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Rankings 2010


RankingsGuy

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Coach Peck...No doubt in my mind that resources now are more available than in the past to organize rankings.  I just think there's more research done today than in the past to get more "accurate" rankings.  My main point was in the ninties when Rick Chitwood published The American Grappler and the Prep Power Poll, a subscription fee was charged.  I thought the magazine then was great and today I still have many issues to look back on!  Back then, the magazine was voted the National Wrestling Media Association "Publication of the Year".  Not sure what the exact downfall was, could of been lack of subscriptions to cover costs such as.... payroll, printing, and postage, who knows??? I would like to see Indiana Wrestling get the recognition it deserves and I think this site is a great start.  It may be minimal to run a website like you noted....but I think Y2CJ41 could do bigger and better things with more funds to support....instead of coming from his own pocket.  Not discounting the efforts and time spent on the magazine/rankings in the past...just supporting efforts being done now, so Indiana Wrestling can continue to grow in the future.

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Coach Peck...No doubt in my mind that resources now are more available than in the past to organize rankings.  I just think there's more research done today than in the past to get more "accurate" rankings.  My main point was in the ninties when Rick Chitwood published The American Grappler and the Prep Power Poll, a subscription fee was charged.  I thought the magazine then was great and today I still have many issues to look back on!  Back then, the magazine was voted the National Wrestling Media Association "Publication of the Year".  Not sure what the exact downfall was, could of been lack of subscriptions to cover costs such as.... payroll, printing, and postage, who knows??? I would like to see Indiana Wrestling get the recognition it deserves and I think this site is a great start.  It may be minimal to run a website like you noted....but I think Y2CJ41 could do bigger and better things with more funds to support....instead of coming from his own pocket.  Not discounting the efforts and time spent on the magazine/rankings in the past...just supporting efforts being done now, so Indiana Wrestling can continue to grow in the future.

 

For years finding any wrestling information was harder than you know what.  I wrestled in the Junior Nationals the second year they had it (I think), and I had no clue who any of the guys were.  Today everybody knows everybody else.

 

The "Indiana Grappler" was a very good magazine at one time (I would have to look at back issues to see when it was discontinued), but Rick was trying to make a living publishing it which eventually became its downfall.  In the firt few years, when he was concentrating on Indiana Wrestliing he had a decent number of subscribers.  He had a pretty good deal in that most coaches subscribed through the IHSWCA when they paid their membership fee, and the ISWA paid him for some subscriptions, and to place what has now become the ISWA Annual Publication in the January (or Dec.) issue.  The prcie was reasonable to begin with.  I cannot remember what it was, but it was no where near the $39 you mentioned for the issues in later years.

 

Anyway, Rick had a nice Indiana magazine and was making some money.  I think (please note the "I") he finally got to a point where he either wanted to make more money, or gain more prestige (maybe a combination of the two) so he decided to add more National content and he began to slowly raise the price.  He eventually changed the name to the "American Grappler".  Some of his content was good, but as time went on more and more of the National stuff was from USA Wrestling news releases and stuff that was done in more detail elsewhere.  As more National stuff appeared in  the Grappler there was less and less Indiana information.  He gave up the Power Poll (Rankings) which the IHSWCA took back over and sent out for basically what it cost to do.  He priced himself out of the ISWA gig and the IHSWCA quit including the Grappler as part of the membership costs because it contained less and less Indiana information.

 

I get the impression that people think I am trying to minimize what it takes to do something like Indianamat, or that I am saying that no one should make any money off of Indianamat.  Both could not be further from the truth.  I know as well as anyone the amount of time something like this takes.  I put in an unreasonable amount of time and I know Joe  puts in more.  I also know that if a fee were put in place for rankings, or whatever, Joe (and whomever else is involved) might make some money which I doubt Joe (being a wrestler) would be smart enough to spend on a new car, or a present for his future wife, or place in a 401K because he would probably blow it all on something frivolus like going to the NCAAs, or Junior/Cadet Nationals, or World Team Trials, or etc, to cover Wrestling.

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I am looking at an old Prep Power Poll from Dec. 21,1995 and there is an order form at the bottom of it.  I had mentioned in an earlier comment that the rankings then could be purchased for $20.00...you could also purchase the American Grappler (7 issues) for $20.00 as well.  The $39.00 I was speaking about, what the ability to purchase both the Power Poll and The American Grappler.....which is what I would imagine most people did. 

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The Indiana Grappler/The American Grappler:

 

The paper/magazine was published from 1989 to 1998. The last issue was the September 1998 issue.

It started out as The Indiana Grappler, in paper form, in 1988/89.

It changed to a magazine for the September 1991 issue.

The name was changed to The American Grappler starting with the September 1994 issue.

Great magazine but cost and the Internet finally did it in.

It did the rankings on a monthly basis.

 

The founder/publisher was Rick Chitwood. Rick wrestled for Columbus North HS and was a state qualifier at HWT in 1980.

He was related to all of the Chitwoods that wrestled for Bloomington/Bloomington South.

He received the IHSWCA Media award at the IHSWCA Hall Of Fame banquet in 1992.

Rich also received several national awards for the magazine and for his photography.

 

TheAncientElder (TAE)

 

The Imperial Potentate and Grand Poobah of Classless wrestling in Indiana.

I wear my Fez with pride.

 

www.theancientelder.net

 

 

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Coach Peck,

 

While I value your opinion, I need to set the record straight on a couple of your points.  First of all, the rankings are still typed, I use a Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet, so yes they may not be on a typewriter if that is what you are referring to, but nonetheless, the data entry is essentially similar.  As for getting info from the coaches, I would say that 75% of the information used in the rankings was done by me checking newspapers, results pages, etc. and 25% was emails from people, and of those emails, 75% of them were from fans, and 25% were from coaches.  There were really only two coaches who sent me regular emails, and by regular I mean once a week.  Those were Lawrence North and Hanover Central, and I was thankful for the emails from both.  I would be inclined to argue that the time made up by e-mailing, etc. is more than offset by the addition of the Key Wins and Losses column of the 2009 rankings.  By many accounts, the 2009 rankings were as accurate as they have ever been, and this is not to discredit the people who did the job before, because in their time they were all that was available.. however, I find it hard to believe (although not impossible) that people were spending 20 hours a week on the rankings before 2009 and still turning out such an inferior product, and much less often at that.  I guess the old saying holds true.. "work smarter, not harder."

 

 

I find it interesting that only two coaches provided information on a regular basis. I also find it interesting that only 25% of the people providing information were coaches.

One could gather that most coaches don't care much about the rankings.

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I find it interesting that only two coaches provided information on a regular basis. I also find it interesting that only 25% of the people providing information were coaches.

One could gather that most coaches don't care much about the rankings.

 

Hmmm...I didn't gather that, in fact I thought 25% was high for the coaches. I bet that fans and wrestlers overwhelmingly outnumber coaches on this board and we know how some of them like to prop there own.

 

ff

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Could there be the best of both worlds by offering for free a generic list of top 5, 8, 0r 10 for anyone to see then for the premium service a $5 fee to gain access to the whole listing of top 16 or 20 with the head to head or any additional reasons as to why people are ranked at certain spots?  Heck, could also charge $10 and throw in an Indianamat.com t-shirt.

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WHY DO WE HAVE TO PAY A FEE ???

 

Stevens ....  let me get you up to speed ....

 

I was putting in an average of around 20 hours a week sifting through results from tournaments across the state for 12 weeks during last season.  That comes out to roughly 240 hours over the course of the season, and as a courtesy to Y2, I did them on a completely volunteer basis in 2009.  In order to be able to offer this same high quality of rankings this season, the same amount of time is going to need to be allotted.  Although I enjoy doing the rankings and making them as accurate as possible, when you start putting in that kind of time, it starts to become a chore.  By no means am I trying to get rich off of doing the IndianaMat.com rankings, its simply the fact that I can no longer take myself away from work, family, friends, etc. for 20 extra hours a week without some small compensation.  This brings me to my questions, and I would like to open the floor for discussion.  What did you think of the 2009 rankings (positives and negatives)?  Did you like them enough that you would be willing to pay a dollar for a season subscription?  How about 5 dollars?  Would having to pay some fee between 1 and 5 dollars a year make you think that the free rankings from the IHSWCA were a more viable option?

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I have an idea.

 

*Let's tack a topic to the top of this board, and let the members of this board vote on the team rankings as well. It wouldn't be official, but it would be like the AP and Coaches poll in football? Just a thought, and might add some interesting conversations?!

 

Still would result in similar voting.  People would vote for the perennial top teams, the best in their area, and their own team.  Until about the end of week 5 its is hard to even tell who the best teams in the state may be.  Even after that  unless you take the time to educate youself on most of the teams lines ups, who they have faced, and how they have faired you are not in a place to give a quality ranking.  For most people voting that lack of information and research is the problem the currrent coaches poll has.  Its not competely their fault since infor is sometimes hard to get quickly, but I'm sure many just vote with their hearts over getting the information to vote with their heads.    Decbell's attempt to accumulate team information and present a team list is about as decent as we will get.  Decbell may not be 100% perfect on rankings, but almost all the teams he lists are somewhere near the top of the heap.

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The IHSWCA is going to do team rankings but not individual doesn't anyone else think thats crazy??  Wrestling is an indivisual sport, even the IHSAA recognizes it as an individual sport, those are the rankings that matter.  I have never seen a state organization do team rankings and not individual, talk about a step backwards!!  Anyone worry about reading the national team rankings for high school wrestling, I don't think so but when the individual ones are published people are quick to post them on the boards.

 

Individual sport, individual accomplishments, individual rankings...

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