From the Other Side of the Scoreboard

Classes Attended: 3 Regular

This past Saturday I did something I never imagined myself doing in jiu-jitsu - volunteering to help out at a tournament. It's not that I'm anti-volunteer or anything, but when it came to BJJ tournaments, I always thought that if I wasn't competing, I'd rather not be there. However, in an effort to keep myself out of trouble, I decided the best way to spend a Saturday for which I had no other plans was to help out at the tournament in whatever way I could.
I was assigned to be a scorekeeper, meaning it was my job to make sure points the ref awarded were shown on the scoreboard. At first, I was scared a good bit. All it would take was me missing one hand gesture from the ref and the outcome of the match could be completely different from what it shouldn't have been. However, the fear quickly subsided a few matches into the day as I realized I would have to blatantly not pay attention in order to miss something. Not to say I was flawless, I can recall two mistakes I made in misunderstanding the ref, but fortunately those were noticed and pointed out to me and neither of them would've affected the actual outcome of the matches.
Two takeaways after my day as a scorekeeper:
1) It's one of the best seats in the house for viewing the action and the excitement in the air during a close match is damn near palpable. While I fully plan to compete again next tournament and most likely those after, should I be injured or life just happens to get in the way, I'll be sure to volunteer again and hopefully get assigned to the same duty.
2) Refs do not get enough respect. I know at the big levels of competition (e.g. international IBJJF competitions) there's definite ref bias and people have legitimate reason to be mad at refs. But at these local level tournaments, the ref is all on their own for making judgement calls. They have one angle from which to see the action and have to stay focused on that action despite coaches and the crowd yelling constantly, sometimes at them. They also have to deal with being on their feet for hours at a time, fighting the urge to look elsewhere during boring matches, and ignoring any pains their body my give them such as hunger or the need to use the bathroom (this doesn't mean they can't take breaks, they just can't do so right in the middle of a match and if that's when the need to use the bathroom strikes, the may have a long few minutes ahead of them).
Anyways, as said, I had a good time. And would recommend to anyone in the BJJ community to help out at a tournament if they ever get the chance; it's definitely an eye-opening experience.