Reader Mail

Dear Will, 

Even if it wasn’t technically your responsibility to do (it is technically your responsibility though), relying on anyone else to keep track of choice is a valid optics concern. (Spectator: “He doesn’t even know who has choice. How closely could he possibly be paying attention to the match?”) You should always endeavor to mimimize or eliminate these kinds of optics concerns whenever possible. 

Here is the complete system for tracking choice of position that Mack uses:

Individual Tournaments: Single flip disc only. Nothing special. Discs with any number of sides will settle on the mat far more gracefully than discs with a rounded edge such as a circle. Among discs with sides, those with an odd number of sides (e.g., septagon) will typically settle slightly more easily than those having an even number of sides (e.g., hexagon, octagon), but this is a triviality; a disc with an even number of sides is fine. Your pants must have two back pockets, one on each side.¹You don’t want to look like you’re constantly fiddling with your junk just so that you can ascertain who has choice. Side pockets are not graceful for this purpose, so do not use side pockets. The disc goes in either one of the back pockets.

After the end of the first period,²Do not have the disc out, be retrieving the disc, or flip the disc before the period has actually expired. It may save you a second or two, but it invites the kind of complacency that could catch you unfocused at the wrong moment, with ugly results. flip the disc, allowing it to hit the mat. Do not ever catch the disc; I do not care how fat or old or injured you are, this is not acceptable ever, under any circumstances. If the disc happens to contact another wrestler’s foot or something before it settles, that is fine; you do not need to reflip it. When the disc has settled, leave it there for now; do not pick it up.

Extend your arm overhead, fingers together, open palm, on the side that has choice. I actually point to the wrestler with my index finger on that hand immediately before extending that arm up overhead (if straight up is 90 degrees, I place my arm at around 65 or 70 degrees). The reason for this is to get the attention of the wrestler as quickly as possible, and of course so everyone knows which wrestler you need input from first in order to proceed. The pointing is also a mechanism to self-verify that I am actually pointing at and asking for choice the wrestler who is, in fact, green (or red, as the case may be). It also connects everyone with why you have suddenly raised that arm overhead.³There is technically no approved set of signals for much of the choice of position sequence, so there may be some minor stylistic differences among officials here. I believe this approach best minimizes the potential for confusion and/or mistakes, but these precise mechanics are not necessarily required by any particular rule.

“Green, it’s your choice.” You do not need to provide them with a list of what those potential choices are; if they don’t know that, they should be looking to their coach, anyway. At the youth level, if the wrestler looks confused when I ask them for choice, I will typically prompt them to look at their coach (if I am not already looking to their coach anyway for the choice).

Make sure there is no ambiguity in their choice. At the collegiate level, we are instructed to get verbal confirmation of this, but at other levels, this is not necessary so long as you are sure that both of you are on the same wavelength.     

Green defers. You signal this (using the correct defer signal, which is not making an “X” in front of you with your wrists) and raise the other arm in the same way. The defer signal actually flows very nicely here, while you say  

“Green defers to red. Red, your choice.” 

Red indicates bottom. You will signal this (please do not use a closed fist and thumb to do so, it looks amateurish), then, as the wrestlers are getting set, pick up the disc and place it in your back pocket on the side with the wristband that corresponds to the color of the wrestler who will have choice in the third period. 

At the end of the second period, if you have forgotten who has choice in the third, you can simply brush your hands against your back pockets, which will instantly tell you which side the disc is on (and thus which wrestler has choice in the third period). This is a very natural motion that will go entirely unnoticed. 

DON’T use the disc as a communication prop, as though nobody could possibly understand whether you’re referring to green or red without having that side of the disc held up in front of you. In fact, you may have noticed that we already wear a wristband on each wrist for this very purpose. I have seen officials who pick up the disc and, like, flip it around when one wrestler defers to the other, as if they were a magician doing sleight-of-hand with the disc or something. It looks silly, but even more importantly, it is not how we (to introduce an expression that I will probably use routinely in this magazine) “officiate with purpose.” 

By this, I mean that everything we do on the mat, down to the smallest detail, needs to have some deliberate thinking and choice-making behind it (i.e., option A instead of options B, C, D, etc.). We should always be trying to optimize our own methods, and an official cannot realistically expect to do that if they don’t even know why they’re doing things the way they currently are, or what alternative techniques might be available that could allow them to enhance some aspect of their officiating. When you start giving this kind of comprehensive and nuanced consideration to everything you’re doing out on the mat, you’ll know you have started down the path to officiating with purpose.