First off, hats off to Mill Valley and their tourney, they do a quality job and have a great facility, the competition was awesome this year and it is nice to see round robin formats at this point in the year when the kids need all the mat time they can get. Nice hospitality room as well,,,Krispy Kremes rock...

My son wrestled in the wrestling room and some of the officiating in there became pretty suspect. i am a certified official, i respect the job they do and know that human error comes in to play. what i think i saw was a young official who had "swallowed his whistle" and became overwhelmed. I personally witnessed him directly affect the outcome of three straight matches late in the day. Kids were taken straight to their back for upwards of 10 seconds with no back points, points not awarded or wrongly awarded and the clock not started for at least 30 seconds on several matches. One Turner wrestler lost a match in the last 5 seconds, this was after the clock was not started for over half a minute, his coaches appeared not to be aware of the problem. Another Junior Viking youth was awarded 1 point on a reversal at the end of the third period. Either it was a reversal or nothing. In a championship match, isonberg of gardner was cut, got a leg, took the kid down and was awarded one point, as opposed to two and he ended up losing in double overtime.
In the main gym, on mat 11, one wrestler literally had his fingers up the other youths nose, until his coach/father intervened.

In my opinion, there was just too much being missed to let it go, perhaps more mentoring by senior officials is needed, we need to encourage new young officals for sure but we also need to work with them on making the appropriate calls and letting the wrestling decide the outcome of the matches not judgment of the officals.

I also witnessed bad calls, but it was on mat 5. Wanting to do the right thing, I asked for the Head Official (I believe it was Jim Belt). In a very respectful way, I explained that there was a problem (not judgement calls). Jim thanked me for being professional and sat matside for several matches to witness the official. As you all can guess, everything went smoothly on the mat. However, shortly after Jim left the mat, an unbelievable call was made. Again the head official was sought out, arrived, discussed and overturned the bad call. ("red" was taken down, but "green" was called for illegal hold (locked hands), "red" had a free move, but "green" was allowed to thread a double-wing, run it, and pin "red")

The point to my post is... yes we are human and make mistakes (yes, even coaches). And yes, it was a "recently certified" official. But, as you hear in every coaches meeting (pre-tournament start), if there is a problem, calmly approach the scoring table and invite the official over to discuss it. If that doesn't bring resolution, then calmly ask for the head official. And don't forget about the kid on the mat that just wants to wrestle, not watch you and the ref have a debate.

So, yes I agree that I have seen better officiating, but I have also seen coaches, parents and wrestlers behave better as well.

first off,,, what a great bunch of wrestlers,the competion level of these kids was extremly high with many good match ups between some of the best around,,,,the bad part,,,many matchs where descided by bad calls,,its one thing for two people to see a judgement call differently but somethings went way past that..most of the people around mats 10 and 11 I talked with thought that some of the officals were in over thier heads,,,I admit that I would not want thier job or would not be able to do as good as job as most of the officials out there everyweekend,doing thier best with little thanks in return,but,, it would be nice to get some kind of program to help get a less experenced offical the help they need to get more consistent and in control of the match,,,the kids deserve the best chance wrestle,and,win or lose,,come out safe and knowing that it was up to them to descide the outcome,,,,,,,,,thanks

Remember to email and let your district director know of those officals that you would or would not like to have at sub, disrtict or state.