy part) but applying them is a lot harder than it looks. There is an awfully lot of gray in the black and white.

If you really wanted to help new officials, somebody in your organization ought to set up a required annual clinic and require attendance of all new (1-3 year) officials. I think the local 3-2 baseball umps have to do this. You go to a "mini-camp" and are taught the basics. I'm talking 8 to 16 hours, not just a rules review. Some on-mat time, some situations, some evaluations.

And, what all the fans and coaches need to understand is that the hardest officiating is when you have unskilled wrestlers. The easiest is the state champion caliber guys...they don't do dumb things, they finish their moves, they don't cry, they don't flip out, etc. They just wrestle. When I do middle school matches I have to call those much differently than the high school matches because the wrestling is so much less skilled that I have to wait on every call to make sure it is what it seems to me. With kids, it is rarely what it seems to be. A kid that you think has control doesn't even know what he's got but he's just fallen into a position. "Reaction time" is at a snail's pace with kids, but in HS its a flash. My hat is off to those few individuals that can bounce back and forth between kids and higher levels.

I've seen dozens of guys that got into officiating and then got ran out only because the fans/coaches could not give them the time to learn the trade. They expected perfection out of the box. That just isn't reality. But, again, if there is a big problem out there, the solution may be the clinic/camp approach which I'm sure would work but somebody needs to make it a requirement.

Bob Ford
Official