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IHSAA Rules Change Needed


CoachTJC

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Every head wrestling coach and high school AD in Indiana should be arguing and advocating for this IHSAA restriction to be removed. There is absolutely zero logic behind the reasoning to have this rule in place. This rule handicaps every single athlete in Indiana regardless of the sport that they participate in.  This drastically limits the exposure for the athlete(s), their school, and high school athletics in the state of Indiana as a whole. Take a look at the limited amount of nationally ranked wrestlers (or any other sports teams) from the state of Indiana over the years.  Aside from off season tournaments outside of Indiana, there is no way to even know about a kid who's schedule is handcuffed by this rule. Ironman for example would never allow an Indiana wrestler into their tournament with this restriction but how ridiculous is it to think that assuming they did, you can wrestle a kid from Illinois 1st round, Ohio 2nd round, have a kid from Minnesota 3rd rd and have to forfeit your match because his school is 300+ miles from Indiana's border ?? What kind of logical sense does that make? Don't think for a second that this doesn't severely limit an athletes ability to earn an athletic scholarship when a recruiter has such limited knowledge of how they stack up against legitimate out of state/ national competition.

Does anyone have any insight or ideas for best practices to petition for this rule to be eliminated from the IHSAA rules? I'm assuming this needs to be started by coaches and AD's, not sure how much traction a general public petition would get. This needs to go ASAP.

 

RULE 10 – INTERSTATE CONTESTS AND PRACTICES REQUIRING SPECIAL

ATTENTION

10-1 Out-of-State Contest Limitations

The address of out-of-state schools participating in a Contest against a member School as

well as the site of such Contests must be within Six-hundred (600) miles round trip travel from

the Indiana state line and shall be sponsored or co-sponsored by a member high School.

 

 

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One thing that underlines multiple IHSAA policies is that they want to limit the amount time student athletes miss the classroom.  I think the travel rule is implemented to eliminate the chance of our kids traveling long distances resulting in the athletes missing school.  Also, IHSAA is conservative and old fashioned and doesn't want high school athletic departments spending a large amount of resources on travel expenses.   I disagree with the rule also,  but the IHSAA is very set in their ways and we've had discussions on the board in prior years relating to the topic.   Like mentioned earlier,  football and especially basketball coaches  would like to take their teams to  compete nationally and have been denied.  They would be drivers for change and IHSAA would not make an exception for a wrestling team to for example compete at the Iron Man, which is sad.

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12 minutes ago, Wrestling Scholar said:

One thing that underlines multiple IHSAA policies is that they want to limit the amount time student athletes miss the classroom.  I think the travel rule is implemented to eliminate the chance of our kids traveling long distances resulting in the athletes missing school.  Also, IHSAA is conservative and old fashioned and doesn't want high school athletic departments spending a large amount of resources on travel expenses.   I disagree with the rule also,  but the IHSAA is very set in their ways and we've had discussions on the board in prior years relating to the topic.   Like mentioned earlier,  football and especially basketball coaches  would like to take their teams to  compete nationally and have been denied.  They would be drivers for change and IHSAA would not make an exception for a wrestling team to for example compete at the Iron Man, which is sad.

Thank you for the explanation.... I'm unaware of any other state that has anything remotely close to this restriction, it's an obsolete thought process, I'm going to look into starting an online petition maybe that's the only way to get the point across to the committee that there's people other than the coaches and AD's that care about this topic. 

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I get they want to limit travel (both time and expense), but what is the benefit of restricting the opposing school?  

Whether it is the Iron Man or a basketball game held in Columbus, OH, what difference does it make if the team they are competing against is from Ohio, New Jersey, Florida or California?  Its that part of the rule I don't get. 

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Two big reasons why it is probably a long ways away from being fixed.

1. Even if they change it for every sport, and they would, it would affect such a small portion of the athletes that it takes small precedence over other issues and changes.

2. For wrestling specifically our coaches and coaches association have a very tumultuous relationship with the IHSAA. Our coaches continually try to cheat the system for things like weight management and try to skirt the rules every chance they get. On top of that our coaches association has had attitude that they must fight the IHSAA instead of work WITH them. Over the past five years we have done a better job at both, but still have trouble getting simple rules passed by the IHSAA.

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2 hours ago, CoachTJC said:

Thank you for the explanation.... I'm unaware of any other state that has anything remotely close to this restriction, it's an obsolete thought process, I'm going to look into starting an online petition maybe that's the only way to get the point across to the committee that there's people other than the coaches and AD's that care about this topic. 

My home state of Kansas has a very similar rule.  KSHSAA only allows member schools to travel 500 miles or less from the state perimeter and only allows competition from schools within 500 miles.  I think there are a few other states with similar rules.

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3 hours ago, SWINfan said:

I get they want to limit travel (both time and expense), but what is the benefit of restricting the opposing school?  

Whether it is the Iron Man or a basketball game held in Columbus, OH, what difference does it make if the team they are competing against is from Ohio, New Jersey, Florida or California?  Its that part of the rule I don't get. 

That is exactly how the rule is written, which has absolutely no relevance to time or travel expense whatsoever for the Indiana team/athlete...that's what makes this section of the rule even more ridiculous

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Football and basketball will be the ones that get this changed. Basketball has received a few exemptions to this rule in the past, but very few. With our earlier football starting date and such a limited number of games it is hard for many schools to even consider games outside the 300 mile radius. Basketball has a bigger luxury of games and scheduling and would stand a better chance of getting this rule tweaked.

The main argument I have seen is that if a kid is in band, show choir, even FFA or other activities they can miss a week of school and that decision is made at the local level if they can miss class time.

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 Travel restrictions for IN teams seem fine for the most part since there are plenty of high profile competition options within that mileage.  As SWINFan said the real issue is we can’t face any team who travels farther than the radius To face us.  That limits the events we can participate, especially in individual sports which have multiple entries who you can’t avoid seeing.  Who cares how far the other teams have to travel, as long as we are within the limits it should be fine. If our opponents want their kids traveling father that is on their school/athletic board and it does not effect our athletes in any way.  

Edited by MattM
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5 hours ago, Wrestling Scholar said:

One thing that underlines multiple IHSAA policies is that they want to limit the amount time student athletes miss the classroom.  I think the travel rule is implemented to eliminate the chance of our kids traveling long distances resulting in the athletes missing school.  Also, IHSAA is conservative and old fashioned and doesn't want high school athletic departments spending a large amount of resources on travel expenses.   I disagree with the rule also,  but the IHSAA is very set in their ways and we've had discussions on the board in prior years relating to the topic.   Like mentioned earlier,  football and especially basketball coaches  would like to take their teams to  compete nationally and have been denied.  They would be drivers for change and IHSAA would not make an exception for a wrestling team to for example compete at the Iron Man, which is sad.

I now coach in Louisiana. We travel to New Jersey, Texas, Tennessee, and Georgia for tournaments. We miss a total of 4 days from these four tournaments. That truly isn't much at all. Let alone, at least change the rule so that teams can travel over Christmas break for holiday tournaments. That would be a good start.

By the way, we fundraise for all of our travels. If your team wants to travel, have them raise the money. That is a simple fix. I would venture to say that the teams all across the country that travel around the country are not having those expenses paid for by their school funds. I could be wrong though.

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16 hours ago, CoachTJC said:

Every head wrestling coach and high school AD in Indiana should be arguing and advocating for this IHSAA restriction to be removed. There is absolutely zero logic behind the reasoning to have this rule in place. This rule handicaps every single athlete in Indiana regardless of the sport that they participate in.  This drastically limits the exposure for the athlete(s), their school, and high school athletics in the state of Indiana as a whole. Take a look at the limited amount of nationally ranked wrestlers (or any other sports teams) from the state of Indiana over the years.  Aside from off season tournaments outside of Indiana, there is no way to even know about a kid who's schedule is handcuffed by this rule. Ironman for example would never allow an Indiana wrestler into their tournament with this restriction but how ridiculous is it to think that assuming they did, you can wrestle a kid from Illinois 1st round, Ohio 2nd round, have a kid from Minnesota 3rd rd and have to forfeit your match because his school is 300+ miles from Indiana's border ?? What kind of logical sense does that make? Don't think for a second that this doesn't severely limit an athletes ability to earn an athletic scholarship when a recruiter has such limited knowledge of how they stack up against legitimate out of state/ national competition.

Does anyone have any insight or ideas for best practices to petition for this rule to be eliminated from the IHSAA rules? I'm assuming this needs to be started by coaches and AD's, not sure how much traction a general public petition would get. This needs to go ASAP.

 

RULE 10 – INTERSTATE CONTESTS AND PRACTICES REQUIRING SPECIAL

 

ATTENTION

 

10-1 Out-of-State Contest Limitations

 

The address of out-of-state schools participating in a Contest against a member School as

 

well as the site of such Contests must be within Six-hundred (600) miles round trip travel from

 

the Indiana state line and shall be sponsored or co-sponsored by a member high School.

 

 

 The rule may come from an organization larger that the school districts and the IHSAA.  From my understanding, the Indiana Department of Education has or had a law that restricted the travel of students on school buses.  The law read similar to what you posted.  I think the reason why the other activities listed get by with it is because they hire charter buses.

Edited by Y2CJ41
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Other rules that need change is wrestle backs.   It’s not fair for these kids that put all this hard work in and get a bad draw because they 3-4 of the top kids in their semi-state.   Why would our state not want the best guys to honor our state.   I heard it was a time thing which to me is complete bull crap.  There is plenty of time and we are a one class state so our state serious for most part runs super quick and smooth.  Just feel that this needs to be changed ASAP.  Seen it happen now year after year a kid gets beat at regionals by a top kid and then during blood round gets a bad draw while another kid that not ranked as high gets a easier path 

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9 hours ago, cadet130 said:

I now coach in Louisiana. We travel to New Jersey, Texas, Tennessee, and Georgia for tournaments. We miss a total of 4 days from these four tournaments. That truly isn't much at all. Let alone, at least change the rule so that teams can travel over Christmas break for holiday tournaments. That would be a good start.

By the way, we fundraise for all of our travels. If your team wants to travel, have them raise the money. That is a simple fix. I would venture to say that the teams all across the country that travel around the country are not having those expenses paid for by their school funds. I could be wrong though.

Again,   I get back to the point.   When my son wrestled in Indiana, he didn't miss a day of school for wrestling tournaments.   From what I see, the two day tournaments in Indiana occur on Thanksgiving weekend or over Christmas break, or maybe they start on Friday night so kids don't miss school.  My other son wrestled in Ohio, and he missed about 4 days of school each year due to wrestling.   I didn't have a problem with it.   You ever notice the State tournament in Indiana starts on Friday night so kids miss less school.   It also takes a month to run the state tournament because they could easily eliminate a round by consolidating regionals with sectionals or semi-state but would require a two day tourney.  So most Indiana kids don't have to miss school even for the state tournament/state series.  Its just the culture in Indiana dictated by the IHSAA. 

 

When I wrestled back in the day in another state.  We missed a lot of school for wrestling,  it just wasn't a big deal.  Due to wrestling having big tournaments, it has a tendency to be a sport where you miss more school.  Again,  its just the culture of the IHSAA as they do not like absenteeism for sporting events.   And this policy is just not germaine to wrestling as other sports generally don't miss much school.  Obviously, that perspective is different for the Louisiana  athletic association and I would say most other states Ive seen.

 

 

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