A dif. resp. to ?NFHS looking for opinions on wt classes? Reduce wt classes?

[CoachG]

A different response to ?NFHS member is informally looking for opinions on weight classes?    

 

This will get a few people riled up.  I think the NFHS has missed the point about weight classes.  In addition to changing the weight classes they should also be reduced.  

 

Far too many teams have one or more forfeits in addition to filling a weight class, or two, or three with a body.  This is not good for our sport and it lowers the quality of wrestling.  The sport has changed greatly over the years.  As an old fart who wrestled in the 70?s and has coached for 30 years I can tell you the number of kids and the quality of wrestlers has changed a lot.   There are fewer kids interested in the sport.  In my opinion, the average wrestler is not as good as the average of 10 to 15 years ago.  The average state qualifier is probably as good and I would say the elite are better.   But we have a problem of filling teams with wrestlers and the average wrestler?s skill is decreasing.  

 

WCS145 made a great post on stats (page 2 on the topic: ?NFHS member is informally looking for opinions on weight classes? on this message board).  His numbers show that the average weight class is represented by fewer than 90% of the schools.  Or in other words we are not filling 10% of our spots.  How many football or basket teams are playing with 90% of a squad?   Too many schools don?t have a full team and this NOT good for our sport.  

 

It is not good for our sport to have many teams with the number of forfeits we are experiencing.  The better programs will say it is not problem and for them it is not.  But it is a problem for our sport when we see forfeits at many schools for many years.  If we want to grow wrestling?s popularity we need to produce a better product and ours is going in the wrong direction.  

 

The struggle to fill a full team has been growing over the years and it is hitting even the best wrestling states such as PA.  Forfeits have grown and weight classes are increasingly being filled with new or inexperienced kids.  I don?t know why the powers to be are not trying to address this issue and how it is affecting the sport.  

 

College has 10 weight classes, the Olympics have 7, and back in the 70?s (when there were significantly more kids of high school age) there were 12 weight classes.  Not sure why our sport thinks it needs to offer a weight class close enough in weight for almost anyone who wants to wrestle.  Especially now that many teams can?t fill all 14 spots never mind the fact that few teams have a full JV team.  What % of schools have a full JV team?   30%, 25%, 15%???   Gone are the days of 3 to 4 deep on a team.   We may think we need 14 weight classes, but the fact is we have not been filling them.  Therefore we need fewer weight classes.

 

I ?ll get more people mad at this but why do we need a max at 285lb?  Why not stop at  255 or 245 for a high school kid?  How many hwts are below 20% body fat?  We should create a 285 weight so a kid at 30 ? 40 % body fat can wrestle?  How many (%) HS kids weigh more than 255 and are less than 20% body fat (minimum is 7% for all wrestlers)?    Do we need to create a weight class for this small number of kids with the struggles we are having filling a full team?   Would the quality of hwt wrestling improve if they were all below 20% body fat?    Possibly we should look at a maximum body fat level.  This would promote a healthier athlete.

 

Having a FULL team and more wrestlers competing for a spot will improve the quality of wrestling and the sport.  Our sport will be better served with full teams of 12 higher quality weight classes than teams of 14 weight classes of lower quality wrestlers and forfeits.  

 

As a side bar, nothing is more exciting than watching a match when wrestlers are attacking, countering, scrambling, and creating flurries.  Having rules (changing rules) that rewards action and offense would promote more exciting matches.  We should look at ways to make the sport more exiting to watch. This will help to make it more popular which in turn will grow the number of kids who will come out for the sport.  

 

[Y2CJ41]

I don't disagree with what you are saying one bit.  My feelings though are if we lose a weight class, it will be extremely difficult to get it back.  We have had 14 weight classes for only about 15 years now.

 

I would like to see what changing the weight classes does to the number of forfeits first before we eliminate a weight class or two.  I think if they do change the weight classes you will see a drop in forfeits...or at least I hope so.