Thought we could use another topic addressing the officials "judgement". Sounds like the criticism has been increasing. Does this mean the officiating is getting better? Anyways, just want to know:

What's the worst call you have ever witnessed?

Mine, 1999 6A 119lb State Finals match. Runner-up is winning by 1 point. A Stalling call is made right off the whistle with like 2 seconds left in the 3rd... the kid later, gets taken down in OT.

Had the kid been warned? Why were they back in the middle? Out of bounds backpeddaling in the end?

Worst call ever ... State semi-finals 1999 an undefeated kid from Abilene and a kid from Columbus. Kid from Abilene does a perfect Gramby roll from bottom position then lays on top of the Columbus kid for about two seconds and still only gets an escape which sends the match into overtime.

I'm not going to say worse, but I've seen some questionable:

135 4a finals 2005 come to mind on a set of calls:

Neutral to one guy ending up in tripod with other guy on top for control for a good 5 seconds....no call.

Same Scenario, other kid and call made in same spot giving him 3-1 win.

Nigel,

Shame on you for bad-mouthing an official. You are the one who said we shouldn't talk about the bad call in the 189 4A State title match. Is there some sort of statute of limitations that allows you to get on the forum and gripe about bad calls if they happened more than 5 years ago or something?

Please share the rules of when it is allowed to bad-mouth a call and when it isn't.

While I can't prove it I am fairly certain Nigel's policy regarding officials has changed since he bought the uniform.

That wrestler from Abilene wouldn't have been Nigel would it?

This is the call that I immediately thought of when I read the topic, if I am remembering correctly. Didn't the "winner" eventually become a 4 timer?

Back to the question at hand. I think MAWcoach has the honor of being the victim of the worst call in the history of the state tournament. Semi-finals and he has a figure four on the opponents head. The bottom man pushes the foot up into an illegal scissor causing the ref to stop the match and award the bottom guy a penalty point. The bottom man then feigns injury and expires the injury time. At that point, the ref summons the head official who concures and awards the match to MAWcoach's opponent. I can't remember if they were using two officials per mat in those days but at the least two officials (possibly three), blew the call.

2005 3a semi final between Lamar Silver Lake and Tyler West Elk. Two great wrestlers. Went to double OT. Lamar put Tyler on his back. Ref gave verbal 3 count maybe even got to 4. Lamar got up knowing by rule he won and was excited. Ref decided to award escape rather than back points. Tyler wins. Ref was heard saying he didn't like the fact that Lamar let Tyler up. That's worse than giving a stalling point with 2 seconds left to give a kid a win only because the ref can claim it fit the rules. But that was a pretty bad one with Strawn v Sutton-Kern also. The reason I think these are bad is because it really isn't about judgement it is a ref deciding who he wants to win the match.

Wow Rick,

I really hope you understood the somewhat satirical nature of my post in this subject. I know at least Zahm Dad got the joke.

Worse call i ever saw-NAIA National finals 149lb
2001 Jeremy Biddle(Winfield,Ks) wrestling for Missouri Valley. Close match. Biddle rides kid out for all of 3rd period. Gets riding time goes into overtime-no takedowns. Double OT kid takes bottom Biddle goes to get on him ref hits Biddle with false start-the supposive third call-all of which were shaky calls-Biddle loses-National Finals-what the f*#*.

Big Head, who are you? The match ur talking about was between my coach Brook Medrano and Dusty May. Brook told me about it.

ANOTHER BAD CALL CAME IN THE METRO CLASSIC IN THE 135 POUND MATCH WHEN TYLER MODLE HAD THE KID STUCK FOR A GOOD 30 SECONDS BUT WAS ONLY AWARDED BACK POINTS.

Nigel,

Somewhat satirical nature? Does that mean you believe you were screwed or not? While I assumed you were talking about yourself, and this may be satire, one must remember that satire is the use of humor or irony to discredit.

I just hope the poor official that you were satirizing is man enough to take your sarcastic attempt to discredit his officiating in stride.

If I remember correctly, the stall call in the May/Medrano match was two stall calls. One with like 20 seconds to go, the next with 7 seconds then one point.

If I remember correctly, the call was a huge discussion on the board. I remember standing there along with a bunch of other coaches mad that Medrano's stall calls were in the middle of the mat. Very tactical match that the officials blew.

Anyone know the names of the officials? I always thought it would be funny if someone would make a t-shirt that read May 3X, Officials 1X.

Oh Big Head... you are so special...

That was Dusty May and Brooke Medrano... I saw the match... Dusty is a great competitor... So was Brooke... I think it was two stalling calls in the last 10-15 seconds and the last one was a shot off the whistle and brooked took a step back. If I remember correctly... I don't want to put my true opinion of the call as I don't even know who the official was... but I probably would have been escorted out of the Kansas Coliseum if I was one of their coaches

However, Dusty did move on to become a four time champion and a national runner-up in NJCAA! So, he is pretty good! lol

I know him personally Rick, great guy, great official. I harbor no ill will towards him. And I think what you will find is I never came on this board to whine or complain about it the way some people do. He made the call that he thought was right.

Sportsfan is completly correct, you get a whole new perspective on things when you've been on this side of the whistle, something I wish a whole lot more people would do. You can try to twist my words and intent around all you would like. But as I see this topic as another big joke anyway, I thought I would embellish some with a funny story from my past, apprently one that only the folks in Abilene and Columbus would understand.


In light of all of this, I 've come up with a new motto "The worst call you can make, is the one that you don't"

Nigel,

I too was just joking and giving you a hard time. I think you will notice that I am not one to come on here to bad-mouth officials. You can see from my post on the 189 pound match that I did not call out the official or say he sucked, but I did point out that I had trouble swallowing the call that was made in that match.

I have never seen you work as an official, but I hope you are good and keep getting better as the sport needs good young officials.

I will admit that I have never officiated wrestling beyond kids wrestling when I was in college and the boatloads of tryouts we have at Colby every two weeks, but I've umpired more baseball games than I can count and understand how tough it can be.

I also understand as someone who has umpired, coached, and taught that you better have thick skin or this world will chew you up and spit you out. I'm sure that is true of most professions.

Sportsfan02, one of the officials concurred with you. The lead official in the match actually came over to me during injury time, prior to the Head official arriving, and told me I would win if the other wrestler couldn't continue becuase it was my opponents fault that the move became illegal. Such is life. Good things came from the loss though. I think it left that desire to win it all in me that, hopefully, my kids are beginning to display. IF you ever watch my team closely though, you'll notice we don't figure four the head when we run our wings!