This week is recognized as Winter Sports Official’s Week and one Greene County resident has dedicated three decades of his life to a single sport as an official.

Sean Thompson is a physical education teacher at Greene County Elementary and has been a wrestling official for 32 years, with 25 of those years as an active official. He tells Raccoon Valley Radio how his passion for wrestling started in high school when his coach recruited him.

“I realized just the love and the environment of the sport of wrestling and what it does, it just brings everybody together. I wanted to stick with that. And so I thought, ‘I’ll just start officiating and still do what I was hooked on back in high school.’”  

Thompson describes his favorite part about continuing to officiate high school wrestling.

“The comradery around all of the officials and how we talk with each other. So like when I leave a wrestle meet, I have a call that I’m not sure of, and so I’ll call officials that I respect and that we work through it, we talk through it. And then I’ll also them and say, ‘Hey, I had a great move (during a match) have you seen this call before?’ It’s just the comradery and the respect that we have as officials among the officials family, I’ll say.”      

Thompson is also officiating today’s first ever high school girls state wrestling finals, which he says he’s honored to do. Thompson has also been an official for track, volleyball and cross country.