Officiating for 3-5 feet away? Outside of the occasional locking hands, finger grab, and obviously pinning situations there is no reason for an official to be anywhere close to the competitors. If you want to see excellent examples of officiating please find the time to tune into the BIG 10 Network when the are covering wrestling. Notice the lack of an official in the picture until there is a top and bottom situation.
Admittadely, officiating a sport as dynamic as ours is very difficult. I would argue that having significant wrestling experience is imperative in order to anticipate positions and directions of movement as well as likely scenarios for rules infractions. In addition they have long days and are on their feet and bellies for most of those days. What they do is important to our sport because without them we wouldn't be wrestling at all.
1) There are without question bad wrestling officials
2) We should never assume that bad officials intend to impact matches
3) Rescheduling the state tournament for 2 weekdays may have an impact on officiating
4) Following is a link to the BTN wrestling schedule so that thegreatgatsby can see good officiating
http://btn.com/2014/11/24/btn-announces-2014-15-wrestling-coverage/