We were watching a match on mat 12, during the finals round. It would have been the 5th/6th place match, my son believes it was the 150 pounders.

There was some controversy at the end of the match and it held up the mat for several minutes. It involved a Jackson County wrestler and Lincoln(I think). Bob Phillips questioned the ref, then others got involved, including the head ref and the tournament director. My son was wondering if anyone actually witnessed what happened and what the controversy was.

I do want to add that I thought the adults involved handled it very well. Sure there was some discussion and disagreement, but I did not see anyone get out of control and when the final decision had been made it was accepted with class.

I was watching a match that your talking about and its a shame that it ended like it did, the holton boy had a illegal hold and the ref saw it and said he did but did not stop it untill the match was over and the holton boy pinned the other wrestler. that was when the other coach told the ref about it hold and thats when the ref changed his call. the hold had nothing to do with the out come of the match and thats when bob phillips came down along with other holton coaches and bob was told by the ref to shut up or he would be thew ot of the building and bob asked to get the head ref which was earl. Earl came over and talked a few min, and left and bob wanted to talk to him some and thats when the ref got very mad. the ref had no reason to be mad because if he would have made the call in the first place when he saw the hold this would not have gotten out of hand. In my eyes the refs at the state meet are the best in the state or are they?. its a shame that these two boys had to go though this in a match that ment so much to both of them and the ref blew the call. It would be nice for him to call them and say he was sorry but that woun,t happen because of the strips they wear and the pay they get.

As the Holton boys mother I thought I would share my thoughts. With a match being in overtime, (as this one was) if the ref actually saw an illegal hold he would have called it and stopped the match. I thought the coaches and my son handled themselves well. And hey how many people can say they pinned the guy and still lost the match?

As the wrestler in this match i just wanted to say that the coaches had handled the situation ver well and that its too bad that it had to end up like it did. I want to thank bratton for a heck of a match and its too bad it had to end up like it did. But also i think that the ref did makke the right call because he did see the illegal move. But everyone acted like adults in this situation and it turned out good.

labrat,
My son can say he pinned a kid and still lost the match!! It happened at Liberty Nationals this year. It really messes with a kids head.

so, what you're saying is that a kid can get away with an illegal hold as long as the ref doesnt realize it's an illegal hold and it will be okay?! The reason I make this comment is because all year long I have seen refs blow calls on illegal holds ESPECIALLY a full nelson hold. I saw it once again at State! the kid had a full nelson on another kid being down by 2 points he turned the other kid with the full nelson to his back and the ref started counting near fall points! The kid with the full nelson on won the match by 1 point sending the other kid home. Not only did I witness this illegal hold and very poor judgement on the part of the official, but also all of the coaches around the mats were yelling about the full nelson being applied. in response to the losing kids coaches questioning the official he claimed that it was NOT a full nelson that the kid had on the other kid. Makes me wonder if the officials even know what holds are legal and which ones are illegal and downright DANGEROUS.

How do the refs get chosen to work a qualifying event? I think there needs to be some sort of system in place to evaluate our refs. A system where a club/tourney director can go to and see the evaluations and choose the best refs for their tournaments. We need to get rid of this apparent "good 'ol boys club" method of choosing refs. Our club had a horrible situation at districts which not only cost our wrestler a match but a trip to the state championship for the first time. And anyone who knows him or his age/wt bracket can tell you he would have definitely been a top placer at topeka. He is only 8 years old and his heart and spirit are broken.

The districts are to supply the clubs with a form to vote for the referees they would like to see at state. These appear to be very political selections versus performance selections. I believe district 2 selected a very inexperienced referee. While this man was experienced with wrestling his inexperience as a referee changed the outcome of many matches at the state tournament. I know one coach asked the head official to watch his son's championship match as he feared he would get this official. The coach was afraid if he asked he would have reprisals but was more scared of the outcome should that official been on that mat. He told me before he went over to talk to the head official before championship matches, he actually liked the guy as a person but couldn't put his son's hard work in jeopardy with what he perceived as inexperience as an official. I believe there can be some improvement in official selection.

well my family watched mat 11 most of the 2 days and i tell you that woman ref had more problems with coaches and even some wrestlers were shakin there heads from calls MAN SHE WAS BAD!!!it was the mother of the 2 woman the daughter was really good!!she held that mat up so much it was discusting from coaches askin what she was callin enough said i get upset just thinking about it!and it should not be that way at a STATE TOURN!!!!!

middle school coach: if I'm reading your post correctly you are saying that of the mother/daughter combo, that the mother is not a good ref? Just wondering because I worked table 12 all day Saturday and again Sunday evening and the mother of the pair is an outstanding ref! In all the time I spent working the table last weekend there was not one problem except for the illegal hold incident in overtime and she wasn't the ref!

I don't know what her name is but I've always been impressed over the years watching her ref at State and holding her own in a male dominated sport!

Plus - she started off Saturday morning with a bag of Reese's peanut butter cups for our table - great way to start what turned out to be a very long day!

wrestlingmom, the women names is Lisa Woody from District 4, she has been officiating at the state tournament for as long as I can remember, and she is definatly one of the better ones.

As far as the official bashing is concerned its nothing new here so I won't say too much more about that.

The selection of officials for state is a VERY sore spot for me. I won't get into specific details on this site, but there is not really a "system" in place for selecting officials for the kids state tournament. The way its supposed to be done is district directors are supposed to send forms out to each club in their district and the clubs are supposed to pick either 5 or 10 officials they would like to see at the tournament. However I know that at least 2 of the districts this year did not use that procedure. And the other two that probably did were skewed at best.

I cite as an example. There was an official from D4 who doesn't even live in that district, in fact that person lives on the other side of the state, and was selected as one of D4 choices. There was another official from D3 who didn't referee a kids tournament ALL year long, who was at the state tournament. Does anyone else see the problem here? Don't get me wrong these two officials are very good and I have complete faith in them. The problem I see is the kids system should reward those officials who are deserving based on how they performed throughout the year. They should not be picked because of name recognition, being good friends with the directors, or otherwise.

I spoke with Ned Price about this at the District I tournament, and hopefully next year we can get a process started to perhaps let someone from the state tournament commitee or the state board to handle the nomination and selection procedure, because as I see it there are alot of good officials being passed over because of silly politics.

wrestlingmom ya thats what i seen the mother was not as good sorry thats just what i saw maybe she is good but there were some problems and dont know what they were but lots of discussing with coachs and at the table i dont mean to bash anyone just seemed to be lots going on down there for a state tourn.

Excuse me paragaph.

You'll have to excuse me I was in a bit of a rant in my earlier post. As I said I don't harbor any ill will towards any of the officials that were there. My point was that the current system if you could call it that, is not right. I do thank you for your comments about me though. I know there were alot of folks that would have liked to seen me there, but I don't want to say the wrong thing on here.