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Sectional winning team pulling out of team regionals! (Coaches!)


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Eastern HS has pulled out of the Logansport team regional. This is very bad for our sport! I have the email that Bobby Cox replied with to Eastern HS and here is a qoute from him " It is behavior such as this that further steels my resolve that the team wrestling tournament has run its course and needs to be discontinued."  I say flood the IHSAA with your concerns and Indiana wrestling dont let this happen! bcox@ihsaa.org (Phone) 317-846-6601

 

 

Also hats off to Delphi for making a stand!

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Why are they pulling out?

 

If they do in fact do this, this will be the straw that breaks the camel's back and we will no longer have the team dual series.

 

Team state must not have much of a footing if one teams decision can collapse the entire thing.

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Team state must not have much of a footing if one teams decision can collapse the entire thing.

Would you ever see a team pull out of regional in any other sport?  As much as I am not the biggest fan of the team series, this is not good on many fronts.  The IHSAA takes great pride in their state series and this is a slap in their face when a team advances then pulls out.

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Y2, Eastern says they have to many injuries and sicknesses going on. They say they will only have 7 wrestlers.

 

Bobby Cox response:

"I am in receipt of your email regarding your intention to not participate in the IHSAA team regional event to be held at Logansport on Wednesday, February 2, 2011.  While it is a choice for IHSAA member schools to participate in tournament series events, it is highly unusual for a school to withdraw from a subsequent event when a school has won a sectional championship and earned the opportunity to advance.  Specific to this matter, I am both disappointed and frustrated when I review the results of the Oak Hill wrestling sectional.  In my research, I note that Eastern High School had four individual champions, two runner-up placers, two finishers at third, one finisher at fourth and two placers at fifth.  My calculations show that Eastern is advancing nine wrestlers to the individual regional at Peru on Saturday, February 5, 2011.  If it is Eastern High School?s intent to appear at the individual regional with nine participants, it seems extremely unfair to the wrestlers and parents from Logansport, Huntington North and Delphi that these nine individuals cannot appear to represent your school in an event which you have qualified for.

 

If your decision resides in an effort to ?rest? or  ?protect? these wrestlers in preparation for the individual regional competition, and nine Eastern wrestlers appear to compete in the tournament on Saturday, I deem that behavior to be unethical and not in the best interest of our Association and Eastern High School.  It is behavior such as this that further steels my resolve that the team wrestling tournament has run its course and needs to be discontinued."

 

Delphi replied back to B. Cox standing up for Team State.

 

HN has not participated in Team Regionals since I have been here, don't know if we ever have. HN is extremly honored to be wrestling at Logansport and has put alot of emphasist on it. If this is taken away this will hurt our sport. I competed when it was won by the individual tournaments and I believe this a far more superior format for a team champion. I also believe it would be better if team state was in 3 classes.

 

 

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Eastern has had a problem with staph infection i heard this year, and only has 14 total kids on their roster. It is a shame for those though that are healthy and arent allowed to go because of the coaches decision. Also have heard there has been numerous issues with their coaches.

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Wrestling entire "JV Squads" in an attempt to "rest" those in the individual series because you don't believe you have a chance of winning was one of the things that got the steam really rolling on dismantling Team State, now a Sectional winning team is pulling out of the Team Regional?!?!

 

This paragraph from Bobby Cox..."If your decision resides in an effort to ?rest? or  ?protect? these wrestlers in preparation for the individual regional competition, and nine Eastern wrestlers appear to compete in the tournament on Saturday, I deem that behavior to be unethical and not in the best interest of our Association and Eastern High School.  It is behavior such as this that further steels my resolve that the team wrestling tournament has run its course and needs to be discontinued."....says it ALL. He is point blank telling him that as soon as those 9 kids wrestle at the Individual Regional there is going to be a big problem.

 

I love the Team State series, it's such a different atmosphere than Individual State.  You never know what's going to happen when a team pulls together...I've seen some amazing duals over the years. 

 

"Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results." - Andrew Carnegie

 

 

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Wrestling entire "JV Squads" in an attempt to "rest" those in the individual series because you don't believe you have a chance of winning was one of the things that got the steam really rolling on dismantling Team State, now a Sectional winning team is pulling out of the Team Regional?!?!

 

This paragraph from Bobby Cox..."If your decision resides in an effort to ?rest? or  ?protect? these wrestlers in preparation for the individual regional competition, and nine Eastern wrestlers appear to compete in the tournament on Saturday, I deem that behavior to be unethical and not in the best interest of our Association and Eastern High School.  It is behavior such as this that further steels my resolve that the team wrestling tournament has run its course and needs to be discontinued."....says it ALL. He is point blank telling him that as soon as those 9 kids wrestle at the Individual Regional there is going to be a big problem.

 

I love the Team State series, it's such a different atmosphere than Individual State.  You never know what's going to happen when a team pulls together...I've seen some amazing duals over the years. 

 

"Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results." - Andrew Carnegie

 

 

First let me say that I absolutely love the team aspect of wrestling, especially the dual format.  The problem with the current team state format is that it is only relevant to a very, very small percentage of the teams.  The current format of team state, while loved by some, is basically a party for which only 5 or 6 teams have a real chance of winning.  All the other teams know this.  Eastern certainly knows that wrestling in the team state series is futile for them.  The vast majority of wrestling programs go into each season knowing that there is no possibility of them placing in team state and this is what hurts the relevancy of team state.  Most programs in the state do not give a second thought to team state as it is not an attainable goal.  This is also why classing the team competition would have been the only possible way to save team state.  You have to generate more interest to generate more money.

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Does anyone know of a time when another team had to pull out of another sport because of injury/illness?  I don't, but citing an example might help.

 

I'm not against classing team state necessarily (I am vehemently opposed to classing individual state), but it is not going to increase the number of teams with a chance of winning by much.  For the vast majority of the years of team state, MD was the only school with a chance of winning.    MD would win the lower or middle class (maybe Yorktown occasionally) every year depending on whether there is two or three classes.  If there were three classes, 1a would be dominated by a handful of teams.  3 or 4 teams would have a chance in the biggest class .  I guess more teams would make it to "team state", but I would imagine you would not have eight teams per class in it.  

 

It seems like a moot point anyway.

 

I agree it would not increase the number of "chance to win" teams to any great extent, but it would greatly improve the number of teams with a chance to place.  I am hopeful that someone will come up with a proposal to return team state in the future, but it may take a regime change with the IHSAA as well.  The only successful proposal, in my most humble opinion, will include classing of the teams.

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The ihsaa is not who should be flooded with emails. Eastern H.S. is the issue here. That coaching staff and administration is who needs to hear about how the rest of the wrestling community around the state feels about this.

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Never in my life have i heard acts of such cowardice amongst a group of coaches. I mean wrestling JV teams is despicable enough and is sending the message that says "well if we can't win why wrestle at all?" But this, goes beyond anything unheard of. Heck, it tells the kids that it is ok to give up against an opponent who is of superior quality. If i were Cox my reply would have been such...

 

"Well if you only have 7 healthy wrestlers, please indicate to your individual regional which 2 wrestlers are unable to wrestle and allow the alternates to take their place."

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At the risk of seeming to harsh or pissing people off I think drastic measures should be taken in this situation.  I personally think that if Eastern is not willing to take their 6 or 7 kids to Logan and take their lumps, then they should be stripped of their sectional title.  I wouldn't strip individual champions of Eastern wrestlers.  It is not their fault that their coaching staff and administration have a loser's attitude toward the spirit of competition.  What sort of message are we teaching our youngsters?  "If we don't have a chance of winning, then let's not compete?"  I'm sorry, I just don't get this.  If I had one willing and healthy wrestler, there isn't anything that could stop me from representing my school at this team competition! Period!

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Bobby Cox..."If your decision resides in an effort to ?rest? or  ?protect? these wrestlers in preparation for the individual regional competition, and nine Eastern wrestlers appear to compete in the tournament on Saturday, I deem that behavior to be unethical and not in the best interest of our Association and Eastern High School.  It is behavior such as this that further steels my resolve that the team wrestling tournament has run its course and needs to be discontinued

 

I do believe that Eastern should have taken whatever wrestlers they could muster to the Team Regional, but Bobby Cox seems to go over board when he says that he deems their behavior "unethical" if the Eastern wrestlers appear Saturday.  I guess he is saying that he knows more about the situation at Eastern than their Coach, their Principal, and their Athletic Director.  I would imagine that they (Eastern) are all fine and ethical people so I am sure it was not a decision they made lightly.  We had a similar situation a few years ago when we wrestled about six JV kids and forfeited two weights in the first roud of the Team Regional.  Five kids had been absent from school both Monday and Tuesday and three were absent the day of the event.  It was in the best interest of the kids for them not to compete in a weakened condition so we did not put them in.  The main responsbility of any coach (Principal or AD) is to the kids that are in their program.   If I had a wrestler(s) who I felt would benefit from an extra day of rehab, or an extra day to get well, for the Individual Tournament then I feel like I would be an irresponsible (and unethical) coach if I placed the wrestler's Individual success in jeopardy simply to win a Dual Meet....or possibly to use him to fill a spot in a losing effort.  We need to be realistic.  One of the reasons that the Team Tournament is dying is because in most Dual Meets, until you reach the higher levels, a winner is not that hard to pick if you know all of the particulars.  That is why "class" is needed so badly because it could move the competitive balance a bit closer.   I really do not blame a team, that is relatively sure of defeat, for taking care of some of their kids that may need that extra day to get ready for the Individual Regional.   Part of the issue is which part of tournament is the most important to the kids/school/coach.

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This is unbelievable !!! What kind of message is this sending to others in this sport? Don't know why anybody would create excuses for this type of behavior. If people want to do away with the state duals then just do away with wrestling altogother because that is the message this is sending. What is to say this type of attitude won't trickle right on down to the individual tournaments? Whats next a wrestler saying he or she doesnt want to wrestle a defending or 2x defending state champion because he or she  already knows the outcome.  For 99.9% of  participants losing  is inevitable in this sport, but guess what it does it makes you better, and builds character.  Making the decision to not wrestle a team like Mater Dei, Yorktown, Penn, PM and etc, only hurts teams in the long run. No single person is bigger than this sport, and no one has the right to single handedly take away the dual tournament that many wrestlers train and look forward to.

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I mean you guys are all jumpin the gun but really dont know a whole lot about the situation.  Throw in the 2nd place team from that sectional and that should be the end of it.  I could understand if this was happening every year but this is the first time, if I am correct, that a team has withdrawn completely.  They were plagued basically by the staff infection and have been wrestling with minimal numbers all year.  It is common for teams to be sick this time a year as well. It's a long season.  Like i said throw the 2nd place team from Oak Hill's sectional in there and that's it that's all. 

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Does anyone know of a time when another team had to pull out of another sport because of injury/illness?  I don't, but citing an example might help.

 

I'm not against classing team state necessarily (I am vehemently opposed to classing individual state), but it is not going to increase the number of teams with a chance of winning by much.  For the vast majority of the years of team state, MD was the only school with a chance of winning.    MD would win the lower or middle class (maybe Yorktown occasionally) every year depending on whether there is two or three classes.  If there were three classes, 1a would be dominated by a handful of teams.  3 or 4 teams would have a chance in the biggest class .  I guess more teams would make it to "team state", but I would imagine you would not have eight teams per class in it.  

 

It seems like a moot point anyway.

 

If you look at the class rankings and the genius rankings I think that you would see some pretty open races.  Bellmont, Yorktown, and EMD among others in 2A.  1A would be pretty open and I believe would change every year.  If we lose team state it would be the worst thing that could happen to Indiana high school wrestling.  In my years as a wrestler and coach I have not seen an issue that is as important to the growth of our sport as this.

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