Funny or memorable seeding meeting stories

[AJ]

With the sectional seeding meetings tomight I was wondering if anyone would be willing to share any funny, odd, or plain entertaining moments from any seeding meetings they have attended.

[RankingsGuy]

KarlHungus and I were in attendance at this year's Al Smith seeding meeting and we both got a good laugh out of all of the excuses for why kids lost.. "He was sick.", "He was winning and got caught.", "He wasn't in shape yet because of football."  "He's gotten a lot better since then."  But from that day, one line stands out above all the rest.. There was an argument between 2 coaches for the 8th and final seed at one of the weight classes.  They had no common opponents, no head to head results, similar records, it was a complete toss-up over who should get this final seed.  So Darrick Snyder asks, "okay well is there anything else notable about either kid, how far did they go in the state tournament last year, etc.?"  One coach says well my kid went to Regionals last year.  The other coach quickly says, my kid was round to go last year... Immediately Snyder says, "well your kid was in the ticket round at semi-state, the other kids been to regionals, we're gonna have to give it to your guy."  The coach of the "round to go" wrestler, looking confused, started to backpedal and say, "oh my kid's never been to semi-state, I meant he was round to go to place at the Al Smith last year."  I could sense Snyder holding back laughter and it was all that KarlHungus and myself could do to hold it in.  O the things coaches will say to get their wrestlers an advantage...

[GrecoCoach]

At our conference seeding meeting every year, the rest of the coaches get a kick out of the one coach who refuses to use a stats program to keep track of all his wrestlers' matches.  (I use a sophisticated program called Excel)  Every year at some point, he'll be asked who his kid's 8 losses are to, and he'll start listing 3-4 "good kids" off the top of his head that his guy has lost to.  Eventually he'll get asked who the rest of the losses were to, and that's when he breaks out his big red scorebook and starts going through it page by page.  It delays the meeting for a while, but it gives the rest of us a good giggle.

[NavyGonzo]

Last year at the Delta sectional, it took almost an hour to seed the 112lb weight class. The coaches were arguing and going at it over who was gonna get seeded where in the top 5. The seedings were as follows:

 

1. Devon Jackson, Yorktown, 25-3

2. Steve Gonzales, Delta, 28-4

3. Jacob Armantrout, Muncie South, 25-6

4. Stefan Harry, Wapahani, 23-3

5. Dusti Shaw, Wes-Del, 15-2

 

From the story I heard, Wapahani and Wes-Del's coaches wanted Harry and Shaw to be seeded 2nd and 3rd, putting Jackson, Gonzales, and Armantrout (3 state qualifiers) all on the same side of the bracket. Based purely on winning percentage, that would've been right, but the coaches spent forever arguing about how Harry and Shaw each had chances to earn their seeds by wrestling against Jackson and Gonzales at the Delaware county tourney, but each went different wight classes for the meet. Harry bumped up to 119 and Shaw dropped to 103, which he wasn't even allowed to wrestle for sectionals because of the fat test. The coaches eventually voted on the seedings, and the order of the seedings proved correct at sectional when they finished in that exact order.

 

 

[KarlHungus]

  (I use a sophisticated program called Excel) 

 

Wow, you must be from the future or something.

[KarlHungus]

I used to get a kick out of the verbal sparring that went on between Columbia City's Randy Kearby (big man) and Whitko's Matt Koontz (not nearly so big a guy).

[TripleB]

I've been involved in Paper, Rock, Scissors over seeding

[phscoach]

We had a coach a couple of years ago show up late to the meeting.  When he did get there, the pace slowed considerably.  After every other weight class, he would ask to go back 2 or 3 weight classes because he forgot about something that was important and may have changed the order.  (I don't recall that it ever did!) After about three times, the tournament director would end each class like an auctioneer.  Going once, going twice, sold!

 

I've heard a few gems about a seeding meeting for Evansville Memorial's tournament, but I wasn't there, so I'll rely on someone else for that.

[KarlHungus]

KarlHungus and I were in attendance at this year's Al Smith seeding meeting and we both got a good laugh out of all of the excuses for why kids lost.. "He was sick.", "He was winning and got caught.", "He wasn't in shape yet because of football."  "He's gotten a lot better since then."  But from that day, one line stands out above all the rest.. There was an argument between 2 coaches for the 8th and final seed at one of the weight classes.  They had no common opponents, no head to head results, similar records, it was a complete toss-up over who should get this final seed.  So Darrick Snyder asks, "okay well is there anything else notable about either kid, how far did they go in the state tournament last year, etc.?"  One coach says well my kid went to Regionals last year.  The other coach quickly says, my kid was round to go last year... Immediately Snyder says, "well your kid was in the ticket round at semi-state, the other kids been to regionals, we're gonna have to give it to your guy."  The coach of the "round to go" wrestler, looking confused, started to backpedal and say, "oh my kid's never been to semi-state, I meant he was round to go to place at the Al Smith last year."  I could sense Snyder holding back laughter and it was all that KarlHungus and myself could do to hold it in.  O the things coaches will say to get their wrestlers an advantage...

 

Is it true that y2 once made the ticket round of the Westview Invite and the East Noble invite in the same season?

[Y2CJ41]

Actually, I placed at Westview as a freshman and did not place as a sophomore.  As a sophomore I placed at East Noble, but did not place as a freshman.  My freshman year I got 4th out of 5 kids and lost to the 5th place kid by pin.  Yes, I am THAT good!  I placed at both as a junior and senior including my first place finish at East Noble my senior year.

 

I miss the good ole days of keeping track of how many times Ed Fox would mess up and have to be corrected.  Keeping track of how many diet cokes Andy Shipe drank and how many times a Columbia City kid lost to a state ranked kid 4-3.

 

At the Al Smith meeting I learned that there are a ton of great wrestlers that for some reason are very suceptible to a body lock.  I have begun teaching the body lock to all of my wrestlers, especially to the younger ones.

[littlevito]

My story of the evening is that we were done and on the road leaving Jay County, and Y2 tells me that they were only at 130 at the Carroll Sectional.

[MattM]

Man where do I start on this one:

 

At a season tournament I had a coach once say his kid didn't have a great record but he had "retard strength" (his words) and beat some kids.  He was dead serious about using that argument to get one of the last seeds.

 

Same event different year a coach tried to get a kid seeded higher by claiming he was a two time JV tournament champion.  Then to find out later in the discussion it wasn't even much of a JV event to start with.

 

 

I'm sure if  I sit long enough I could think of plenty more and I haven't been to that many years worth of seed meetings.

[MattM]

NOOOOOOOOO tell me he didnt say retard strength please tell me you are joking

 

Sometimes I wish I was.

[Y2CJ41]

Sooo tonight we had a weight class take about 45 minutes. 

 

Here is the situation

Garrett beat Bishop Dwenger

Bishop Dwenger had winning percentage over Carroll

Carroll had winning percentage over Garrett

 

So the person running the meeting wants to eliminate Dwenger right off the bat, then give the seed to Carroll because of winning percentage.  Numerous coaches step up and say, no Garrett should get the seed and explain because they have the highest criteria.  So more fun discussion ensues.  Then we all vote 9-2 that Garrett should get the seed.  The administrator does not agree with this, so we keep bickering.  Then he says well Carroll gets the seed, the Dwenger coach agrees and Carroll gets the seed.  Two other times the same situation came up and the administrator was all set to give the seed to the kid who won the head to head match.  Of course people spoke up and said that you didn't do that at this weight class and he proceded to argue that giving the seed to the head to head kid was the right thing to do.

 

No wonder our meeting took 3 hours.

[TCWrestling]

We had a coach tonight who had a different guy at 112 from the season, and tried to get him seeded by saying that he had teched falled their normal 112 pounder in wrestle offs the week before, and the orginal 112 pounder had beaten four of the other kids in the weight class! ha

[Coach Peck]

Sooo tonight we had a weight class take about 45 minutes. 

 

Here is the situation

Garrett beat Bishop Dwenger

Bishop Dwenger had winning percentage over Carroll

Carroll had winning percentage over Garrett

 

So the person running the meeting wants to eliminate Dwenger right off the bat, then give the seed to Carroll because of winning percentage.  Numerous coaches step up and say, no Garrett should get the seed and explain because they have the highest criteria.  So more fun discussion ensues.  Then we all vote 9-2 that Garrett should get the seed.  The administrator does not agree with this, so we keep bickering.  Then he says well Carroll gets the seed, the Dwenger coach agrees and Carroll gets the seed.  Two other times the same situation came up and the administrator was all set to give the seed to the kid who won the head to head match.  Of course people spoke up and said that you didn't do that at this weight class and he proceded to argue that giving the seed to the head to head kid was the right thing to do.

 

No wonder our meeting took 3 hours.

 

We were wrestling in the Tipton Invitational in the mid 80s and for whatever reason they were doing the seeding meeting the morning of the tournament.  We were at 112 and I had a fairly decent kid.  We went around and around about where everyone should be seeded and basically my kid ended up in the 4th seed eventhough all logic and according to the rules he should have been 2nd (at least 3rd), but they used some criteria that was basically made up at the moment to screw my kid and help their kid.  Tipton's AD said the criteria was correct and I hammered home the point that it was not correct, but if that was a criteria that we were using then it had better apply to every weight class (I knew it may have bit me there, but it would help later).  They agreed that it should.  We seeded the rest of the weights until we got to 177 (does anyone remember that wt. class?).  At 177 Tipton had a kid that was in the exact same situation that my kid had been in at 112.  He should have been seeded 2nd, but using their funky criteria he would end up as the 4th seed with a real stud waiting for him at #1.  They pretty much were going to give the Tipton kid the #2 seed, and eventhough I did not have a kid up for a seed I began arguing for the people that would have been placed at #3 and #4, and I brought up the criteria that had been used at 112 and several other places.  The Tipton AD said that they were not going to use that criteria at 177.  That was when I went ballistic.  I unloaded with both barrels and probably reloaded and fired again.  I think it was clear that we were either going to treat everyone the same or we were not going anywhere soon.  Other coahces started to get on board and finally the AD relented, but instead of going with the criteria we had used all of the way through we went back to 112 and re-seeded the entire tournament from there.  I think the tournament started about 2 hours late.  Later in the day the AD came up to me and told me that he was sorry the meeting had taken so long, and that he should have listened in the beginning.

[Y2CJ41]

We were wrestling in the Tipton Invitational in the mid 80s and for whatever reason they were doing the seeding meeting the morning of the tournament.  We were at 112 and I had a fairly decent kid.  We went around and around about where everyone should be seeded and basically my kid ended up in the 4th seed eventhough all logic and according to the rules he should have been 2nd (at least 3rd), but they used some criteria that was basically made up at the moment to screw my kid and help their kid.  Tipton's AD said the criteria was correct and I hammered home the point that it was not correct, but if that was a criteria that we were using then it had better apply to every weight class (I knew it may have bit me there, but it would help later).  They agreed that it should.  We seeded the rest of the weights until we got to 177 (does anyone remember that wt. class?).  At 177 Tipton had a kid that was in the exact same situation that my kid had been in at 112.  He should have been seeded 2nd, but using their funky criteria he would end up as the 4th seed with a real stud waiting for him at #1.  They pretty much were going to give the Tipton kid the #2 seed, and eventhough I did not have a kid up for a seed I began arguing for the people that would have been placed at #3 and #4, and I brought up the criteria that had been used at 112 and several other places.  The Tipton AD said that they were not going to use that criteria at 177.  That was when I went ballistic.  I unloaded with both barrels and probably reloaded and fired again.  I think it was clear that we were either going to treat everyone the same or we were not going anywhere soon.  Other coahces started to get on board and finally the AD relented, but instead of going with the criteria we had used all of the way through we went back to 112 and re-seeded the entire tournament from there.  I think the tournament started about 2 hours late.  Later in the day the AD came up to me and told me that he was sorry the meeting had taken so long, and that he should have listened in the beginning.

I wish that would have happened in this case.  All the coaches voted, 9 to 11 in favor of our kid getting the 3rd seed and the administrator didn't like it so he made it the way he wanted it.  I guess when you host sectional you get some home cookin' along the way. 

[KarlHungus]

Either that or you should borrow Coach Peck's double barrel shot gun next year.

[MattM]

Conference a few years ago we had a long seed meeting and among other topics we agreed how the non-seeded wrestlers would be drawn into the brackets.    I?m not quite certain but the original thought was something to the effect of placing the unseeded wrestlers in alphabetical order by school name in the bracket starting with the lowest open seed and working all the way to the bracket with the #1 seed (leaving #1 with best chance of a FF).  Because our school was last in alphabetical order we ended up against the #1 seed every time we were unseeded at a weight.  So we complained, a random draw was decided and, everything was finalized, and we went home with the brackets.  Only to arrive the day of the event and find out the Tournament Director (not at the seed meeting mind y0u) had decided to redo the brackets the old way I mentioned above.  Obviously this didn't fly with our coaching staff very well, especially since they did not bother to ask anyone or even mention the issue other than saying some brackets were redrawn because of change (as it always does).  Our coach at the time addressed this problem.  The Tournament Director said we could just get over it because it would take to long to redo the brackets again.  So our coach at the time stood in front of the door and said either the brackets getting changed back to the format everyone agreed upon originally or none is going anyplace.  He proceeded to stand in the doorway saying if you would have just let it the way we agreed on this wouldn't have been an issue.  Most of the other coaches agreed, voted to change them back, and the Tournament Director finally had to back down.  Our coach walked away from the doorway without issue.  A few moments later an announcement for a not so happy Tournament Director came on saying everyone?s program brackets were wrong and the event would not start for several minutes because some of the coaches wanted the brackets re-done.    Since then every so often we joke that we will call the old coach to stand in front of the door if things are not going our way at a seed meeting.

[TripleB]

MattM, it was TripleB who looked at the coach and said, "I'd go stand in front of the door and say I'm not moving until this is fixed!"

[tskin]

I vote to have the Jennings Sectionals seed meeting moved to Idol Zone hahahahaha

[IndianaWrestlingGuy1]

I have never been more scared for my life than a City of Indianapolis Tournament seeding meeting with Lance Rhodes, Kevin Troy, Jim Phillips, Mark Steinmetz, Harold Grundy, and the boys fighting it out for seeds. It was true pandamonium. Usually in a tiny classroom 4 sizes too small for these bigger than life personalities. Blood pressure flaring. And, many, many near faceoffs. Zero consistency in seeding formulas despite the year.

 

I'll never forget that Lance Ellis never won the Outstanding Wrestler in the City Tournament, but won every match in 4 years by fall. Tragic. 

[MattM]

MattM, it was TripleB who looked at the coach and said, "I'd go stand in front of the door and say I'm not moving until this is fixed!"

 

Yes it was.  Thanks for reminding me.

[Coach Peck]

I have never been more scared for my life than a City of Indianapolis Tournament seeding meeting with Lance Rhodes, Kevin Troy, Jim Phillips, Mark Steinmetz, Harold Grundy, and the boys fighting it out for seeds. It was true pandamonium. Usually in a tiny classroom 4 sizes too small for these bigger than life personalities. Blood pressure flaring. And, many, many near faceoffs. Zero consistency in seeding formulas despite the year.

 

I'll never forget that Lance Ellis never won the Outstanding Wrestler in the City Tournament, but won every match in 4 years by fall. Tragic. 

 

Coach Rhodes and Jim Phillips in the same room arguing would be priceless. 

[IndianaWrestlingGuy1]

Coach Rhodes and Jim Phillips in the same room arguing would be priceless. 

 

They absolutely hated each other. The drama of those two made the City Tourney worth the price of admission most years. Rhodes in his patent suit and tie and Phillips in his black turtleneck with his gold chain on the outside. Talk about a contrast in two coaching styles. And, two completely opposite human beings. Wow.