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Indiana Forfeit Data 2016


Y2CJ41

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"Loyalsock has seven. So does CMVT. Central Columbia has five, as does Shamokin. Benton normally has four while Milton has three and even Line Mountain has two.

 

What do all these schools have?

 

Forfeits.

 

And right now it’s not good for the sport.

 

You see, forfeits is like the splinter you get in your hand and never take care of. First it hurts a little and it is a little red, but then it gets infected, the pain gets worse and it’s not only your hand that is in trouble — it’s your whole body.

 

Forfeits is the splinter in the hand of wrestling and if something doesn’t take it out, the whole sport will suffer — and maybe it won’t even be around anymore.

 

“We have to make some changes,” said Lewisburg coach Jim Snyder. “And if we don’t, the sport will die.”

 

And it has been the forfeit that has become the greatest threat to the sport in recent memory.

 

First, it has made some dual meets not even worth the price of admission — even in a wrestling-rich area like ours."

 

 

 

This is an article from wrestling rich Pennsylvania! Indiana is not the only state suffering forfeits. They have class wrestling as well. So not sure the class wrestling will drive numbers up holds water at all.

Edited by RASSLER4LIFE
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Finding an article that says we need to curb forfeits does nothing. There will always be a war on forfeits.

 

Data from both Kansas and Ohio show that their rates of forfeits are lower for the small schools in a classed environment. Indiana is doing great in that our big schools don't have as many forfeits. I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that big schools have more state qualifiers and capture more state series team titles.

 

I'll translate it even more for you, Kansas and Ohio have a better participation in the sport of wrestling at small schools than Indiana. Please tell me why that is.

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3. Wrestling all day on Saturdays- this is a complaint I get a lot. Not sure how to address it beyond changing out points system. I also think that less 6 ways more quads would be something that could help this situation. My kids for the most part enjoy rounds 1-3 on Saturday, tolerate round 4, and can stand round 5. So if anyone is planning a quad next year let us know.

I agree completely. Long days don't do anything but kill the sport.

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Looks like the topic is being discussed in OH.

 

http://thecourier.com/opinion/columns/2016/01/26/column-trying-to-stem-the-decline/

 

The lack of participation is troubling, and it seems to be affecting several other sports. And Y2 as much as I'm in the class camp the numbers in other states don't reflect that classing would remedy the participation rates, particularly as it relates to small schools.

 

Dropping the singlet for fight shorts and compression shorts would have the largest immediate impact. It won't turn things around but it is likely to increase participation noticably. Reason being it helps add to the natural tie in with the MMA. Like it or not MMA has become revelavant in pop culture to a degree wrestling never has been. The kids see big name guys on TV fighting in the same gear they'll be wearing, that will have some impact on 10-15 year old kids. Nuway and Flo have done some of this and at first I was a little apprehensive (change is hard) but if it gets one more kid to come out per team (don't think thats entirely unreasonable) who could be against it?

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Looks like the topic is being discussed in OH.

 

http://thecourier.com/opinion/columns/2016/01/26/column-trying-to-stem-the-decline/

 

The lack of participation is troubling, and it seems to be affecting several other sports. And Y2 as much as I'm in the class camp the numbers in other states don't reflect that classing would remedy the participation rates, particularly as it relates to small schools.

 

Dropping the singlet for fight shorts and compression shorts would have the largest immediate impact. It won't turn things around but it is likely to increase participation noticably. Reason being it helps add to the natural tie in with the MMA. Like it or not MMA has become revelavant in pop culture to a degree wrestling never has been. The kids see big name guys on TV fighting in the same gear they'll be wearing, that will have some impact on 10-15 year old kids. Nuway and Flo have done some of this and at first I was a little apprehensive (change is hard) but if it gets one more kid to come out per team (don't think thats entirely unreasonable) who could be against it?

Ummm look at the statistics from Ohio and Kansas, they BOTH have a lower rate of forfeits for the smaller schools. Obviously SOMETHING is hurting our numbers, while theirs aren't great, but not as bad as our numbers.

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Posting an article about forfeits is no different than throwing out data from a couple of states. The sport of wrestling is struggling to field competitors period, anyone can see that. It's not just single classes wrestling states that are experiencing it, that's why I shared an article from arguably the state with the best wrestling in the nation.

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Looks like the topic is being discussed in OH.

http://thecourier.com/opinion/columns/2016/01/26/column-trying-to-stem-the-decline/

The lack of participation is troubling, and it seems to be affecting several other sports. And Y2 as much as I'm in the class camp the numbers in other states don't reflect that classing would remedy the participation rates, particularly as it relates to small schools.

 

There u go Y2. Lol

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Posting an article about forfeits is no different than throwing out data from a couple of states. The sport of wrestling is struggling to field competitors period, anyone can see that. It's not just single classes wrestling states that are experiencing it, that's why I shared an article from arguably the state with the best wrestling in the nation.

Go find some data from other states to show me something else.  Do some work to prove that data to be wrong.

 

 

There u go Y2. Lol

Thanks for the insight,  you always add so much to this website.

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Ummm look at the statistics from Ohio and Kansas, they BOTH have a lower rate of forfeits for the smaller schools. Obviously SOMETHING is hurting our numbers, while theirs aren't great, but not as bad as our numbers.

I'm not sure either are good comparisons. You fail to factor that Kansas by having 6 classes creates twice the opportunity for small school kids than a 3 class system would here in IN. Yet it's failed to have even a 1 forfeit per team difference, which doesn't suggest it would have a major impact on small schools here. Ohio is a different animal when it comes to wrestling, with tradition much more rooted. So you wouldn't expect our participation rates to be higher. I will concede the gap is a little wider than I expected, and it's possible early classing had some impact on building that tradition. (but I believe wrestling was pretty big there pre-class)

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I'm not sure either are good comparisons. You fail to factor that Kansas by having 6 classes creates twice the opportunity for small school kids than a 3 class system would here in IN. Yet it's failed to have even a 1 forfeit per team difference, which doesn't suggest it would have a major impact on small schools here. Ohio is a different animal when it comes to wrestling, with tradition much more rooted. So you wouldn't expect our participation rates to be higher. I will concede the gap is a little wider than I expected, and it's possible early classing had some impact on building that tradition. (but I believe wrestling was pretty big there pre-class)

One of the main arguments of class wrestling is that "no one wants to wrestle for a tainted championship." This data shows that to be a false statement.

 

This is also showing how much success of big schools helps their numbers. More success helps increase the participation at those schools.

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I'm not sure either are good comparisons. You fail to factor that Kansas by having 6 classes creates twice the opportunity for small school kids than a 3 class system would here in IN. Yet it's failed to have even a 1 forfeit per team difference, which doesn't suggest it would have a major impact on small schools here. Ohio is a different animal when it comes to wrestling, with tradition much more rooted. So you wouldn't expect our participation rates to be higher. I will concede the gap is a little wider than I expected, and it's possible early classing had some impact on building that tradition. (but I believe wrestling was pretty big there pre-class)

Kansas only has 4 classes for wrestling. They have 6 for football and basketball but they combine the 3 smallest classes for wrestling and call it the 321A class. But most these schools are very small and are in very low populated places. But these kids have a big following in the Western part of the state.

Edited by Wrestling Scholar
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Kansas only has 4 classes for wrestling. They combine the 3 smallest classes for wrestling and call it the 321A class. But most these schools are very small and are in very low populated places. But these kiss have a big following in the Western part of the state.

Thanks for the info.

 

I wonder if the isolated nature of those small schools helps or hurts participation in all sports generally speaking? You'd think there wouldn't be a whole lot else to do, and that the draw might be more significant than say a small school within an hour drive of Indy/Chicago/Ft Wayne.

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I would wager you are running into many of the same problems the second biggest school system has in Indiana.

Indianapolis Public School have 30,813 students and Fort Wayne Community Schools have 30,783. When you read any topic about the SAC this would be the school district they are talking about.

Andy I didn't know you could crunch the numbers.....we need you over here.. Edited by Major Ursula
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I think that football coaches could be a huge factor in remedying this whole situation. It happened at our school, it's all football all the time and to be fair most sports seem to follow that trend. If the football coaches would encourage their team to wrestle that would not only instill toughness and discipline but would also bring "the cool kids" to the party because let's face it wrestling is full of the most hard core rugged "individuals" that don't really care what other people think, which Will serve then well in life but to flood the room with #'s for the sport it's going to take recruiting from the football roster. We have a new head football coach that says that this is also his offseason goal, we will see. Wrestlers should also join the other school teams (except basketball) which would give the parents a chance to do a little networking as well.

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Andy I didn't know you could crunch the numbers.....we need you over here..

I am over here.  I have and will always be for Northeast Indiana.  I am happy to help coach any kid from anywhere.  When my boys get a little older and time permits I will make my rounds to some other clubs.  SAC will rise again.  I do believe it will be with the help of Carroll and Homestead.

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You need to make the sport more fan friendly, The really good wrestlers do it because they love it. The average kids want recognition. You bring in more fans, the kids will show up to wrestle!  Make the dual meets more fun. Maybe do the half time thing like college, have some sort of entertainment or fan activities during it.  Have the big team entrance with music, lights, smoke, etc, I know as adults these things don't seem important, it does to a teenager! Quite frankly, wrestling isn't cool to most high schoolers, it's boring, they don't understand the rules, Make it fun for them! 

 

Change the point system so you can have more triple duals. Listen, I have been involved in wrestling for 40 years and I love it. But I don't want to go every Saturday and watch a super 6! The average fan won't do it. Have triple duals instead, a lot more people will come. 

 

You must cultivate rivalys again. Super 6's and super 8's have killed most of them. Don't want to get into a bunch of "back in the day" but I have to a little bit to make my point. My school's dual meets had fans in the thousands a lot of the time, and never under the 100's. It is because the school, coaches, and parents always made them a big deal. Plus, we never wrestled our main rivals in a super 6, always a dual or triple dual. That is how we even kept full jv and freshman teams. Who wouldn't want to wrestle in front of that many people?

 

Changing to the shorts and compression T is probably a good idea too.  

Edited by rhayes
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Posting an article about forfeits is no different than throwing out data from a couple of states. The sport of wrestling is struggling to field competitors period, anyone can see that. It's not just single classes wrestling states that are experiencing it, that's why I shared an article from arguably the state with the best wrestling in the nation.

 

DATA > ANECDOTAL ACCOUNTS.

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I completey agree with rhayes suggestions.

 

One other very important point that I see every day -- we are as much the problem as the solution.  It is a double-edged sword of telling kids to be at a high level, they need to do offseason work, which precludes them from participating in other sports.  Specialization.

 

The football players who's offseason is "lifting with the guys".  The wrestler who spends all spring and summer going to freestyle tournaments, camps, and academy (CIA, RWA, Pride, etc) training during the week.  The runner who is encouraged to log 25+ miles a week in the offseason.  Maybe that's ok for the truly elite guys, but maybe the mid-level kids need to be told to spread out their talents and sacrifice the top-end performance for a more well rounded (and possibly fun) high school experience.

 

If we really want to promote higher numbers, there needs to be a grass roots effort by parents and coaches to encourage more multiple-sport athletes. What reward-based system can be put in place to highlight and encourage kids to get into multiple sports (especially those like wrestling/track/football where there aren't roster limitations)?

 

Can a school have a special "club" or some other notoriety to publicize athletes who do multiple sports?  How else can we accomplish this?  It would help at both small and large schools

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Finding an article that says we need to curb forfeits does nothing. There will always be a war on forfeits.

 

Data from both Kansas and Ohio show that their rates of forfeits are lower for the small schools in a classed environment. Indiana is doing great in that our big schools don't have as many forfeits. I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that big schools have more state qualifiers and capture more state series team titles.

 

I'll translate it even more for you, Kansas and Ohio have a better participation in the sport of wrestling at small schools than Indiana. Please tell me why that is.

 

 

Kansas and Ohio also have worse participation in the sport of wrestling at large schools than Indiana. Why is that?

 

It appears to be your position based on this data that class wrestling directly impacts the number of FFs in small schools -- reducing that number. If you believe that, then you have to follow it all the way through. You would also have to believe that class wrestling directly impacts the number of FFs in large schools -- increasing that number. So, by your own logic, class wrestling helps small schools and hurts large schools. So, does class wrestling work -- if all you are doing is hurting one group to help another?

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Just as a heads up I added data from Michigan for last year to the original spreadsheet. Once again their small schools are doing better.

 

Kansas and Ohio also have worse participation in the sport of wrestling at large schools than Indiana. Why is that?

 

It appears to be your position based on this data that class wrestling directly impacts the number of FFs in small schools -- reducing that number. If you believe that, then you have to follow it all the way through. You would also have to believe that class wrestling directly impacts the number of FFs in large schools -- increasing that number. So, by your own logic, class wrestling helps small schools and hurts large schools. So, does class wrestling work -- if all you are doing is hurting one group to help another?

Why are Indiana's big schools doing better? There are a few reasons that I can think of

 

1. We have less inner-city schools. If we add in another 20 inner-city schools our big school forfeits would suffer. Obviously with Kansas this doesn't fly.

 

2. Big schools have success both individual and team success aka sectional and regional titles on the team side and state success on the individual side. When a team has success more kids want to be a part of it.

 

3. With class wrestling you don't see good coaches changing divisions to attain success as much. For instance I know Richmond in Michigan had a VERY successful coach that stayed at his school for like 30 years and retired there. The same thing you see in football where coaches like Bud Wright(Sheridan) and Bill Sharpe(Jimtown) have stayed at their smaller schools. In Indiana our better coaches flock to big schools because if you want to have success you are WAY better off at a big school.

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