I understand that you’ve been involved in wrestling since God was a kid. I know you’re the “team leader” for the schoolboy nationals or some god damn job they created for incompetent fucks like you to keep you away from jobs where you can fuck something up seriously. That does NOT give you the excuse to let a kid dislocate another kid’s shoulder and call it a “perfectly legal technique.”
It’s bad enough you follow me around like a lost puppy. I don’t know whether you’re trying to take me under your wing or everyone else is just smart enough not to let you work with them and I’m on the last mat left. It’s bad enough that you’re incapable of working properly. You’re a sixty-year-old man with a stomach so big that you have trouble getting down to look for a fall. Remember? That’s why there are three officials in freestyle and Greco. To control fuck-ups like you. And it’s bad enough that you treat me like I’m a moron just because I’m 21, and I couldn’t possibly know everything you know about the sport of wrestling. Why don’t you talk to all the 1E refs who are so impressed with how I understand the sport, who leave me in charge of the mat until you waddle over, and who apologize at the end of every session I have to spend with you dragging me down?
The kid who had never reffed before? He had an excuse for sucking. He’d never done it before. You? You’re just an incompetent asshole. Sure, there are a lot of times when that shows up. The time you and the rookie gave a point for a reversal when the two kids were still both on their feet? I had to explain that to a Canadian coach who had never seen an American folkstyle match and couldn’t for the life of him figure out whose ass you pulled that rule out of or why you were applying it in a freestyle match. That’s what happens when you fill in the Mach-truck-sized holes in your freestyle and Greco knowledge with American folkstyle rules. You fuck up. And don’t give me that “wrestling’s wrestling” bullshit, either. You pretend to be a ref, so you should know the rules.
But usually it’s innocuous. You’ll coach a kid in the center. You’ll not let me recuse myself from a match where one of my old teammates is wrestling because as a ref I’m supposed to be “above” bias (even though it’s the APPEARANCE that matters and not the actual bias). You’ll shout the wrong call and write down something else entirely. You’ll give a few phantom points here and there that the rookie will confirm it because he thinks he should just mimic whatever the old guy does, because he’s old, so he must be right. We still get the right winner 99% of the time. Or sometimes you’ll criticize my mechanics because I’m working proper freestyle positioning and giving coaches clarifications so that they understand what’s going on, because that’s what good referees do.
This was the last straw, though. You’re sitting at the table, so you break the voting ties, and you’re responsible for clarifying and selling calls. The rookie’s out on the mat. Blue kid’s on his belly, red kid’s riding parallel and has a legal hammerlock on - left arm bent at exactly 90 degrees, flat against the back. Dangerous, maybe, but as long as he keeps it legal, there’s nothing wrong and he won’t get hurt. Of course, the rookie’s not strong on safety, so bells don’t go off and red flags don’t pop up when red slides out to the right side, perpendicular, and grabs the wrist with both hands. Before I can jump out of my seat, red yanks back as hard as he can - nearly rips the fucking arm out of its socket! He violated the 90-degree rule. He pulled the arm off the back. Either of those is grounds for an illegal hold caution right there! But the way he did it - bloodthirsty, angry and totally disregarding his opponent’s safety - is practically the textbook definition of a brutality caution!
And you called a pin?!
Of course the coaches went apeshit! The red kid tried to yank his arm out of the socket in a flagrantly illegal fashion, and you REWARDED him for it, you asshole! The rookie doesn’t know what he’s doing, but you SHOULD!
And then at the head table when I plead my case for at least a caution for brutality, if not taking the murderous little shit from the tournament, you fucking patronize me. “You had your say, and not I’m going to have mine.” Yeah, that’s something you say when I interrupt you, not when I’m sitting there listening to your shit spew and not putting up a fight. “In my mind, that’s a perfectly legal technique.” Maybe in NHB or pankration. “So the pin stands.” Of course it does.
So the blue kid’s coach is going absolutely nuts, and before he stalks off and probably destroys something, he asks me for a clarification of what happened. Of course I’m going to explain it! I’m going to tell him that I don’t understand why you made the call! I’m not going to tell him it was a stupid fucking call, because he knows that as well as I do, but I am going to tell him that you and the rookie must have had a different view of the hold than I did. I’m also going to chat with him for a few seconds so he walks away calm. Besides, it’s not like the next match is going to start, what with the blue kid laying on his back and the trainers working on him.
And then you come over and lecture me. “I don’t know what you were talking about, but you are part of a team, Tom, and we can’t have you talking to coaches all the time. We need to stand together.”
That’s all well and good, but sometimes you need someone with a little more diplomacy than your tired old “I’m sorry, coach, but that was the call, that was what we agreed on, and that’s why there’s three refs” spiel. Why don’t you go tell the kid whose shoulder nearly got ripped out of his socket that we’re part of a team? Or how about the kid who’s going to go brutalize another opponent because you let him get away with it?