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Here is the way I remember the evolution of our duals teams (sprinkled with my opinions of why/why not some things changed). The coaches of the duals teams were frustrated on how Indiana teams were made. Up until around 2010 schoolboys/cadets/junior duals teams were made just by placement at ISWA state. I remember giving the example of Andrew Howe, Cooper Samuel, Kyle Ulrey (all IHSAA State champions that year) all showing up at freestyle state in the same weight classes. Because of the way ISWA selected duals teams at that time, only 1 of them could be on the junior duals team. (Here's my opinion)...In the late 90's and early 2000's all of Indiana's duals teams were competitive and all of the hammers wanted to be on the team. But that started to change. In the late 90's NHSCA became a huge tourney. Then add Super 32, FloNationals, USA Folkstyle nationals, MYWAY stuff, Dixie Nationals, Tulsa, etc. This made tournament competition different for USA Wrestling/ISWA. I was involved in schoolboys duals at that time. I asked most of the teams in schoolboy duals how they selected their teams. There were pretty wide examples of how others made their team. I remember Oklahoma's was almost funny. Their state association would select their coaching staff and they would announce the three different tourneys they would attend. If you wanted to be on Oklahoma's SBD team, you'd have to go to that tourney. The coaches would 'select' the kids they saw at that tourney and then tell them what weight they'd need to make! If Billy Badboy was at 100, they would say to him that he would need to make 91 of he wanted to go. I asked the OK coach, "how many parents did you piss off doing it that way"....he replied, "all of them, but we want to be competitive". ha! Back in ISWA board meetings we started the discussion. I remember asking, "does Indiana want the fairest way to make a team, or do we want to make the best team". I said I believed that it is impossible to do both. (back to my opinion)...If we made the dual team only by placement at ISWA state, then we have the fairest way to make our team. No one can complain because they either won or lost to the guy that is on the team. If we have a coaching staff make the team, then we can have a lot of frustrated folks because they could say politics picks our team. I can see the dilemma that the organization had at the time....throw in the concern that HYWAY was going to take over at that time too! A group of coaches got together, came up with the plan to use ISWA state similar as US Open. If you won ISWA state, the spot on the duals team was your's, but you could lose that spot if someone beat you 2 out of 3 at camp. It kept validity to the ISWA state and gave us the option to have flexibility to make a competitive team. The first year we presented it, it was voted down. The next year it passed, but then got voted down a month later. The following year it passed. (back to my opinion) With the competition of tourneys growing at that time (Flo, NHSCA added all HS grades, Disney duals, etc) the "alphas" of Indiana could go to Cadet/Junior duals on a team that was not the best team Indiana had and wrestle in the Purple pool for placement. I understand that we can tell parents, "Come to Cadet/Junior duals and you will get over 10 matches against some of the best competition in the country". I believe that is true.....if we took our best team. We can all check trackwrestling and see the competition that IN teams had these past two months. I agree that PA, OK, MN, IL, OH, etc had amazing teams and it would have been great for Paris, Lee, Lee, Lee, and crew to have duals against those teams. But our team consistently makes the red/blue placement pools and wrestles Utah and Georgia. The alpha parents know that they will get one match against a Gold/Silver pool team and then go wrestle the developmental teams in purple division.

Im confused where I "bashed" a kid saying that there are objectively better kids out there? Last I checked those kids didn't win a state title this year so they aren't the best of the best. I even said those kids will.get better. But in the sense of us wanting to be competive at the tournament as coach P alluded too we need to send our better wrestlers

Congratulations to Christian on his commitment to serve our country and attend the United States Military Academy at West Point! Not only has this kid put hours of diligence on the mat but has made leaps and bounds in the classroom. I'll never forget when a scrawny 106 pounder with an indifference to his GPA told me over the dinner table three years ago that he wanted to go to an Academy and wrestle. Knowing the rigors of that decision, I rolled my eyes but said "well let's go to work." Three years later, I stand corrected. Good things come to kids who work hard in the classroom. Congratulations to Christian and his family, and Go Army!

Congratulations!!!!! So excited for you. Yorktown should be very proud. Three back to back to back. Cael, Brad and now Christian.That is a great reflection on the Yorktown program and Coach McCormick. Cathedral has sent the Harvey brothers, Brian has graduated, Ben is still there. Lowell has sent Colton and Avon has sent Gunnar. Can't wait to see who is next. Congrats agian to Christian.