I was informed at our last meet that my newly purchased knee pads were illegal (bought them to make sure we had tight fitting and to get rid of the ragged ones) . They have a hole in the back of the knee. Ref said he was told by a refing supervisor that they could catch a finger in them. I and the other coaches had not heard of this rule. I was wondering if anyone else had heard of this rule.
Also if this is illegal then sleeves with holes for elbows/knee caps (ect) would be deemed illegal I was told unless the holes are covered up.

We ran into this problem last year, but when the rule was interpreted to us by the refs, kneepads with holes in the back could be used, but if there were holes on the pad itself, not the back, then they were illegal.

My son was penalized 1 point for wearing a knee pad with a hole in the back at the Midwest Classic last year. I wouldn't chance it!

None of you can top this story. We were at the McCook duals last year. In one match we were assessed an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty point. We had two coaches in one corner coaching and I was in the other videoing my son. I stood up to get a better angle to video and the ref dinged us for having three in the corner. When I told him I was videoing he replied that I was on his mat. 1 Point. Two duals later our 145 pounder started his match, his opponent shot in and they went off the mat. the ref noticed our kids kneepad and hit us with an unsportsmanlike conduct for illegal equipment. Never mind the fact that this was the last dual of the day. He had wrestled 4 other matches with this same kneepad. Yeah you're right. This was the 2nd penalty. The head coach was removed from the bench and had to sit out the next competition which happened to be our conference tourney. To make matters worse the next week at conference I had our kids check with the officials about their kneepads. The refs looked at us like we were crazy. They said not to worry about the "illegal" kneepad cause they were not going to. Also that day I saw several teams that had way more than three in a corner. Ah the joys of coaching. I could write a book but then nobody would ever believe it.


i still dont get this..............we cant have 3 coaches or our wrestlers sitting by the mat cheering for our guys, but we can have 12 cheerleaders sitting on the mat not knowing a thing about wrestling, doing cheers and what not. i still cant believe this. at one tourney a ref told me i couldnt be in the corner. i then asked him why i couldnt be on the mat but the cheerleaders could, they proceeded to tell me they belonged there and i didnt. lol.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Big Whitey,

I emailed Boyson and he said it will be a judgement call. That is what the problem with this is, each ref can look at it a different way. Like I said earlier the other refs had no idea about this rule. They said as long as their were no wear holes and it was tight to the leg there would be no problem. Now the other ref showed me when one of my wrestlers was on the mat that as he wrestled the pad was loose because the material bunched up. But then we pulled up the pad when we had dead time. What is this going to lead to.