PIAA High School Wrestling...Kind of Hard to Watch

[Hedonist1]

they really need to make the out of bounds rules consistent with college. The mat area is way too small not to. Furthermore, I see a lot of subjectivity and inconsistency between refs. I think the only solution is to adopt NCAA rules. It's pretty easy/objective to see if one part of one wrestler's body is within circle thereby continuing the match.

Everyone is now so gung ho with stalling and speeding up matches, this is very contradictory to that philosophy. Some of the matches between Beca and Nazareth were painfully long due to all the OB stoppages.

Just my 2 cents.

Does anyone know if other states have same OB rules as NCAA?

 

[dicemen99]

they really need to make the out of bounds rules consistent with college. The mat area is way too small not to. Furthermore, I see a lot of subjectivity and inconsistency between refs. I think the only solution is to adopt NCAA rules. It's pretty easy/objective to see if one part of one wrestler's body is within circle thereby continuing the match.

Everyone is now so gung ho with stalling and speeding up matches, this is very contradictory to that philosophy. Some of the matches between Beca and Nazareth were painfully long due to all the OB stoppages.

Just my 2 cents.

Does anyone know if other states have same OB rules as NCAA?

No states have college rules OOB. NFHS will probably have to adopt them first, and then the individual states will follow. I have no idea why there is such resistance to this. I have yet to see a credible reason why it can't be done. If a school doesn't have a mat with a 5' apron, runners can be taped down. During tournaments apron can be shared - just like it is done in college now.

As far as the inconsistency of reffing - yes, this has been a growing issue I've seen at Hershey in recent years. I can understand at a local level, but in theory the guys working dual and individual states should be cream of the crop. Some subpar performances by a few guys up there this year. My guess is - 1) cronyism - some guys are just not up to it anymore, even though they might have been serviceable in the past, and 2) overall it speaks to the difficulty of attracting new refs - the pool is just pretty shallow now.

 

[21Guns]

One of the biggest problems is no riding time in high school. You get no reward for riding.

 

[Callthestall]

When I joined this forum and had to pick a username, I chose Callthestall.I think it's the one aspect of this sport that is not handled in a consistent manner. I guarantee you a ref who starts hitting guys on stalls early will have less whistles on out of bounds. Keep the wrestlers in the middle and if you go out of bounds on your feet it should be a stall or a point. I always thought OT should be more like sumo wrestling, you got to initiate a tie up in the inner circle ,if you step out when not engaged you lose.

 

[smalls103]

You get no reward for riding.

Good

 

[dicemen99]

One of the biggest problems is no riding time in high school. You get no reward for riding.

Riding time in high school would be an even worse idea than it is in college.

 

[hlstone]

Mat wrestling is great, but stalling needs to be called properly. Top wrestler needs to be working for a turn and not riding parallel. Bottom wrestler needs to be working for an escape or reversal. Pretty easy in my silly brain.

 

[GOLDBANGER]

I can tell you from experience as a PIAA official that if you emphasize how and when you call stalling prematch in the team meetings and follow up consistently and aggressively with your calls, the wrestlers will engage and the matches will go much quicker.

 

[jschrantz]

I love PIAA wrestling and find it Easy and Fun to Watch, the AA and AAA State Tournament Finals on PCN are easily one of the top sporting events of the year for me, along with BIGs and NCAAs.

 

[El-Jefe]

One of the biggest problems is no riding time in high school. You get no reward for Tony Nelson top stalling.

Tweaked to show effect.

 

[nitlion6]

No states have college rules OOB. NFHS will probably have to adopt them first, and then the individual states will follow. I have no idea why there is such resistance to this. I have yet to see a credible reason why it can't be done. If a school doesn't have a mat with a 5' apron, runners can be taped down. During tournaments apron can be shared - just like it is done in college now.

As far as the inconsistency of reffing - yes, this has been a growing issue I've seen at Hershey in recent years. I can understand at a local level, but in theory the guys working dual and individual states should be cream of the crop. Some subpar performances by a few guys up there this year. My guess is - 1) cronyism - some guys are just not up to it anymore, even though they might have been serviceable in the past, and 2) overall it speaks to the difficulty of attracting new refs - the pool is just pretty shallow now.

They do not use a ranking system for determining who is doing states. They kind of just rotate. So obviously some are better than others. This is not something new.

For regionals in the past they would have referees from other regions do the regional tournaments. They quit doing that in the 80s. However, it seemed to me the officiating at regionals was always top notch, much less bias crap. I always thought they should rank the officials at the regional tournaments and use that ranking as some sort of guide for who might be good enough to do states. Once they quit using out of area officials that idea became useless.

 

[El-Jefe]

To the original points:

Yes, I would also like to see HS adopt the NCAA out of bounds rule. That said, our sport is often slow to change, and the NCAA rule is a fairly recent development.

Like Dice said, there would need to be runners or some other equipment modification. It wasn't that long ago that in a PIAA final one wrestler gave up a penalty point for using the edge of the mat to defend a shot. (Pretty sure it was Coltin Fought in 2010.) If one guy can be in bounds, and the other can lift the mat a full foot off the floor ...

Needs better refereeing? Sure, but so does the sport at all levels. Especially international. Very few if any PA refs would've missed when Frank got bitten on the arm in Rio. Not even a first week youth wrestling ref would've screwed over Franklin Gomez like that. And college refs were placid about stalling calls, especially top stalling, until 2014 when one finally got the brass to call Nelson for clinging onto Gwiazdowski for dear life.

PIAA to its credit issues postseason referee training videos with clips showing what refs did right and wrong. (Can't believe I just said something nice about PIAA, must now go shower in bleach.)

IMO the biggest thing HS wrestling needs to change is eliminating the OT 30-sec stall-out periods, especially the UTB stall-out.

But even so the sport is plenty watchable at the HS level.

 

[Gray52]

Three things needed in PIAA wrestling...
1. Go to 11 weights (too many forfeits)
2. OB rule has to change (I like Kolats tweet about it)
3. Every H.S. Kid on the roster is eligible to compete in tournaments and post-season

 

[El-Jefe]

Three things needed in PIAA wrestling...
1. Go to 11 weights (too many forfeits)
2. OB rule has to change (I like Kolats tweet about it)
3. Every H.S. Kid on the roster is eligible to compete in tournaments and post-season

Not sure about #3. Tournaments would become unwieldy. One-day sectional/district tournaments would need to go to 2 days, increasing costs for no added benefit. And wrestlers would have higher injury rates due to more matches in a short period of time.

Plus some tourneys already have a JV division -- Powerade does (at least). So does District 11.

 

[Gray52]

Gotta do something to increase numbers in some of the rural areas. Most kids dont want to get beat up every day with no chance to ever compete. Figure out the logistics later... gotta start increasing numbers, imo.

 

[21Guns]

Too many weight classes. Need to cut from 14 to 12, or even 11.

 

[Tom McAndrew]

they really need to make the out of bounds rules consistent with college.

and why would that be? there are a number of HS rules that are different than the rules in college

The mat area is way too small not to.

well, let's take a look at the rules. In high school, the rule states:

"The wrestling area of the mat shall be a circular area with a minimum of 28 feet in diameter."

The is the minimum, and you do find mats like that at middle schools, and at some high schools. Usually they are the backup mats only used in tournaments, as most high schools have a primary mat whose circle is a larger diameter.

The college rules, by comparison, state:

"Mat shall have a wrestling area between 32 and 42 feet in diameter."

Furthermore, I see a lot of subjectivity and inconsistency between refs.

No two refs are identical in style. However, most experienced high school refs are pretty consistent in what they award points for, and what they do not award points for. You'd have to be more specific for me to more thoroughly respond to this claim of yours.

I think the only solution is to adopt NCAA rules.

I'll repeat my earlier question: and why would that be?

It's pretty easy/objective to see if one part of one wrestler's body is within circle thereby continuing the match.

Again, you need to be more specific about what you are detailing regarding calling wrestlers out of bounds.

I should also point out that unless you are an official, I'm almost certain that you're not aware of how nuanced the out of bounds (OOB) rules are in high school. The criteria for OOBs differ depending on the situation.

Does anyone know if other states have same OB rules as NCAA?

dice is correct. No states follow the college OOB rules. The states all follow the NFHS rules, though most of them retain the right to modify them, so there are minor variances from state to state in high school wrestling rules.

As far as the inconsistency of reffing - yes, this has been a growing issue I've seen at Hershey in recent years. I can understand at a local level, but in theory the guys working dual and individual states should be cream of the crop. Some subpar performances by a few guys up there this year.

By and large, the guys working States, both dual and individual, are amongst the best wrestling refs in PA. However, there is a PIAA limit for working States. I'm going from memory here (and as such can't guarantee the accuracy), but if I recall correctly the limit is two years, then you can't ref States for some interval (I think it's 5 years, but don't remember the exact limit). Refs that work States and reach the limit can still work leagues, districts, and regionals. The other variable/limiting factor is that the PIAA takes a certain number of refs from each PIAA district to work States.

I should add that the refs working States do get evaluated during States.

One of the biggest problems is no riding time in high school. You get no reward for riding.

good grief. thankfully, riding time is not a factor in high school. If it were, it would make high school wrestling much, much worse.

I think it's [calling stalling] the one aspect of this sport that is not handled in a consistent manner.

no two refs call stalling identically. however, most of the better refs are pretty consistent in how and when they call it.

I guarantee you a ref who starts hitting guys on stalls early will have less whistles on out of bounds.

really? you can guarantee that? My experience is that there's no correlation between the two.

IMO the biggest thing HS wrestling needs to change is eliminating the OT 30-sec stall-out periods, especially the UTB stall-out.

no matter how they get tweaked, I don't think any wrestling style, or level, has a satisfactory method for resolving matches that are tied at the end of regulation. In HS, if there's not a TD in SV, the process gets kind of messy.

Three things needed in PIAA wrestling...
1. Go to 11 weights (too many forfeits)

The 14 weights are a NFHS rule, and as such it's pretty standard across high school wrestling in the USA. The top programs in PA don't seem to forfeit weights. Weaker programs often are forfeiting one or more weight class. It's even worse in JV, where duals between two weak programs may be lucky to have 5 matches.

 

[a_mshaffer]

didn't there use to be riding time in PA HS - 60s or earlier? If so, wonder if the old timers can speak of controversies...

 

[tpnlion]

they really need to make the out of bounds rules consistent with college. The mat area is way too small not to. Furthermore, I see a lot of subjectivity and inconsistency between refs. I think the only solution is to adopt NCAA rules. It's pretty easy/objective to see if one part of one wrestler's body is within circle thereby continuing the match.

Everyone is now so gung ho with stalling and speeding up matches, this is very contradictory to that philosophy. Some of the matches between Beca and Nazareth were painfully long due to all the OB stoppages.

Just my 2 cents.

Does anyone know if other states have same OB rules as NCAA?

This is my complaint at every single high school match. I have felt the refs are inconsistent on calling it in PIAA and adopting the NCAA rule would easily fix it and create more scoring. BUT, upon discussing this further with an athletic director it was pointed out you would need a specific amount of space outside each out of bounds on each mat and that would require many,many schools to buy new mats. Wrestling is dying at lots of schools in Pa and forcing a rule that would require a big purchase such as a mat might squash it all together in some districts. Just my 2 cents and I HATE, HATE the high school out of bounds rule we have here.

 

[Nitt Fan]

didn't there use to be riding time in PA HS - 60s or earlier? If so, wonder if the old timers can speak of controversies...

Yes. There was riding time into the early 1970's. Also there was the dreaded referee's decision. The absolute worst way to lose a match.

 

[matter7172]

Yes. There was riding time into the early 1970's. Also there was the dreaded referee's decision. The absolute worst way to lose a match.

Riding time did exist at that time. I believe it was only after I graduated high school that it was eliminated. You could earn 2 points for riding time if your advantage exceeded 2 minutes, in fact. There have been a lot of changes in rules in the 40+ years that I wrestled, but I don't find many of them positive.

At that point in time team points were awarded as follows:

First period fall - 6
Other falls - 5
Decision of any margin - 3
Draw - 2 for both teams

Honestly, I preferred this system of scoring overall. It encouraged pins over points. And I am hugely against the current system of overtime on a number of levels.

One, there was nothing wrong with a draw in non-tournament matches in my mind. Nothing. Frankly, the reason most matches go to overtime now is a total lack of action. Rewarding the wrestlers for inaction and subjecting spectators to more inaction is not warranted. Raise both guys hands and call it a day.

Two, the setup for overtime in tournaments was a mini-match (1-1-1). There was a lot more action in the overtime matches then because wrestlers were less afraid of making a mistake and there was time to recover if you did.

Three, for tournaments, three referees were used - one on mat and two side judges. If both side judges thought a wrestler was stalling, the mat official had to warn him. There were criteria for overtime if the mini-match was tied, but it rarely got to that. If all (the number was fairly limited, iirc) the criteria were even, the referees did indeed the decision to the wrestler judged to be more aggressive. I had no problem with that, either. The three referees generally did a good job if push came to shove.

 

[Callthestall]

This is my complaint at every single high school match. I have felt the refs are inconsistent on calling it in PIAA and adopting the NCAA rule would easily fix it and create more scoring. BUT, upon discussing this further with an athletic director it was pointed out you would need a specific amount of space outside each out of bounds on each mat and that would require many,many schools to buy new mats. Wrestling is dying at lots of schools in Pa and forcing a rule that would require a big purchase such as a mat might squash it all together in some districts. Just my 2 cents and I HATE, HATE the high school out of bounds rule we have here.

The need to create action in certain high school bouts can be expedited by a stall call early when the wrestlers are waltzing around. Here in District 11 I always felt Gene Wass was the best at using his stall calls to set the tempo. Some teams work the edge more than others and that dictates some of the whistles. Nazareth Nunamaker teams were famous for it when his wrestler had the lead going into 3rd period.

 

[21Guns]

Much prefer the 1-1-1- mini overtime to the current setup.