Butler AD Bill Mylan returned to wrestling mat to help PIAA’s officiating problem, chase new goals
Bill Mylan has seen the wrestling mat from a few different vantage points.
The Butler athletic director competed at Beth-Center High School and later coached there and with the Golden Tornado.
Last year, he returned to officiate matches.
Wrestling has always been a huge part of his life, and he wanted to give back to the sport in which he won a WPIAL title and was a state place winner in high school. Mylan also wrestled at Slippery Rock University.
“I thought my knowledge base being around wrestling as long as I have would lend itself to being a good referee,” Mylan said.
Wrestling, like many sports in PIAA, is seeing a decline in officials, Mylan said. He serves on the WPIAL Wrestling Steering Committee and began considering “a while ago” if he could dedicate some of his time on the weekends to be part of the solution.
Working “with my AD associations that I’m members of, we have once-monthly meetings,” said Mylan, previously the head coach at Beth-Center and an assistant at Butler before taking over as the Golden Tornado’s athletic director. “The topic is we’re getting less and less officials, younger guys that are coming out and doing different sports. Hence, the number of referees available for every sport are going down.”
Mylan enjoyed the role so much that he plans to “jump in a little bit more on the weekends next year,” he said. He avoids Butler dual matches as an ethical concern, although there isn’t any rule against it, he said.
“I know where the action’s gonna go,” Mylan said of officiating. “I can anticipate the next move to get in position to call points, so those things have played a big factor in it. I think that’s probably one of the biggest things is if you’ve played the sport before and you get into officiating, I think sometimes that makes you a better official.”
Retirement as an athletic director is in sight for Mylan. He plans on making officiating a “full-time side gig” when he gets to that point. His goal is to someday officiate on the college level.
Mylan believes that, by instituting a junior official program, the PIAA has begun to stoke some interest.
“Any time you see somebody, obviously me being an athletic administrator, I think any young kid that sees that — and I’m ready to jump in at the age of 54 — that maybe it’s something they can do,” Mylan said.
