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Congratulations forum for making it through the season withoug a major class post on class wrestling


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2 minutes ago, Y2CJ41 said:

You obviously missed this...

Year Teams Forfeits Per team
2019 307 1014 3.30
2018 311 981 3.15
2017 308 845 2.74
2016 308 860 2.79
2015 308 740 2.40
2014      
2013 312 649 2.08
2012 312 684 2.19
2011 312 617 1.98

It is interesting that most states give away watered down medals and have very good attendance. Heck the Ohio state finals sells out every year and people are on their boards asking for tickets the week of state. i'd surely hate to have that problem in Indiana. Emotional responses to why we should keep doing the things we are doing don't get me going. Look above at our forfeits, it is getting bad, REALLY bad. Eight years ago I thought almost two forfeits per team was bad, now it's almost doubled. 

As @Bigyusm said, they tried marketing themselves and not having a state placement or even being a qualifier hurt them. For smaller school recruiting coaches don't have the time to look in depth at 100's of kids and if they were knocked out by a state champion in the ticket round. 

It's not just about giving watered down medals or recruiting, it's about the health and growth of the sport. Small schools are struggling mightily and it doesn't seem to be trending in a positive direction.

Cmon Joe...correlation does not equal causation.  Wrestling is sold out in Ohio because it's Ohio and wrestling is big there.  It's also a much larger population than Indiana (as with the other surrounding states besides Kentucky).   

What do the forfeits look like at smaller schools in states with classes after they went to classed tournaments?  Did they somehow start having kids beating the door down?  And if you have the stats from a wrestling-heavy state that doesn't really count.  Because for each Ohio I could give you Texas where I now live where EVERY team has a ton of forfeits because it's not popular here yet.  Hell, the 6A program where we live doesn't even have the sport...although they are supposed to be starting it up soon.  The other 6A program where my kid works out fields 9 out of 14 on a good day...and they are a national football powerhouse.  And the only reason they get those kids is because the football program embraced wrestling and they have a coach that diligently works to get kids out.

While I sincerely appreciate your passion for growing the sport and the troubles and toils of smaller schools, classing the individual tournament will not help that.  Forfeits are not up because there is a single class tournament.  The participants can't see that far ahead for it to make a difference when they are deciding to join the wrestling team or not.  What would make sense is the IHSAA actually becoming a part of a true team (Duals) championship...and obviously classing that is the only way in which it's fair.  Being able to actually be part of a team and contribute to a true team state championship is something that might help.

I always appreciate the discussion, but the individual tournament is special.  I always LOVE seeing the kids from smaller schools even make it to The Bank.  That should be celebrated.  

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1 minute ago, Y2CJ41 said:

DI level kids as Carson was is an exception, not the rule. He has some bad luck his first two years in high school with injuries and such and then was upset on Friday night as a junior. He shoulda/coulda/woulda been a three time placer without a little bad luck. 

When you took him to the national events he won matches and either placed really high or was very close to placing. That kind of stuff will get college coaches attention more than placing at state. He is an EXCEPTION and everyone knows it. He's the first kid I know that as a senior without ever medaling at state was in the national rankings.

For kids that are NAIA, DII, DIII level going to the national events won't get much attention from college coaches because they are going to win very few matches. Marketing yourself to college coaches as a kid that went to semi-state, but has beaten Ohio and Michigan state placers doesn't sound as good as saying you were a state placer. Heck I beat All-Americans in college, but it surely doesn't sound as good as saying I was an All-American. Most of the recruiting forms don't have an area for "which state placers from other states have you defeated.'

Getting more kids, more positive exposure is always a good thing. More kids with the parade of champions in the hall, the ceremonies celebrating placing at state, etc. will help the sport more than anything.

This - I know Y2 knows how much work we put in to market our program. As does My man Cosgrove.  We have put together a summer team , we promote on social media , we have had a placer 2 of the last 4 years and 2 qualifiers the last two years. We host a youth tourney , we are trying to build it. We only had 9 kids at sectionals this year.  We believe that we will grow over the next 2 years as we have a middle school program now. 

It is a Huge Struggle to get kids in the room. My son put in more work than most kids who play multiple sports , absolutely he could have worked harder. We could have only wrestled , he is getting pulled in many directions by coaches.  That’s just my sons thing , as a whole though. I guarantee if we had more and more placers more kids will come.  In 5 years we will run this back and see wheee we are. I have a 6th grader so I’m not going anywhere.  :) 

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20 minutes ago, Kookie953 said:

Cmon Joe...correlation does not equal causation.  Wrestling is sold out in Ohio because it's Ohio and wrestling is big there.  It's also a much larger population than Indiana (as with the other surrounding states besides Kentucky).   

What do the forfeits look like at smaller schools in states with classes after they went to classed tournaments?  Did they somehow start having kids beating the door down?  And if you have the stats from a wrestling-heavy state that doesn't really count.  Because for each Ohio I could give you Texas where I now live where EVERY team has a ton of forfeits because it's not popular here yet.  Hell, the 6A program where we live doesn't even have the sport...although they are supposed to be starting it up soon.  The other 6A program where my kid works out fields 9 out of 14 on a good day...and they are a national football powerhouse.  And the only reason they get those kids is because the football program embraced wrestling and they have a coach that diligently works to get kids out.

So you ask me to get you the stats, then say you would dismiss them anyways. That doesn't make sense. Comparing Indiana to Texas is not comparing apples to apples. Texas has had a state sanctioned wrestling for less than 20 years, while Indiana has had wrestling since the 1920's. Indiana is in the midwest belt of wrestling that is surrounded by states like Ohio, Illinois, and Michigan that are all very wrestling heavy states. 

I'd much rather compare us to Wisconsin, Minnesota, or Missouri who are closer to our population and location. Those are much better comparisons.

 

20 minutes ago, Kookie953 said:

While I sincerely appreciate your passion for growing the sport and the troubles and toils of smaller schools, classing the individual tournament will not help that.  Forfeits are not up because there is a single class tournament.  The participants can't see that far ahead for it to make a difference when they are deciding to join the wrestling team or not.  What would make sense is the IHSAA actually becoming a part of a true team (Duals) championship...and obviously classing that is the only way in which it's fair.  Being able to actually be part of a team and contribute to a true team state championship is something that might help.

I always appreciate the discussion, but the individual tournament is special.  I always LOVE seeing the kids from smaller schools even make it to The Bank.  That should be celebrated.  

If there is an increase in participation at the smaller schools there will be a decrease in forfeits. I'm pretty positive on that.

In 2018 there were no 1A(of 3) wrestlers in the finals, this year there was one champ. You don't get to cheer for those kids much at all.

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15 minutes ago, Y2CJ41 said:

So you ask me to get you the stats, then say you would dismiss them anyways. That doesn't make sense. Comparing Indiana to Texas is not comparing apples to apples. Texas has had a state sanctioned wrestling for less than 20 years, while Indiana has had wrestling since the 1920's. Indiana is in the midwest belt of wrestling that is surrounded by states like Ohio, Illinois, and Michigan that are all very wrestling heavy states. 

I'd much rather compare us to Wisconsin, Minnesota, or Missouri who are closer to our population and location. Those are much better comparisons.

 

If there is an increase in participation at the smaller schools there will be a decrease in forfeits. I'm pretty positive on that.

In 2018 there were no 1A(of 3) wrestlers in the finals, this year there was one champ. You don't get to cheer for those kids much at all.

We'll never get agreement on the topicso I'll just leave you with this.  There is no evidence that a class individual state tournament will do anything for participation numbers at a small school.  It's not a magic bullet.  You think it might be.  I disagree, but respect your opinion.  I just do not want to mess with the event that led to me even being on this board, because it's the event that ignited the fire in my kid to go give the sport a try.  

 

And I actually would be interested in forfeits in the Missouri 1A state championships.  The other states you mention are better wrestling states from an "enthusiasm" standpoint.

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13 minutes ago, Kookie953 said:

We'll never get agreement on the topicso I'll just leave you with this.  There is no evidence that a class individual state tournament will do anything for participation numbers at a small school.  It's not a magic bullet.  You think it might be.  I disagree, but respect your opinion.  I just do not want to mess with the event that led to me even being on this board, because it's the event that ignited the fire in my kid to go give the sport a try.  

 

And I actually would be interested in forfeits in the Missouri 1A state championships.  The other states you mention are better wrestling states from an "enthusiasm" standpoint.

I have never said it was a magic bullet and have commented many times before that it is not. 

The state finals is magical in other states too, go watch the highlights from Illinois or Ohio or Michigan. Kids and coaches celebrating wins and the crowds being loud and appreciative. 

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16 minutes ago, Kookie953 said:

We'll never get agreement on the topicso I'll just leave you with this.  There is no evidence that a class individual state tournament will do anything for participation numbers at a small school.  It's not a magic bullet.  You think it might be.  I disagree, but respect your opinion.  I just do not want to mess with the event that led to me even being on this board, because it's the event that ignited the fire in my kid to go give the sport a try.  

 

And I actually would be interested in forfeits in the Missouri 1A state championships.  The other states you mention are better wrestling states from an "enthusiasm" standpoint.

What if there was no change in forfeits, but numbers of athletes wrestling in college could be shown to improve based on class wrestling? Would you consider classing a positive under those circumstances?

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2 hours ago, Kookie953 said:

And get a watered down medal from a tournament nobody attended.  Leave it alone.  It's the best high school event in the nation.  

If you're worried about your kid getting recruited, get to the national tournaments and do some marketing with where you want to go.  There's not a whole lot of full-ride wrestling money anyway.

Side note Joe...just IMHO a chance to "medal" is not going to be the deciding factor of whether a kid wants to wrestle or not.  You either like this sport or you don't, and no amount of hardware is going to change a kid's mind.  So forfeits won't go down simply because the tournament is classed.  The only thing that goes down is the excitement in mid-Feb.

I’ve seen lots of arguments for and against class wrestling but this is the one I always love the most! 

My question to you is this: is the sport about the participants or the fans? 

I think we can agree participants, and if that’s the case all arguments for/against excitement in February are pointless. It’s not about fans! It’s not about us coaches! It’s about providing an equal opportunity for all athletes. 

While I don’t believe it will ever happen, class wrestling WOULD help the wrestlers at small schools where they often must play other sports to help the athletic department. 

My final question is this: When the fan experience argument is gone, what is the downside? Plenty of possible positives, but not one person has said what the negatives would be to the actual wrestlers.

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42 minutes ago, Coach Brobst said:

I’ve seen lots of arguments for and against class wrestling but this is the one I always love the most! 

My question to you is this: is the sport about the participants or the fans? 

I think we can agree participants, and if that’s the case all arguments for/against excitement in February are pointless. It’s not about fans! It’s not about us coaches! It’s about providing an equal opportunity for all athletes. 

While I don’t believe it will ever happen, class wrestling WOULD help the wrestlers at small schools where they often must play other sports to help the athletic department. 

My final question is this: When the fan experience argument is gone, what is the downside? Plenty of possible positives, but not one person has said what the negatives would be to the actual wrestlers.

I just simply don't think it will matter...but it will make the Indiana tournament less meaningful.  It's the same arguments as class basketball, except basketball is actually a team sport.  

That kid at the small school that "has to" go do other sports is not gonna all the sudden say "Yup, I'm going to bust my ass at wrestling and maybe have another dude's junk in my face while he cranks on my shoulder because I now have a chance for a 1A SQ.  Yay, wrestling!"  I just can't make that leap.  Wrestling is not track or tennis or golf.  You either can do it or you can't mentally.  So it doesn't matter...so don't mess with the coolest high school event there is for participants AND fans.  

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1 hour ago, Galagore said:

What if there was no change in forfeits, but numbers of athletes wrestling in college could be shown to improve based on class wrestling? Would you consider classing a positive under those circumstances?

I would consider it a positive but I would not consider it the cause without further data.  

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43 minutes ago, Kookie953 said:

I just simply don't think it will matter...but it will make the Indiana tournament less meaningful.  It's the same arguments as class basketball, except basketball is actually a team sport.  

That kid at the small school that "has to" go do other sports is not gonna all the sudden say "Yup, I'm going to bust my ass at wrestling and maybe have another dude's junk in my face while he cranks on my shoulder because I now have a chance for a 1A SQ.  Yay, wrestling!"  I just can't make that leap.  Wrestling is not track or tennis or golf.  You either can do it or you can't mentally.  So it doesn't matter...so don't mess with the coolest high school event there is for participants AND fans.  

The thing is there would be very little change if we went to two classes. The big school kids that are going to state, will still go to state, but with about 4 more big school kids per weight. The small school kids would still go to state, but with an increase of 12 more.

On top of that more kids will have a positive experience and get closer to the state finals earlier. What that means is a kid with an earlier taste of success will look to improve himself over the course of the offseason. Whether that is national events, camps, RTC's, more lifting, etc. More kids doing that will help the sport in popularity and in depth.

Then more of the trickle down...or up effect is that more kids get exposure to wrestle in college. More kids with college experience will come back and coach the next generation of wrestlers. Instead of Johny's Affliction wearing dad coaching the youth program maybe you have a kid that wrestled for four years at Manchester or Trine. More quality youth coaching will then help out at the high school level.

As you tried to put the "magic bullet" words into my mouth, there is a lot of positive that can come from this. There are tons of ifs, but what we are doing currently is not working. The sport is not getting more popular, we are losing kids, and small schools(especially the bottom 100) are struggling mightily. For this sport to continue we need those small school programs.

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Just now, Kookie953 said:

I just simply don't think it will matter...but it will make the Indiana tournament less meaningful.  It's the same arguments as class basketball, except basketball is actually a team sport.  

That kid at the small school that "has to" go do other sports is not gonna all the sudden say "Yup, I'm going to bust my ass at wrestling and maybe have another dude's junk in my face while he cranks on my shoulder because I now have a chance for a 1A SQ.  Yay, wrestling!"  I just can't make that leap.  Wrestling is not track or tennis or golf.  You either can do it or you can't mentally.

Maybe it won't matter! You could be right! However, that's not a reason NOT to do something. I didn't ask whether any positives would come, but what are the actual negatives? 

You stated diminished value of the tournament. Just like you can't make the leap to more kids wanting to wrestle because they can compete, I can't buy that losing 2-4 of our normal qualifiers to the 1A tourney would diminish anything. Do we think it would stop College coaches from recruiting our champs or placers? Would it make the Flowrestling guys rank our guys lower? I just don't see any actual negatives for wrestlers.

I get the fan experience, I do, but as Joe said, I don't believe that what we are currently doing is what is best for the participants. 

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From my viewpoint of a small school coach. 

The main difference between the large school and small school wrestlers is quite simply one thing: year round training. 

Yes, small school kids have the exact same year round opportunities. But the huge difference is these small school kids are 2 and 3 sport athletes. 

Adams Central- Football was in the 1A final four 2 of last three years. 16 of my 24 wrestlers were playing football. I did not get them at all from late July till Thanksgiving.  A couple ran cross county. Several are already practicing track and field and more will be going to baseball this week. 

We have to share athletes to have a successful culture at our school. 

We do the off season workouts, summer duals, weight room, etc. but the attendance is spotty due to demands of the in season sports. My huge advantage is that we have a really strong wrestling culture and support from administration and the community. 

A larger school kid is more likely to specialize and take better advantage of the off season opportunities. It has nothing to do with working harder than the small school kids. The small school kids bust their tails the same, just not in wrestling only. 

The out of season training that has emerged over the last several years has really separated the talent. The top level guys that train year round have distanced themselves from the typical multi sport athlete. 

I do not want this to sound like excuses, but it is the reality. Our goals are the same as every other competitive program in the state. We just have to figure ways around some of the obstacles and close the gap. We do not say it is ok, that was a 3A or 2A kid. 

Tony Currie

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5 hours ago, Y2CJ41 said:

You obviously missed this...

Year Teams Forfeits Per team
2019 307 1014 3.30
2018 311 981 3.15
2017 308 845 2.74
2016 308 860 2.79
2015 308 740 2.40
2014      
2013 312 649 2.08
2012 312 684 2.19
2011 312 617 1.98

I have not read the entire thread, so if I missed it I apologize...

With the implementation a classed dual state championship, that allows for small schools to be celebrated, why have numbers continued to fall? 

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1 hour ago, jetwrestling said:

From my viewpoint of a small school coach. 

The main difference between the large school and small school wrestlers is quite simply one thing: year round training. 

Yes, small school kids have the exact same year round opportunities. But the huge difference is these small school kids are 2 and 3 sport athletes. 

Adams Central- Football was in the 1A final four 2 of last three years. 16 of my 24 wrestlers were playing football. I did not get them at all from late July till Thanksgiving.  A couple ran cross county. Several are already practicing track and field and more will be going to baseball this week. 

We have to share athletes to have a successful culture at our school. 

We do the off season workouts, summer duals, weight room, etc. but the attendance is spotty due to demands of the in season sports. My huge advantage is that we have a really strong wrestling culture and support from administration and the community. 

A larger school kid is more likely to specialize and take better advantage of the off season opportunities. It has nothing to do with working harder than the small school kids. The small school kids bust their tails the same, just not in wrestling only. 

The out of season training that has emerged over the last several years has really separated the talent. The top level guys that train year round have distanced themselves from the typical multi sport athlete. 

I do not want this to sound like excuses, but it is the reality. Our goals are the same as every other competitive program in the state. We just have to figure ways around some of the obstacles and close the gap. We do not say it is ok, that was a 3A or 2A kid. 

Tony Currie

I appreciate your response, but the big schools have lots of dual-sport kids as well.  Obviously the smaller weights don't necessarily play football at the 6A level, but the mid to upper weights sure do and seem to do OK sharing athletes.  I can only speak for specifics for Brownsburg, but there are lots of shared kids and no issues there.  It's a testament to the coaches of each sport there that they work together.    

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3 minutes ago, AJ said:

I have not read the entire thread, so if I missed it I apologize...

With the implementation a classed dual state championship, that allows for small schools to be celebrated, why have numbers continued to fall? 

This answer isn't going to be easily typed out, but here goes.

First off, the state duals is great and the smaller schools really love it. It is a great tool for promotion of programs of those sizes and definitely helps the teams that are invited to bring more kids into their program.

The problem lies in the duals only affect 12-20 teams per class. There are 12 teams invited and usually another 3-8 that are in the running for a spot in the event. The event simply does not affect a large portion of the teams to make a dent in the forfeits.

There have been 93 different schools represented over the 7 years of the event, here is a breakdown of how many times the teams have attended.

Class Schools 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1A 33 12 9 7 3 0 1 1
2A 33 13 10 3 3 3 0 1
3A 27 11 4 3 3 3 0 3
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15 minutes ago, Kookie953 said:

I appreciate your response, but the big schools have lots of dual-sport kids as well.  Obviously the smaller weights don't necessarily play football at the 6A level, but the mid to upper weights sure do and seem to do OK sharing athletes.  I can only speak for specifics for Brownsburg, but there are lots of shared kids and no issues there.  It's a testament to the coaches of each sport there that they work together.  

I totally agree it can be done if everyone works together. I was just trying to state there are different dynamics between schools the sizes of AC (374 kids)  and Brownsburg (2643). Different opportunities as well, good and bad. I feel we are lucky to have our student athletes be able to participate in multiple sports. 3 of my wrestlers were recognized on some level for All State in football.  I had 80% of my HS wrestlers playing a fall sport. Not sure if Brownsburg had that many or not. The challenges are different, that is what I was getting at. 

We had 3 kids in our normal varsity line up not play a fall sport. of those, one was a first year wrestler that was the only kid I could find in the high school that could make 106 and another had played football up until his this year. 

Those kids that play multiple sports at the 6A level are just plain athletes and will compete in which ever sport they choose to participate. 

Not trying to argue, just stating that there are inherent challenges that we have to overcome to be competitive. 

Tony Currie

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I think Coach P from Carmel had a post a few weeks ago regarding the struggle of getting kids to wrestle in the BIGGEST high school district in the state, so there is more than likely more to the central issue than just enrollment. The degree of training required to compete at the highest level in this sport has to be a factor with kids shying away from competing due to the inherent difficulty.

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43 minutes ago, indypharmd said:

I think Coach P from Carmel had a post a few weeks ago regarding the struggle of getting kids to wrestle in the BIGGEST high school district in the state, so there is more than likely more to the central issue than just enrollment. The degree of training required to compete at the highest level in this sport has to be a factor with kids shying away from competing due to the inherent difficulty.

Not sure if this is completely accurate, but Carmel has 74 kids listed on their trackwreslting team roster. That seems like pretty solid numbers. No way we could come anywhere close to that. 

I agree every school faces recruiting issues due to the demands of this sport. I think the wrestling culture in the school factors in big time. If you have solid wrestling culture and support, it is easier to get the borderline kids out. If you have a strong football only or basketball culture, that can be difficult to change. The coaches that can change that culture or bring it to the next level are the ones having the most success. 

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12 hours ago, indypharmd said:

I think Coach P from Carmel had a post a few weeks ago regarding the struggle of getting kids to wrestle in the BIGGEST high school district in the state, so there is more than likely more to the central issue than just enrollment. The degree of training required to compete at the highest level in this sport has to be a factor with kids shying away from competing due to the inherent difficulty.

It was the Ben Davis coach that posted about their struggles.

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On 2/21/2019 at 12:47 PM, Kookie953 said:

I just simply don't think it will matter...but it will make the Indiana tournament less meaningful.  It's the same arguments as class basketball, except basketball is actually a team sport.  

The Indiana state tournament series already doesn’t mean much with the way it’s ran. The lack of seeding or wrestlebacks kills our potential. You want to see a good single class tournament? Watch the CIF State Championships. Excellent from top to bottom.

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