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Faulkens view on Class Wrestling


AJ

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1 minute ago, base said:

Has there been a trend for small schools to discontinue programs in Indiana?  Is it just wrestling or other sports also?

There have been some programs that have disappeared recently such as Blue River Valley, Wood Memorial, and Oldenburg Academy. None of them were at sectional this year and it seems they are now gone. That is three programs that are likely done and were around the past few years.

 

Not sure on other sports as I don't follow them quite as closely as wrestling.

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Consolidate small teams when logistically possible.  Won’t help your number of programs but may help participation and be a way to fill a wrestling room.

 

I know that has been done in Illinois.  As well as kids wrestling for schools other than their own when their school doesn’t have a wrestling team. 

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3 hours ago, Y2CJ41 said:

There have been some programs that have disappeared recently such as Blue River Valley, Wood Memorial, and Oldenburg Academy. None of them were at sectional this year and it seems they are now gone. That is three programs that are likely done and were around the past few years.

 

Not sure on other sports as I don't follow them quite as closely as wrestling.

I try to stay out of these discussions but you guys lure me in every time.

 

Wood Memorial's entire athletic program is nearly dead they are not a good example for your argument. It wouldn't matter if you had 10 classes you were going to lose them anyway.

 

Taketheshot has some very valid points I agree with his stance. Look at the quality of wrestlers we are producing, remember when Lance Ellis was imortal? Now were looking at Mendez as the next 4xer which is after Tsirtsis Mauer and others I'm forgetting I'm sure. The Lee brothers at Penn State Red at Nebraska and Micich (sp?) At Michigan and again countless others from our state. For soooo long we didn't have this notoriety and now we do. Is it because we have a growing population of teams or wrestlers? Nope. Because it's somehow easier to gain a championship? No. Because the kids that are elite are seeking out the toughest guy they can find no matter how big the school or where to find him they go wrestle that guy. WE WILL LOSE #'s but not because of lack of opportunity it's because of lack of drive.

 

Carry on.

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1 hour ago, Ahawkeye said:

I try to stay out of these discussions but you guys lure me in every time.

 

Wood Memorial's entire athletic program is nearly dead they are not a good example for your argument. It wouldn't matter if you had 10 classes you were going to lose them anyway.

 

Taketheshot has some very valid points I agree with his stance. Look at the quality of wrestlers we are producing, remember when Lance Ellis was imortal? Now were looking at Mendez as the next 4xer which is after Tsirtsis Mauer and others I'm forgetting I'm sure. The Lee brothers at Penn State Red at Nebraska and Micich (sp?) At Michigan and again countless others from our state. For soooo long we didn't have this notoriety and now we do. Is it because we have a growing population of teams or wrestlers? Nope. Because it's somehow easier to gain a championship? No. Because the kids that are elite are seeking out the toughest guy they can find no matter how big the school or where to find him they go wrestle that guy. WE WILL LOSE #'s but not because of lack of opportunity it's because of lack of drive.

 

Carry on.

 

Wrestling in Indiana will not die from the top down. It will die from the bottom up.

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1 hour ago, Ahawkeye said:

I try to stay out of these discussions but you guys lure me in every time.

 

Wood Memorial's entire athletic program is nearly dead they are not a good example for your argument. It wouldn't matter if you had 10 classes you were going to lose them anyway.

 

Taketheshot has some very valid points I agree with his stance. Look at the quality of wrestlers we are producing, remember when Lance Ellis was imortal? Now were looking at Mendez as the next 4xer which is after Tsirtsis Mauer and others I'm forgetting I'm sure. The Lee brothers at Penn State Red at Nebraska and Micich (sp?) At Michigan and again countless others from our state. For soooo long we didn't have this notoriety and now we do. Is it because we have a growing population of teams or wrestlers? Nope. Because it's somehow easier to gain a championship? No. Because the kids that are elite are seeking out the toughest guy they can find no matter how big the school or where to find him they go wrestle that guy. WE WILL LOSE #'s but not because of lack of opportunity it's because of lack of drive.

 

Carry on.

Just because our top end is better now than likely ever doesn't mean everything is fine and dandy. All of those you mentioned didn't get recruited based on their high school accolades, it was their national resumes. If our state was so tough why would only one of the 13 seniors in the finals this year be committed to a d1 school for wrestling?

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36 minutes ago, Y2CJ41 said:

Just because our top end is better now than likely ever doesn't mean everything is fine and dandy. All of those you mentioned didn't get recruited based on their high school accolades, it was their national resumes. If our state was so tough why would only one of the 13 seniors in the finals this year be committed to a d1 school for wrestling?

At least 2 are going to Chattanooga so your numbers are wrong. 
 

My guess is COVID has delayed some offers and commitments too.

 

edit:  you said finals...boarman could have been in almost any other weight class. My bad

Edited by TakeTheShot
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28 minutes ago, TakeTheShot said:

At least 2 are going to Chattanooga so your numbers are wrong. 
 

My guess is COVID has delayed some offers and commitments too.

 

edit:  you said finals...boarman could have been in almost any other weight class. My bad

Only 9 of 17 went D1 last year. 

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12 hours ago, Y2CJ41 said:

There have been some programs that have disappeared recently such as Blue River Valley, Wood Memorial, and Oldenburg Academy. None of them were at sectional this year and it seems they are now gone. That is three programs that are likely done and were around the past few years.

 

Not sure on other sports as I don't follow them quite as closely as wrestling.

I would say Oldenburg academy is a bad example as well.  They haven't had a team for 3 years and was only a team for 1 year when they restarted their program. They originally started in 2010-2011 and ran for 3 years even having a regional champ in their 2nd year but cut the program in 2013-2014 then restarted in 2017-2018 but then cut it again. Interesting thing is their football program started in 2013 they same year they chose to cut wrestling the first time. There football team is very small and has about 15-18 kids every year. 

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1 hour ago, bbulldog152 said:

I would say Oldenburg academy is a bad example as well.  They haven't had a team for 3 years and was only a team for 1 year when they restarted their program. They originally started in 2010-2011 and ran for 3 years even having a regional champ in their 2nd year but cut the program in 2013-2014 then restarted in 2017-2018 but then cut it again. Interesting thing is their football program started in 2013 they same year they chose to cut wrestling the first time. There football team is very small and has about 15-18 kids every year. 

A small school that likely has issues getting kids out and finding a coach is a great example.

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2 hours ago, Y2CJ41 said:

A small school that likely has issues getting kids out and finding a coach is a great example.

I just mean as a school losing a program as they barely got started... but that does add the question would it easier for new programs to start if there was classed wrestling.  I know of 5 schools in our area that don't have wrestling,  3 with football and 3 that have tried to start programs but couldn't get things going.

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Joe, Galagore - other class state proponents.

 

What do you consider a "thriving" HS team for a small school - where you would say they are no longer a risk of losing their program.  5 wrestlers?  7 wrestlers?  14?

 

I'm interested to see how many teams are below that threshold now

 

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7 minutes ago, bbulldog152 said:

I just mean as a school losing a program as they barely got started... but that does add the question would it easier for new programs to start if there was classed wrestling.  I know of 5 schools in our area that don't have wrestling,  3 with football and 3 that have tried to start programs but couldn't get things going.

Again perfect examples.... football is classed and it seems like they are not having issues finding kids to participate and even just as important coaches to coach the sport.

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4 minutes ago, base said:

Joe, Galagore - other class state proponents.

 

What do you consider a "thriving" HS team for a small school - where you would say they are no longer a risk of losing their program.  5 wrestlers?  7 wrestlers?  14?

 

I'm interested to see how many teams are below that threshold now

 

The reasonable goal would be 20-30 kids on your roster filling 12-14 weights for a program. Obviously filing all the weights can be tricky at times, even some of the more established smaller programs will forfeit weights some years.

 

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3 minutes ago, Y2CJ41 said:

The reasonable goal would be 20-30 kids on your roster filling 12-14 weights for a program. Obviously filing all the weights can be tricky at times, even some of the more established smaller programs will forfeit weights some years.

 

Those numbers sound pretty high for schools that may only have 300 students.  Do you think this is a reasonable average number of wrestlers we could get to if we put in the small school state?

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1 minute ago, base said:

Those numbers sound pretty high for schools that may only have 300 students.  Do you think this is a reasonable average number of wrestlers we could get to if we put in the small school state?

Wrestling should be able to get half of what their football team has on their roster. I would guess those schools are around 40 on their football roster for grades 9-12.

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Since we don't really have team member numbers all we can look at easily is the numbers going into sectionals, right?  In general, do you think that is a good indicator, recognizing that there may be overlaps where even on a small team there are teammates who do not get to wrestle in sectionals?

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6 minutes ago, base said:

Since we don't really have team member numbers all we can look at easily is the numbers going into sectionals, right?  In general, do you think that is a good indicator, recognizing that there may be overlaps where even on a small team there are teammates who do not get to wrestle in sectionals?

1A teams had an average of 9 wrestlers this year

There is definitely a high probability they had a couple kids who couldn't get into the lineup due to weight.

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@base

 

First, I want to say that I am lucky to work at a school with an AD that is extremely pro-wrestling, so we may have more leeway than others. As long as the wrestlers we do have are getting a positive experience, they seem OK with being patient the years numbers are low. When we dip below 10 wrestlers, I start looking over my shoulder on the future of the program. When we dip below 7 (half a lineup) I start actively checking in to make sure no one is asking why we have a wrestling team. If I worked with an AD that was less wrestling friendly, that conversation would probably start happening when we started getting close to single digits.

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22 minutes ago, base said:

Those numbers sound pretty high for schools that may only have 300 students.  Do you think this is a reasonable average number of wrestlers we could get to if we put in the small school state?

We have 591 kids in our school and we’ve started the last two seasons around 50.  We’ve finished both seasons above 40.  I’m sure this isn’t “normal”, but there wasn’t a magic formula to getting the kids out. 

Edited by nkraus
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5 minutes ago, nkraus said:

We have 591 kids in our school and we’ve started the last two seasons around 50.  We’ve finished both seasons above 40.  I’m sure this isn’t “normal”, but there wasn’t a magic formula to getting the kids out. 

Winning solves everything and theoretically that would happen more often on a level playing field.

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Thanks for the replies - 40 kids in a school of 591 sounds fantastic, but I am guessing that is out of the norm.

 

I'm trying to get to where I can do some data comparison - do you agree that 2020 numbers are probably more "normal" than 2021, given the situation with COVID?

 

Y2 - didn't you have a spreadsheet that showed number of forfeits by school/weight for every sectional?

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@base

Realized I didn't fully answer your question. I feel like our program is "thriving" when we have 15+ wrestlers, provided about half of those have a reasonable expectation of "hanging a picture." At Culver, that would be a title in conference, sectional, etc. Basically, when we have enough competitive wrestlers to have the "luxury" of worrying about dual meet victories, I feel really good about our numbers.

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30 minutes ago, Jam said:

Winning solves everything and theoretically that would happen more often on a level playing field.

Of course that helps, but you’ve gotta start somewhere.  My first year we might’ve had 20 kids on the roster and we didn’t have a winning record.  I think we had 18 wrestlers or less at the end of the season and a handful were first year wrestlers.  

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I have said this on here multiple times over the years when it comes to building a program at a small school.

Post season success is huge and will help build a program tremendously.  

It's extremely hard to get kids out when Sectional is probably the "end of the road" for the majority of small school wrestlers.  Who wants to wrestle when you can't win and who can win without wrestlers?

Classing is the clear answer.  But "big" schools don't want to wrestle each other early in the tournament series.  

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