Suffolk Wrestling Officials Association

 

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THE POWER OF "YOU"

"DR.  JOHN" RABER

The wrestling season for the middle schools in most states started several week ago.  Regardless of the fact that I have personally officiated at every level I still love to officiate at the middle school level.  When officiating a match involving good high school and college wrestlers you can see them start to set something up and anticipate the move.  Additionally, you will move to what will be the start and finish of the move and be in a much better position to make the right call.

With middle school wrestlers anything can and does happen and you must work all of the time to expect the unexpected.  It can be a takedown, escape, takedown, reversal, escape, takedown, near fall, reversal, near fall, and escape before you can say jack rabbit.  You will think, you will think quickly, you will move, you will move quickly, and while you are doing that you will give full concentration to the job of officiating and remembering everything that happened before half the fans take a deep breath.

Now, after all of this non stop movement, you stop the match, stand in the middle of the mat facing the score table and verbally, so all can hear, tell the scoring sequence and what the score is.  If you can do this correctly you will stand tall in the saddle of officiating and the people will respect you for being the professional that you should be.

Inserted into all of this verbiage is the statement, "be careful how you live because you may be the only bible that some people read".  You should be very careful how you officiate every match because you may well be the official upon which all other officials are judged.

It is critical that regardless of the level you are officiating it should, in you the officials mind, be considered the world championship of wrestling with every eye in the world watching and evaluating the job you are doing.

A single call in any match can have a positive or a negative effect on future personality, confidence level, trust, and outlook of the wrestler or every team member for the rest of their life.  There is no such thing as a so so match.  Every match in every meet is the world championship for the participants involved and you the official, being a mighty power of "YOU", must realize the importance of the professional job you accepted.

The middle school match that you call today or any day is every bit as important as the NCAA D1 finals match that you call today or any day.