Volunteering at a Wrestling Tournament

This past weekend I had the chance to volunteer at the PJW Jr.High State Tournament. The Richland Wrestling Booster Club had an opportunity to provide mats and people to work the mats in exchange for a decent amount of money for the program. Since I had nothing going on, I said I could work Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for all sessions. 

It was a loads of fun. I got to watch a ton of great wrestling, make some new friends, and talk to a bunch of refs. We worked a table for one of the mats, there were three of us at all times (you could do it with two, but it was nice to be able to take breaks). The wrestlers would bring us their bout sheet, then one of us would keep score on the sheet, while another person kept score on the laptop which runs the scoreboard. It was not too difficult, but could be a little nerve-wracking at times. You had to stop the clock as soon as the referee blows the whistle, which can be a little harder than you expect. There were lots of mats, and lots of whistles, plus each ref has their own whistle-sound. Some of them blow loud and hard, while others are softer. So it took a little bit to get used to each of them since they would rotate mats. 

My biggest problem was thinking you started the clock, and finding out that you did not. Usually it was only a few seconds, and then I would notice, or the mat judge would signal that the clock was not running. Or at the worst, a coach would start yelling. In those cases, the ref would just say “take a X amount of seconds off.” But there was one bad one. I must have double hit the button, and it was stopped after just a second had gone by. The wrestling went on for a decent amount of time, and the mat judge saw it, and motioned for me, and I started the clock…the mat judge just shrugged and after the match he came over and laughed about it (we got lucky since the one kid that was winning ended up just pinning his opponent like a few seconds after I started it–but we probably went forty seconds without the clock running). 

I came away from the experience with a much greater respect for the referees. I saw a few bad calls, but what shocked me most was how much the refs discuss these things after each match. It was cool hearing them explain their thinking, and sometimes you would hear one ref say “I get your thinking, I disagree with it, but I can see your interpretation.” I also heard a few refs ask each other if they thought they got a call right. But you know what you hear the most? Total wrestling fanboys. They love the sport. They get excited for great scrambles, big throws, comebacks, and all the things the rest of us love. 

The funniest thing I noticed during the matches was that coaches would come to the table to argue a call, and the refs would meet them, but it always went the same way: the ref looking annoyed and giving a very quick answer. It cracked me (and a few of the refs up) that the coaches would come to us at the table looking for an answer, as if it were college and we had video review available. 

So yeah, it was a good time, and I honestly look forward to next year.