Thor Posted March 4 Share Posted March 4 11 minutes ago, MatTime said: This is a choice you are making. Your son participates in multiple sports for his school. That is great. But it is a choice you are making. I don't see a difference in athletes in either case. We can't blame the wrestler at any school for focusing on one sport while another athlete is making a choice to participate in several sports. Is this a loyalty issue then? Loyalty/pressure for the athlete to do multiple sports because they go to a smaller school? If they want to be multisport athletes, awesome, but the trade-off will likely be not reaching the level of performance that the athletes that focus on a single sport may achieve. There are always exceptions. I wonder if Weaver from Rosseville only focused on wrestling.... That is a small school and his size would have been welcomed in many other sports. But did he choose to focus on wrestling in order to become a champ and prepare for the college level? Weaver would be an animal at football if Rossville had a football team. MatTime, MUSKEEWRESTLER and Galagore 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thor Posted March 4 Share Posted March 4 45 minutes ago, Galagore said: Everything you are saying is correct...however, at a small school, it is difficult in good conscience to truly push kids to wrestle to get better in the spring. They are busy making sure our baseball, softball, track, and golf teams are as competitive as possible. How would I feel if the baseball coach was leveraging the wrestlers to start tuning their arms up in January? It would p*@# me off. And of course big schools also share athletes. However, if the wrestlers at small schools focus on one sport, the other sports don't do poorly - they cease to exist. Small schools are playing a differnt game. That's why team sports are classed. There is no difference for individual sports. Everyone has to block another individual in football. Everyone has to mark another individual in soccer. You get where I am going here. This something we are coming to as a program and it's a weird situation I struggle with. The past two years the football team has started winter workouts right around the time team state starts up and goes until they start summer workouts, which pisses me off cause now I have football players struggling to finish the season because now their focus is shifting to an easier sport that they like more. But who am I to call it out when I have guys wrestling during track season, and we encourage guys to wrestle during the fall. Every program is fighting for attention for about 20-30 guys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galagore Posted March 4 Share Posted March 4 4 minutes ago, Thor said: This something we are coming to as a program and it's a weird situation I struggle with. The past two years the football team has started winter workouts right around the time team state starts up and goes until they start summer workouts, which pisses me off cause now I have football players struggling to finish the season because now their focus is shifting to an easier sport that they like more. But who am I to call it out when I have guys wrestling during track season, and we encourage guys to wrestle during the fall. Every program is fighting for attention for about 20-30 guys. Bingo. Very tough tightrope to walk. Thor 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Y2CJ41 Posted March 4 Share Posted March 4 33 minutes ago, MatTime said: I get what you are saying. However, this does not take into consideration the trade-off it takes to get better. Those that are wrestling year round are giving up something. Seems like your argument is that there should be class/division wrestling so that smaller school athletes do not have to make a choice between wrestling or the other sports. If an athlete wants to focus on one sport, they will sacrifice the same way the wrestlers at bigger schools do. The difference is at a bigger school if a kid wants to be varsity there is a decent chance he has to give up other sports to achieve that. At a small school you can be varsity much easier and don't have to give up other sports to keep your spot. This is one of those areas where the separation starts to occur, especially at weights 150lbs and below. MatTime, piscis1956 and ILUV2PIN 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MatTime Posted March 4 Share Posted March 4 6 minutes ago, Galagore said: You are correct. We choose to support our athletic department, not just the wrestling team. We choose to have options for our student athletes, not just say, "fall sport is football or you're out of luck; winter sport is basketball or you're out of luck; spring sport is track or you're out of luck." If this happens to the fullest extent, then many small school athletic teams across the board will fold. My guess is wrestling would not be one of the survivors in most schools. Do you think that is an adequate sacrifice to make sure everyone knows that they need to full give themselves to the sport to have a reasonable shot at winning a state medal? You are advocating on behalf of your school's athletic department, not for your individual athlete. We can not blame the athletes and their family for making a different choice. I think you would be hard pressed to find any of our 14 champions saying they didn't have to make a sacrifice to earn their title. This seems like the classic "have your cake and eat it too" situation. You want to win an individual state title but you also want to participate in other sports. You do not want to have to choose between focusing on being good at a single individual sport or playing other team sports. So instead of class/divisional wrestling, perhaps the policy should be all individual athlete's need to participate in at least one other sport in order to compete at the state series. Would that alleviate the decision making for the wrestler at a small school? Would that bring the parity that is being asked for? It is a choice. Observing and MUSKEEWRESTLER 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galagore Posted March 4 Share Posted March 4 1 minute ago, Y2CJ41 said: The difference is at a bigger school if a kid wants to be varsity there is a decent chance he has to give up other sports to achieve that. At a small school you can be varsity much easier and don't have to give up other sports to keep your spot. This is one of those areas where the separation starts to occur, especially at weights 150lbs and below. You know, it all of the time discussing this it took until this post for it to hit me - that's why those weights are so tough. It's much harder to stay on the football field at a medium to large school when you weigh less than 150-160 pounds, so why not just go ahead and focus on wrestling? At a small school, there are still plenty of linemen that are that size, let alone all of the other positions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galagore Posted March 4 Share Posted March 4 1 minute ago, MatTime said: You are advocating on behalf of your school's athletic department, not for your individual athlete. We can not blame the athletes and their family for making a different choice. I think you would be hard pressed to find any of our 14 champions saying they didn't have to make a sacrifice to earn their title. This seems like the classic "have your cake and eat it too" situation. You want to win an individual state title but you also want to participate in other sports. You do not want to have to choose between focusing on being good at a single individual sport or playing other team sports. So instead of class/divisional wrestling, perhaps the policy should be all individual athlete's need to participate in at least one other sport in order to compete at the state series. Would that alleviate the decision making for the wrestler at a small school? Would that bring the parity that is being asked for? It is a choice. No, it would not be something I would support. Are you OK with there being fewer wrestling programs if the athletes at the small schools pick baseball and football over wrestling? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Y2CJ41 Posted March 4 Share Posted March 4 3 minutes ago, MatTime said: You are advocating on behalf of your school's athletic department, not for your individual athlete. We can not blame the athletes and their family for making a different choice. I think you would be hard pressed to find any of our 14 champions saying they didn't have to make a sacrifice to earn their title. This seems like the classic "have your cake and eat it too" situation. You want to win an individual state title but you also want to participate in other sports. You do not want to have to choose between focusing on being good at a single individual sport or playing other team sports. So instead of class/divisional wrestling, perhaps the policy should be all individual athlete's need to participate in at least one other sport in order to compete at the state series. Would that alleviate the decision making for the wrestler at a small school? Would that bring the parity that is being asked for? It is a choice. Do you feel that kids in lower classes in other states do not work hard or make sacrifices in order to achieve success? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
base Posted March 4 Share Posted March 4 Always helps to see examples - is there an easy way to sort this year's end-of-year state + semistate rankings into the classes and see some of the names each class would have had as the favorites going into the postseason tournament? bwoodjc89 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aoberlin Posted March 4 Share Posted March 4 1 hour ago, Galagore said: So large schools also worry about not having a baseball team because the wrestlers are all focusing on wrestling instead of baseball (or ____ spring/fall sport)? My son is an example I can use. He isn't "finding something else they (he) can be doing other than grinding." He is pitching and catching for the baseball team and working hard at it. He will actually be going in a week or two early to start work with the varsity baseball team before his middle school team practices fully begin. It's baseball season, so I owe it to him and the baseball team to allow him to give that season his full attention, just like he was able to give the wrestling season his full attention. What are some of the benefits of wrestling for a small school? It can be even worse at a big school,our baseball team cuts pretty hard and the kids they cut surprise me. If we have an athlete who is good enough to make the baseball team they very very rarely will choose wrestling. Baseball is very popular around here so they are snagging some really really good athletes. I sometimes let my freshman do both at the end of the season because I know they probably will not make the team and come back to wrestling. I have some of my best wrestlers who love baseball so much that they hardly do any off-season so they can play travel baseball and fall ball to try to make a team they never make. All the way up to their senior year. Our football team requires so much time for athletes to make the team you hardly get to see them in the off-season. IMO and I have been coaching for a long time and I have put everything I have including all my time and money into trying to turn this area and this big beast of a school around and it all comes down to culture and building that culture. If there is no culture at your school or your area that is very very hard and can sometimes feel impossible. This is why I think it is very important to build the culture up for the whole area. When I see the social media posts of firetrucks rolling through the town for State qualifiers or pictures of wrestlers over top of railroad bridges my heart aches for that stuff. This is just my opinion but I think a nice 2A school would be a great place to be coaching but that isn't where my life took me. We won Sectionals 2 years in a row and qualified all 14 to regionals and then had a ton of semi-state qualifiers. I think it made the announcements. (Maybe). The bottom line is we all have our challenges for sure. With that said I am not against class wrestling anymore since we can't get wrestlebacks and our kids deserve more opportunities. More quailfiers and wrestlebacks and I will be a happy camper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Y2CJ41 Posted March 4 Share Posted March 4 33 minutes ago, base said: Always helps to see examples - is there an easy way to sort this year's end-of-year state + semistate rankings into the classes and see some of the names each class would have had as the favorites going into the postseason tournament? This would have been the finals if we had a split with IHSWCA 1A/2A and 3A/4A 106 2A 1st Place - Peyton Schoettle of Roncalli 2nd Place - Mason Jones of Lake Central 1A 3rd Place - Royce Malone of Monrovia 4th Place - Jensen Boyd of Delta 113 2A 1st Place - Revin Dickman of Brownsburg 2nd Place - Nathan Rioux of Avon 1A 3rd Place - Ayden Bollinger of Delta 6th Place - Bradyn Volz of Eastern Hancock 120 2A 1st Place - Charlie LaRocca of Center Grove 2nd Place - Ty Henderson of Evansville Mater Dei 1A 4th Place - Isaac Ash of Monrovia Tanner Tishner- Western 126 2A 1st Place - Luke Rioux of Avon 2nd Place - Isaiah Schaefer of Evansville Mater Dei 1A 7th Place - Bradin Daniels of Union City 8th Place - Cody Rowles of Jay County 132 2A 1st Place - Jake Hockaday of Brownsburg 2nd Place - Hayden DeMarco of Chesterton 1A 3rd Place - Tylin Thrine of New Castle 4th Place - Jackson Bradley of Cowan 138 2A 1st Place - Kyrel Leavell of Warren Central 2nd Place - Clinton Shepherd of Crown Point 1A 4th Place - Tony Wood of Jay County 5th Place - Gavyn Whitehead of New Castle 144 2A 1st Place - Easton Doster of New Haven 2nd Place - Zar Walker of Mishawaka High School 1A 4th Place - Branson Weaver of Owen Valley 5th Place - Jeffrey Huyvaert of New Prairie 150 2A 1st Place - Wyatt Krejsa of Center Grove 2nd Place - Hunter May of Floyd Central 1A Carson Fettig- Hamilton Heights Alex Smith- Heritage Hills 157 2A 2nd Place - Adrian Pellot of Merrillville 3rd Place - Anthony Cashman of Warren Central 1A 1st Place - Mitchell Betz of Western 6th Place - Silas Foster of Purdue Polytechnic 165 2A 1st Place - Waylon Cressell of Warren Central 4th Place - Anthony Rinehart of Crown Point 1A 2nd Place - Duke Myers of Bellmont (IN) 3rd Place - Brant Beck of Rochester 175 2A 2nd Place - Bray Emerine of Floyd Central 3rd Place - Aidan Costello of Hobart 1A 1st Place - Chase Leech of Garrett High School 4th Place - Ethan Farnell of Maconaquah 190 2A 2nd Place - Gunner Henry of Brownsburg 5th Place - Kaden McConnell of Center Grove 1A 1st Place - Noah Weaver of Rossville 3rd Place - Noah Terry of Tell City 215 2A 1st Place - Will Clark of Crown Point 2nd Place - Brandon Johnson of Lawrence North 1A 5th Place - Keagan Martin of Bellmont (IN) 7th Place - Wyatt Woodall of Southmont 285 2A 1st Place - Nate Johnson of Center Grove 2nd Place - Hosia Smith of Indianapolis Cathedral 1A 5th Place - Brady Beck of Rochester 6th Place - Juan Cruz of Bluffton Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyStJ Posted March 4 Share Posted March 4 3 hours ago, Y2CJ41 said: Just work harder, if you put in the time during the off-season you are the bad draw and don't have to worry about losing. The ticket round is a part of our culture and the most exciting round. Semi-state would be boring with wrestle-backs. Life isn't fair, get over it. We are always going to disagree here. You may see the lack of wrestlebacks as exciting but I see Henderson vs Haines in the ticket round, with only one of them going, as an abomination. Both wrestlers have put in the work and are the bad draws, but blind luck of the draw combined with the lack of wrestlebacks means that the question of the top 4 semistate wrestlers on the day is not even considered. And it easily could be. Add a round of wrestlebacks to semistate and qualifying gets harder. You have to win 3 matches instead of 2 to qualify, and the third will always be against someone out of your pod who has already won 2 matches. Add wrestlebacks to the State Finals and you need to win 2 matches to place instead of 1. That is way more exciting to me. If you really want exciting, watch the blood round at Fargo or Super32 or NCAAs. Wrestlebacks would make Indiana HS wrestling better. piscis1956 and KLH 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galagore Posted March 4 Share Posted March 4 1 minute ago, AndyStJ said: We are always going to disagree here. You may see the lack of wrestlebacks as exciting but I see Henderson vs Haines in the ticket round, with only one of them going, as an abomination. Both wrestlers have put in the work and are the bad draws, but blind luck of the draw combined with the lack of wrestlebacks means that the question of the top 4 semistate wrestlers on the day is not even considered. And it easily could be. Add a round of wrestlebacks to semistate and qualifying gets harder. You have to win 3 matches instead of 2 to qualify, and the third will always be against someone out of your pod who has already won 2 matches. Add wrestlebacks to the State Finals and you need to win 2 matches to place instead of 1. That is way more exciting to me. If you really want exciting, watch the blood round at Fargo or Super32 or NCAAs. Wrestlebacks would make Indiana HS wrestling better. @Y2CJ41 is making a point that the logic used to refute class wrestling can as easily be applied to wrestlebacks. He is not campaigning against wrestlebacks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galagore Posted March 4 Share Posted March 4 59 minutes ago, aoberlin said: It can be even worse at a big school,our baseball team cuts pretty hard and the kids they cut surprise me. If we have an athlete who is good enough to make the baseball team they very very rarely will choose wrestling. Baseball is very popular around here so they are snagging some really really good athletes. I sometimes let my freshman do both at the end of the season because I know they probably will not make the team and come back to wrestling. I have some of my best wrestlers who love baseball so much that they hardly do any off-season so they can play travel baseball and fall ball to try to make a team they never make. All the way up to their senior year. Our football team requires so much time for athletes to make the team you hardly get to see them in the off-season. IMO and I have been coaching for a long time and I have put everything I have including all my time and money into trying to turn this area and this big beast of a school around and it all comes down to culture and building that culture. If there is no culture at your school or your area that is very very hard and can sometimes feel impossible. This is why I think it is very important to build the culture up for the whole area. When I see the social media posts of firetrucks rolling through the town for State qualifiers or pictures of wrestlers over top of railroad bridges my heart aches for that stuff. This is just my opinion but I think a nice 2A school would be a great place to be coaching but that isn't where my life took me. We won Sectionals 2 years in a row and qualified all 14 to regionals and then had a ton of semi-state qualifiers. I think it made the announcements. (Maybe). The bottom line is we all have our challenges for sure. With that said I am not against class wrestling anymore since we can't get wrestlebacks and our kids deserve more opportunities. More quailfiers and wrestlebacks and I will be a happy camper. What are the benefits of trying to be as competitive as possible while wrestling at a small school? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aoberlin Posted March 4 Share Posted March 4 5 minutes ago, Galagore said: What are the benefits of trying to be as competitive as possible while wrestling at a small school? I honestly don’t understand the question. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Y2CJ41 Posted March 4 Share Posted March 4 16 minutes ago, AndyStJ said: We are always going to disagree here. You may see the lack of wrestlebacks as exciting but I see Henderson vs Haines in the ticket round, with only one of them going, as an abomination. Both wrestlers have put in the work and are the bad draws, but blind luck of the draw combined with the lack of wrestlebacks means that the question of the top 4 semistate wrestlers on the day is not even considered. And it easily could be. Add a round of wrestlebacks to semistate and qualifying gets harder. You have to win 3 matches instead of 2 to qualify, and the third will always be against someone out of your pod who has already won 2 matches. Add wrestlebacks to the State Finals and you need to win 2 matches to place instead of 1. That is way more exciting to me. If you really want exciting, watch the blood round at Fargo or Super32 or NCAAs. Wrestlebacks would make Indiana HS wrestling better. If you put in time in the off-season and work hard then you shouldn't need wrestle-backs. Do we really want to find out who the best loser is? Win or go home, life isn't fair, winners win, don't lose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galagore Posted March 4 Share Posted March 4 (edited) 2 hours ago, aoberlin said: This isn't just a small school problem. It's a kid and what are their goals problem. They will always find something else they can be doing other than grinding if they truly aren't bought in. Not saying small schools don't have challenges because they do. But I will also say they have some benefits. What are the benefits for an individual who attends a small school and wants to maximize wrestling success? Edited March 4 by Galagore typo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyStJ Posted March 4 Share Posted March 4 31 minutes ago, Galagore said: @Y2CJ41 is making a point that the logic used to refute class wrestling can as easily be applied to wrestlebacks. He is not campaigning against wrestlebacks. Man it is hard to figure out when someone is serious and when they are joking. Like the buddy of mine who used to post that cannibalism wasn't so bad. You think you know someone. MUSKEEWRESTLER 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galagore Posted March 4 Share Posted March 4 2 minutes ago, AndyStJ said: Man it is hard to figure out when someone is serious and when they are joking. Like the buddy of mine who used to post that cannibalism wasn't so bad. You think you know someone. In your defense, the lack of how obvious that is is also kinda the point. Your confusion is what he seeks, though he does not seek to confuse you personally. Y2CJ41 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Y2CJ41 Posted March 4 Share Posted March 4 4 minutes ago, Galagore said: In your defense, the lack of how obvious that is is also kinda the point. Your confusion is what he seeks, though he does not seek to confuse you personally. Telling all of my secrets... geesh! Galagore 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ENoblewrestling Posted March 4 Share Posted March 4 2 minutes ago, Galagore said: What are the benefits for an individual who attends a small school and wants to maximize wrestling success? Having coached at a small school, and a medium sized school I think the following are possible advantages to the small school. More one on one focus from coaching staff. Better chance to be varsity for four years. Better recognition for "smaller" accomplishments- one the wall for sectional champ at small school, state placer at bigger school. I was able to have more coaches at the smaller school. If all of the athletic programs are solid and on the same page, the athlete is in a great strength and conditioning program year round... this is generally the same at EN as almost all of our wrestlers are 2-3 sport athletes. On the team side our teams have generally been better at EN, but at Busco it was easier to get a random kid from the hallway to fill in if we needed a weight class filled than at EN. Winning team state is more attainable at a small school imo , where the competition is not as dependent on having a lot of state level kids, and more on just producing a squad of 14 solid wrestlers. MUSKEEWRESTLER 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galagore Posted March 4 Share Posted March 4 10 minutes ago, ENoblewrestling said: Having coached at a small school, and a medium sized school I think the following are possible advantages to the small school. More one on one focus from coaching staff. Better chance to be varsity for four years. Better recognition for "smaller" accomplishments- one the wall for sectional champ at small school, state placer at bigger school. I was able to have more coaches at the smaller school. If all of the athletic programs are solid and on the same page, the athlete is in a great strength and conditioning program year round... this is generally the same at EN as almost all of our wrestlers are 2-3 sport athletes. On the team side our teams have generally been better at EN, but at Busco it was easier to get a random kid from the hallway to fill in if we needed a weight class filled than at EN. Winning team state is more attainable at a small school imo , where the competition is not as dependent on having a lot of state level kids, and more on just producing a squad of 14 solid wrestlers. Do you think having more one-on-one with coaches outweighs the benefit of quality practice partners? Everyone goes to RTCs and RWOs in the off season because of the quality partners they get to work with. Do you think having a better chance at varsity outweighs the benefit of having to compete for your spot? Competing for a varsity spot is one of the things people highlight about our best programs. If getting "on the wall" is beneficial to a wrestler, wouldn't it make more sense to give more kids the opportunity to win titles? This actually sounds like an argument in favor of classed individual tournaments. Having more coaches is something that doesn't seem universal to the small school experience. We see schools with the same coaches at our varsity, middle school, and elementary school events. That one may have been unique to Churubusco. Are you saying that all of the athletic programs being on the same page is more likely to happen at a small school? If so, see previous paragraph. Winning team state is something I will have to defer to someone else, as we have never even been in the running, so it is hard for me to comment on whether it is easier or harder to win in any given division. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zach Richards Posted March 4 Author Share Posted March 4 Ok, I decided to crunch some numbers ... Take it for what you will. I looked at the top 4 placers at state for the last 3 years. 14 weight classes x 4 placers x 3 years = 168 points of data. I then compared these schools to the current basketball classes, which currently has 4 classes. Now before everyone crucifies me on here, I am not suggesting that 4 classes would be the right number for wrestling. Some of the numbers that I found to be interesting ... 1. Of the 168 placers, 161 of those wrestlers (95.83%) came from a 4A or 3A school. 2. Of the 168 placers, only 2 wrestlers (0.12%) came from a 1A school. 3. Over the last 3 years, here are the 42 state champs by class ... a. 1A - 1 b. 2A - 1 c. 3A - 6 d. 4A - 34 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zach Richards Posted March 4 Author Share Posted March 4 25 minutes ago, ENoblewrestling said: Having coached at a small school, and a medium sized school I think the following are possible advantages to the small school. More one on one focus from coaching staff. Better chance to be varsity for four years. Better recognition for "smaller" accomplishments- one the wall for sectional champ at small school, state placer at bigger school. I was able to have more coaches at the smaller school. If all of the athletic programs are solid and on the same page, the athlete is in a great strength and conditioning program year round... this is generally the same at EN as almost all of our wrestlers are 2-3 sport athletes. On the team side our teams have generally been better at EN, but at Busco it was easier to get a random kid from the hallway to fill in if we needed a weight class filled than at EN. Winning team state is more attainable at a small school imo , where the competition is not as dependent on having a lot of state level kids, and more on just producing a squad of 14 solid wrestlers. This is a very valid point. Let's look at Busco as an example. Small school that has never had a state champ. Never even close. Rarely even sends 1 wrestler to state. No wrestling club. No offseason program. At sectionals this year, they forfeited 4 weight classes. Only filled 10 weight classes. Even if you can fill the roster, you're just filling spaces ... Not getting more competitive. Take someone like Chase Leech ... Send him over to Busco. You think he's getting pushed every day in practice? You think he's getting prepared for what it takes to win at state? I went to Busco, so I feel like I can speak to it. Busco's wrestling room is probably smaller than Brownsburg's janitorial closet. Maybe the answer isn't that we need divisions (although I would like to see it) ... But maybe the answer is that you have to be training at these RTCs instead of focusing on your high school team. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TeamGarcia Posted March 4 Share Posted March 4 3 hours ago, Galagore said: Being referred to as "this Galagore" is my favorite thing about today so far. Do we know who you are ? All we know you is as Galagore . What is a Galagore, let me look it up ? Ahhhh… Dark Age Suit . Idk … lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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