michael.geasley

Sometimes officials do change their calls. In a recent tournament an official disqualified a wrestler for throwing a punch. After further review, he determined that it was merely a legal cross face, and the ref had the guts to reverse his call. I respect him for that. Most of the officiating is very good, some of it is awful. One reason to bring it up on a message board is to exert a little peer pressure (the peers being those of us in Tennessee that love the sport), and encourage them to attend the Statewide referees’ clinic and to get back in the rule book (and examples in the back of the pamphlet).

Congratulations to Bradley for the win and to Soddy-Daisy for having such a competitive program. Because this string has already focused on wrestling referees I’ll put in my two-cent’s worth. I don’t understand why it seems we have to handle wrestling referees with kid gloves. I’m not aware of another sport that is so protective of the referee’s feelings. Football and basketball coaches are always riding the refs. This particularly perplexes me because most of the wrestling refs are former wrestlers and are certainly not physically intimidated. As a fan, I don’t feel like I have a right to say a ref is an idiot (or I run the risk of being body slammed), but I do feel I have a right to say I think he missed a call. I say, lighten up refs. As far as trying refereeing, myself, I probably will, unless some of these refs I’m “assisting” blackball me.

Isn't Ryan Fuller, 119 - SD, a freshman? I haven't seen all the rest of the outstanding freshmen, but Fuller's win over Ibraham at Brentwood was very impressive. His 4 - 2 loss against Cordell last night was also remarkable. If he's not a freshman, then never mind. I stand corrected, Fuller is a sophmore...never mind!

rbsoftball2 - Obviously most people realized my post was about the elements of a wrestler, not programming a game. A little slow on the up take, huh, rbsoftball2. Lol PikminGod - Sorry for the dis on GCN. My bad. Allow me to change the thread a little: What elements can a coach influence? Can a coach teach heart or speed? What about Mat savvy?

X-Box and PSII often allow players to choose from a list of characters when playing a game. They typically display bar graphs that show the different characters' strengths and skills. With that in mind, what are the four or five strength and skill elements that make up a wrestler? Here is my guess: Physical strength Technical ability Mat savvy Speed Determination (heart) For example, an above average wrestler may rate as follows (on a scale of 1 - 10): Physical strength - 7 Technical ability - 5 Mat savvy - 6 Speed - 7 Determination - 8 What elements best describe a wrestler?

I've seen Bauke wrestle FCI for a number of years and I agree that he is an excellent wrestler. I'd say the same about him even if he were a senior this year. For a freshman, he is outstanding! However, with Ortiz and Pair at 112 in the Franklin tournament, no one bumped up to 119 for "tougher competition". Has he ever beaten either of these guys? I think he's worth talking about. He's fun to watch and I keep an eye out for his matches at the tournaments.

Franklin High has the best team in Williamson County, but Centennial is also doing well. Ravenwood and Page both have some good wrestlers (Page's 112 is among the best in the State). Just up the road Father Ryan and Overton are two of the better teams in the State. Franklin Road Academy has a good team as well. I'm probably leaving out some very good teams that should be obvious to me, sorry. Most of these teams have websites. Try www.wcs.edu for the Williamson County schools.

REFTN, I fundamentally disagree with your idea of a perfect ref: "... the officiating is about right. If 50% are happy..." In my opinion it's about right when you don't even realize the ref was on the mat because his calls were consistent. Granted, I have not ref'd a match (except from the sidelines, ha-ha), but I have watched thousands of matches, and I've read the rules from the pamphlet. Sorry, but it's not rocket science. The rules pamphlet is very small. What is hard is figuring out why some rules are ignored. I've never seen a pin that was an actual two-count. Not that I think pins should be a two-count, it is just that this is one example of how matches are often called in a manner inconsistent with the rules pamphlet. Thank you for holding a State Officials' Camp. If most of the officials will participate in that type of forum then the officiating will certainly move towards greater consistency. In the future, in order to encourage participation, you may want to make attendance at the State Officials' Camp a requirement in order to participate in one of the two State-level tournaments. But, that's your call (I'll just stand on the sidelines and rag on you if I disagree, ha-ha).

Ravenwood folks, very enjoyable tournament. Really nice job having the extra mats set up for the first couple of rounds. That got us deep into the brackets fairly quickly. I'm sure you are aware of the small things that need to be tweaked for next year. Please keep the number of teams about the same. In my opinion, that's about the maximum number of teams for a one-day tournament. That being said, save a spot next year for Independence High, the new Williamson County School. PS. The $8 gate price was definitely Brentwoodish.

I agree with the earlier comments; this was a very well run tournament and the refs did a nice job. It's funny, I didn't think about how smoothly the tournament was run and how consistent the refs were until I read this string. But that, in it's self, is a complement to the organizers and the refs..

Does wrestling get any less notoriety than sports like tennis, cross-country, track or even baseball? Do many people other than parent go to high school sporting events other than football and maybe basketball? One reason that wrestling may not have more spectators is that fans need a basic knowledge of how points are scored in order to keep up with a match. Without knowing the rules it is kind of like watching cricket for the first time, confusing. A life time ago, 1977, when I wrestled at Franklin, we had one match during the school day to which everyone in the school got to go. (Luckily that day I had an opponent that knew even less than I did!) I don't know how the coach pulled that off, but it certainly improved the visibility of the sport in our school.

Coach Gonyea, since you appear to have a close relationship with the MTSU wrestling club would you mind suggesting to them that they update their website. I'd love to keep track of the team. Thanks.

For those of you with a large number of wrestlers in your program; what do you do to keep the non-starters interested? Do you have JV matches, exhibition matches or inter-squad matches?

Bayoubear, see if this website helps you: http://www.wcs.edu/fhs/Athletics/wrestling...osterweight.htm Man those guys are good at FHS.

How about the details on Ryan Fuller? What grade, what weight, how he has done lately. I think my son wrestled against him in FCI and with him on the FCI State team. Doesn't he have a younger brother named Mikey that is a tough wrestler as well? As I recall, Ryan had a banged up knee, is that okay now? If this is the young man I'm thinking about it wouldn't surprise me at all to see him do real well.

Thanks dom730, I'll check it out.

bucklateral, in a prior post you referred to a "TWF" site. I'm unfamiliar with that, would you mind passing on that web address. Sorry to interupt this stream. Thanks

Five seasons ago my two sons began wrestling on Matt Otto's FCI club in Franklin. Matt devoted a lot of time into improving wrestling in the middle Tennessee area. My sons are competitive wrestlers thanks in a great part to Matt's instructions. Along the way, Matt's sons developed into excellent wrestlers, as well. Thanks Matt.