Rick Tucci GARY ABBOTT’S MATSIDE CHAT WITH...
Rick Tucci is an icon among American wrestling officials. He came up in the sport as a high school wrestler in New Jersey and a college wrestler at West Virginia. He coached for a decade at a junior college in Florida. His biggest impact has been as one of the greatest referees of all-time, both in interna- tional wrestling and in American folkstyle wrestling. Tucci is the longtime president of the U.S. Wrestling Officials Association. He has worked more than 100 World Championship events. When he is an official at the 2012 London Olympics, it will be his seventh Olympic Games as a referee and his eighth Olympic assignment. We spoke with Tucci shortly after the 2012 U.S. Olympic Trials.
USA Wrestler: How did you get involved in wrestling, and what did you like about it? Tucci: I started in eighth grade in Toms River, N.J., with intra- mural wrestling. They looked for people in the lightest weight. I only weighed 80 pounds. I ended up winning the intramurals. I went out for wrestling in ninth grade. I had tried football, but none of the equipment fit. I decided to stick with wrestling. I knew it was an individual sport, but didn’t understand that until I got involved. In football and other team sports, you won and lost as a team. In wrestling, the onus is on you. It either makes you or breaks you.
USA Wrestler: Tell us about your career as an athlete, and what you are most proud of. Tucci: I was undefeated in dual meets in high school. I reached the regional finals as a junior. I got beaten by a boy who became a friend for years afterward. My senior year, I got chicken pox after regionals. The guy I beat during the year became state champion. I had a few offers, Montclair State and Trenton State, but I wanted to get out of the house. I went to a small college in West Virginia, Morris Harvey College, with some of my buddies. They had intramural wrestling there, and there were some competitive guys involved. A couple of them said they’d try out for wrestling at West Virginia University, and I decided to try it too. I transferred up there and had to pay my own way as a walk-on. My sophomore year, I went to an open tournament at Ohio University and finished second to a MAC champion. I won the spot on the team at 130 pounds, and had a winning record. I got a partial scholarship and worked part-time to help me get through college. My junior and senior year, I started great but had knee surgery both years.
USA Wrestler: You became a coach on the college level. Tell us what you enjoyed about that aspect of the sport. Tucci: I stayed at West Virginia and got a grad degree and helped coach the team. I graduated and ended up going to Florida to be a teacher. I coached at Miami Dade CC in Miami. There was not much money in the budget, like $2,000, and that included aid for the wrestlers. I liked it. I had kids coming down from all over the East Coast. I found that the ones who did the best job for me were the ones who didn’t win state titles in high school. I had some success. The year we did well was when the JC Nationals were in Minnesota. I had a national runner-up who
24 USA Wrestler
Rick Tucci (left) poses with Olympic champion Henry Cejudo and referee Tom Clark at the 2008 Olympic Games.
never got out of his program from New York. I had a third-place winner who was never a state champion from Florida, always a runner-up. We shared space with the gymnastics and judo team. We did what we could. I was a stickler for conditioning. At one time we had 20 schools with wrestling in Florida. Charlie Pell, the football coach at Florida, took the wrestling room and made it a weight room. They dropped wrestling. It started a domino effect. It went all the way down to the junior college level and they dropped wrestling at our school.
USA Wrestler: When did you first get involved as a referee, and what made you decide to pursue the craft? Tucci: The first match I refereed was in Morgantown,
W.Va., when I was in grad school. My buddy said they were looking for a ref because a guy was sick and he couldn’t do it. He said I knew the rules. I went out there and did it. They paid me on the spot, $20. I thought this isn’t too bad. The coaches never yelled at me. My first year as a teacher in Miami, before I got the JC job coaching, I refereed in Dade County. I had coaches say I had a feel for it. The compliments helped. I continued refereeing during my years as a coach. After that ended, I was put in charge of the officials in Dade County.
USA Wrestler: You referee folkstyle wrestling and internation- al wrestling. Are there differences between working these differ- ent styles? Tucci: I didn’t think it was that different. The rules are differ- ent, but if you know wrestling, you can adapt. The real differ- ence was that in international wrestling, all those guys who were my idols, I was refereeing for. All of the international wrestlers, the guys you read about in the magazines, I was on the mat with them. I liked that. They seemed OK with my refer- eeing also.
USA Wrestler: What did your early mentors in international refereeing do to help you become a successful referee?
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