Coach McCormick Posted January 9, 2013 Share Posted January 9, 2013 Meeting to be held at Lawrence North HS at 3:00pm this Sunday. Agenda 1. Committee updates - Spring clinic, UNITE and Hall of Fame reports will take place during this part of the meeting 2. IHSWCA proposal plan 3. Team State evaluation and adjustments to the event/process Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MattM Posted January 9, 2013 Share Posted January 9, 2013 Just a thought but I was wondering if their was time during this meeting to at least start the discussion going about creating a standard set of MS weight classes for all school. Obviously, their is no way to enforce this, but I believe most programs would adhere to it if the IHSWCA with support many head coaches suggested it. This could be based on the traditional weights most area's have used for years, the current MS State weight, or a version of the USA Wrestling weights for the two age levels that cover MS kids. To also consider would be should a MS weight allowance be offered 1/2 through the season. A specific ate may not work if programs starts/end at different times, but pushing the idea of giving one (if that is considered worth doing) 1/2 through the year would give each region a plan for when to implement it. Both of these items seem to be an item of confusion, miss communication, right before weigh in surprises, and sometimes none communications often due to having a huge turnover in MS coaches, many lay coaches at that level, and sometimes unconcerned AD's who do not pass along information well. To some it may not seem like much, but I've experienced enough issues to believe a more unified plan is worth looking into. It's one of the many items that end up getting in the way of a coach just being able to coach their athletes rather than mess with all the additional issues that suddenly pop up (coaches as any level can relate to this). With no governing body over MS sports the IHSWCA recommendation may be as close to a leadership role in this issue as we have. Just recently, and a few times in the past this topic has came up a few times over the years in the Youth forum. I know that several different regions of Indiana start and end their MS season at different times, so I believe a uniformed schedule is probably not worth pushing for but standard weight classes and a conclusion on weight allowance may be worth trying. I figured that if a discussion could at least begin now that possibly a conclusion could reached and coaches could be asked to implement anything that was decided by the end of next fall. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coach McCormick Posted January 9, 2013 Author Share Posted January 9, 2013 I do agree that a standard set of middle school weights would be helpful. I'm not sure if anyone noticed this year, but we (Yorktown) used the same weights for the Middle School State Duals that they use for the Individual Middle School State Championships at New Castle. We did this to try to bring a little uniformity between these two events. The only problem I see is with having too many weights for some regions of the state. Some would say "more is better", but it becomes very difficult for a medium to small size school to fill out 22+ weight classes at a team event. I guess it depends on what the objectives are for your region of the state or the actual event you are putting on. What about offering 2 sets of recommended weight classes? One set could be used by smaller schools or by events that simply want fewer weight classes. The second set would include 20+ weight classes and could be used by larger schools or state events where added participation is necessary. Although it would take some work, it might be worth collecting some data from various size schools to see 1) what weight classes they currently use 2) how many forfeits they typically have 3) what is the distribution of weight classes? Very good topic! Coach McCormick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MattM Posted January 9, 2013 Share Posted January 9, 2013 Not sure what the best numbers of weight would be, but from my experience the changes of weights and weight allowance from meet to meet just makes things more complicated than they need to be. I will say you can always have an unlimited amount of JV matches too, if the concern about the number of weight classes is just over getting kids matches. I do know some schools that face each other with really large JV squads have even went to wrestle Varsity on one mat and JV on the other to make sure the meet doesn't last til midnight. So, getting the matches in is possible regardless of the set weights or size of a squad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coach McCormick Posted January 9, 2013 Author Share Posted January 9, 2013 I like that concept (of multiple teams). Maybe we need to get back to smaller squads with multiple squads. Possibly only have 14-16 weight classes (so all schools can fill a full varsity team). Then larger schools could simply have multiple squads (varsity, B team, C team, etc). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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