Dear Referees,

[cbg]

11 hours ago, cobrakid8 said:

First, refs don’t owe you or the fans crap! Second, you are more than welcome to sign up and do the job! I used to think the same thing as other idiots and ended up picking up the whistle in both wrestling and soccer. Some of that stuff is so split second decisions and the lines are so blurred on how/what to call even with things like stalling. Funny thing is every call there’s going to be 50% of the people thinking it’s wrong. Pin to quick, pin not quick enough. Stalling not being called stalling called to quick, was it a takedown or was it not, out of bounds and so on.  I am more than happy to get you the sign up info or anyone else that wants to complain. I used to have forms with me and after soccer games if a fan said something I would walk over give them a form and pen. After that they can kiss my rear because I don’t owe them an explanation for any of my decisions. I was an independent contractor and if not for me your kids don’t get to participate. I would even work tournaments my kid was participating in and just kept from doing any of his or his teams soccer matches(he didn’t care for wrestling). So I would work when he wasn’t participating and if possible watch his games and go right back to working after his were done. So no excuses for most of you. 

Let's understand something:  many of the people that are complaining were officials back in the day.  Back in the 70's, 80's and 90's most of the officials wrestled in college so while they were giving back to the sport they also had a good feel for what was really happening.  The TSSAA is having a difficult time finding officials due to the "GOOD OLE BOY SYSTEM"  When the young officials have the better coaches asking them why they are not officiating in the state tournament it's pretty evident as to what is happening.  Get away from using a local past official to do the evaluations.  Bring in someone from Iowa, Ohio, PA, NY or NJ that does not have a clue as to who the local officials are in Tennessee and you will get a true evaluation.  If someone only officiates in their backyard and does not go out to national events they have zero idea as to how everyone else in the country is doing things.  What national events do the evaluators attend during the course of a normal season? It has been my recommendation for the past five years that you do a weekend "OFFICIALS CAMP" across the State of Tennessee with one of the top officials in the nation teaching mechanics and the tendencies to look for during a match.  By doing this everyone would be hearing the same message.  If someone fails to attend the weekend camp they should not be allowed to officiate the district, region or state tournament.  There is a reason that the top high school wrestling officials in Tennessee are not requested to officiate the legitimate national tournaments.

[Greenhorn]

Guess my skins Lil thicker than most ! Don’t get butthurt so easy you agreed refs are bias ! That’s hard for me to be ok with !  These young men deserves fairness ! 

[cobrakid8]

1 hour ago, cbg said:

Let's understand something:  many of the people that are complaining were officials back in the day.  Back in the 70's, 80's and 90's most of the officials wrestled in college so while they were giving back to the sport they also had a good feel for what was really happening.  The TSSAA is having a difficult time finding officials due to the "GOOD OLE BOY SYSTEM"  When the young officials have the better coaches asking them why they are not officiating in the state tournament it's pretty evident as to what is happening.  Get away from using a local past official to do the evaluations.  Bring in someone from Iowa, Ohio, PA, NY or NJ that does not have a clue as to who the local officials are in Tennessee and you will get a true evaluation.  If someone only officiates in their backyard and does not go out to national events they have zero idea as to how everyone else in the country is doing things.  What national events do the evaluators attend during the course of a normal season? It has been my recommendation for the past five years that you do a weekend "OFFICIALS CAMP" across the State of Tennessee with one of the top officials in the nation teaching mechanics and the tendencies to look for during a match.  By doing this everyone would be hearing the same message.  If someone fails to attend the weekend camp they should not be allowed to officiate the district, region or state tournament.  There is a reason that the top high school wrestling officials in Tennessee are not requested to officiate the legitimate national tournaments.

You do know most all the referees have wrestled before? Just because they aren’t older doesn’t mean they don’t know the sport. heck I played football, wrestled and played soccer and I was a ref at 2 Of those sports. I also watched a bunch of college wrestling this weekend and I saw referees make mistake after mistake, even to the point of stalling calls and a few takedowns. None are perfect even those doing college, so even if they had outside referees come in and do evaluations it doesn’t mean things are going to go the way you or anyone else thinks they will. Almost all of these calls are judgement calls and everyone’s judgment is different. Again you and others keep whining you end up with none and let’s see how well sports do with that!

I quit because of incessant whining about referee decisions, I have a very thick skin but I also spent time away from family and friends that after dealing with people like you and the OP made it not worth it, especially for the money. I gave back to the sport and that was great I also coached for years before I had a family. I don’t remember wrestling very well but I will say in soccer we all had mentors and I got evaluated on a regular basis, but also most of that was officiating high level club sports which is much higher and harder than high school. Fact is you have to let the young guys grow into bigger roles and most are inexperienced. They can all travel and so for out of state tourneys all it takes it to ask TSSAA for permission. I will say any referee association should have a mentoring program and programs setup for continual learning. Not sure though that schools would be willing to pay a little more for that to happen as those fees would be tacked on for teams to pay. Until that point though all of you sound like a bunch of cheeseburgers. 

[cobrakid8]

56 minutes ago, Greenhorn said:

Guess my skins Lil thicker than most ! Don’t get butthurt so easy you agreed refs are bias ! That’s hard for me to be ok with !  These young men deserves fairness ! 

Let me know when anyone is not bias on something as there are no perfect people out there. I mean I like coke over Pepsi but Mello Yello over Mnt Diew. I like Wrestling over soccer and football but I would referee all of those any day of the week over basketball. Every ref out there goes out to be fair as possible to both wrestlers and teams. We push out of our minds any bias and do the job. But until you can get computers to do the job you are an idiot to think there’s no one with a bias out there, even the best referees in the world have a bias.
 

Again put on the uniform and grab you a whistle and try it out, you talk as if you are perfect when you sure as heck aren’t, I would be more than happy to stand on the sidelines and whine about your calls the entire time to the point you couldn’t stand it anymore and you would prob be the first to let that bias effect your decisions. I would wear one of the teams shirts and see how long until you were making every close call against the team that I was supporting. I would bet your skin isn’t as thick as you think!

Edited February 8, 2021 by cobrakid8

[Greenhorn]

Your a idiot to argue that being bias is ok ! And the problem is most people are like you! Helllll no I would probly be the opposite I don’t want my kid to get anything he does not deserve! These kids aren’t Pepsi’s their working harder than most grown men do at their jobs so don’t gimme that crap

[WrestlingGod]

Every year. Never fails.

[PurpleWrestler]

holy crap, the entire point of this was to say, please get together and figure out a common set of rules for calling stalling. 

[Dawgs100]

34 minutes ago, PurpleWrestler said:

holy crap, the entire point of this was to say, please get together and figure out a common set of rules for calling stalling. 

No kidding. Butthurt people can't let that happen. 

If people cant handle a little criticism and not take it out on a kid that is wrestling, they are immature and DO NOT NEED to be on the mat as a ref. 

[Dawgs100]

3 hours ago, cobrakid8 said:

Let me know when anyone is not bias on something as there are no perfect people out there. I mean I like coke over Pepsi but Mello Yello over Mnt Diew. I like Wrestling over soccer and football but I would referee all of those any day of the week over basketball. Every ref out there goes out to be fair as possible to both wrestlers and teams. We push out of our minds any bias and do the job. But until you can get computers to do the job you are an idiot to think there’s no one with a bias out there, even the best referees in the world have a bias.
 

Again put on the uniform and grab you a whistle and try it out, you talk as if you are perfect when you sure as heck aren’t, I would be more than happy to stand on the sidelines and whine about your calls the entire time to the point you couldn’t stand it anymore and you would prob be the first to let that bias effect your decisions. I would wear one of the teams shirts and see how long until you were making every close call against the team that I was supporting. I would bet your skin isn’t as thick as you think!

Glad you aren't a ref anymore. You should be trained that criticism from the stands should not bed taken out on a kid wrestling. when you put on the stripes you take off any ego you may have. 

[cobrakid8]

5 minutes ago, Dawgs100 said:

Glad you aren't a ref anymore. You should be trained that criticism from the stands should not bed taken out on a kid wrestling. when you put on the stripes you take off any ego you may have. 

And you do, but again you want to be up in those stands without the balls to wear those stripes yourself maybe keeping your mouth shut would remove any possible bias you can have. But maybe fans are morons like you and are stupid to think it will change how a referee makes their decisions. Of course we see this in every level where even at the highest levels they get death threats due to it. It’s the idiot fans that think they are right! So yes it’s good I don’t ref anymore and it has nothing with not taking criticism and letting it effect me to do my job, it’s you idiots not going to have sports much longer if you keep it up, there is a shortage in EVERY single sport in the country right now, so good luck with that my kids are almost old enough for me to not care anymore as they won’t be playing sports and in drag racing there is no official to blame when you can’t do your own job. 

Edited February 8, 2021 by cobrakid8

[Greenhorn]

18 minutes ago, cobrakid8 said:

And you do, but again you want to be up in those stands without the balls to wear those stripes yourself maybe keeping your mouth shut would remove any possible bias you can have. But maybe fans are morons like you and are stupid to think it will change how a referee makes their decisions. Of course we see this in every level where even at the highest levels they get death threats due to it. It’s the idiot fans that think they are right! So yes it’s good I don’t ref anymore and it has nothing with not taking criticism and letting it effect me to do my job, it’s you idiots not going to have sports much longer if you keep it up, there is a shortage in EVERY single sport in the country right now, so good luck with that my kids are almost old enough for me to not care anymore as they won’t be playing sports and in drag racing there is no official to blame when you can’t do your own 

[Greenhorn]

Yea you seem like you don’t take it personal!