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We are actively seeking the best candidate. Administration is very motivated to help this program continue what we started and continue the climb. See attached vacancy announcement (PDF) Should anyone have questions feel free to contact me directly at # below. Keith Davison 219/617-0034 Chesterton High School Wrestling Coach Vacancy Announcement (Winter 2021) (003).pdf

Guys...Congrats on reaching the 10 page thread total!!! I think that matches last year..but not close to the 15+ from a couple years ago! You can do it!!! LFG!!! BTW..shoutout to @SIACfan for taking the baton. Can I just get a permanent like for his posts? Keep up God's work. Also, you know you made a good point when they suddenly change their hypotheticals! It's their way of acknowledging you. Carry on.....

I have asked what programs have we lost? You mentioned 3 I think - one of which was advertising for a head coach this year, so obviously they are not cutting the program because of participation. Cutting wrestling programs may be the logical conclusion you are getting at, but it doesn't see to actually be happening Also in regards to your first point about "working harder" - if you will never concede that the small school athletes should look at other options to help them reach state, then your solution to add a small school division is roughly equivalent to (yes, I'm going to say it) awarding participation trophies. Without really showing much proof, you are suggesting that this one step will magically solve all the woes It will not help wrestlers at large schools that are not succeeding (of the 34 4A schools you have listed in your dataset, 8 of them or roughly 25% have had less than 10 state qualifiers total in the past 15 years. In 3A only 30 out of 34 have had 10 or more) Since small school wrestlers should not have to "work harder" then I guess you are simply going after participation numbers and not skill (I am ok with this, but say that's what it is) You mention the number of participants dropping - that trend has continued during the addition of the TEAM CLASSED state tournament, so apparently the lure of those awards has not improved the participation across the board although it may have helped some schools If participation numbers is the root issue, then let's focus on solving that. Like Galagore insists - wrestling will die from the bottom up. Without focusing on the youth programs as step 1 then your solution is only your best guess at what might follow

At the end of the day, I think most of us recognize that being from a small school means it is more likely that a wrestler has a more difficult path to success at the state level. Some of us are OK with that, and some of us worry that discrepancy will have long-term negative consequences on the future of the sport in our state. As I have said before, from the perspective of my athletes and my own kids in a vacuum, I am just fine with the current system. However, from a more global perspective of the sport state-wide, our current system really worries me.

Because we aren't talking about the expectations of individuals. We are talking about the expectations of small schools. This is exactly what I am talking about. Why is this so hard for you guys to understand. Small schools are at a disadvantage because they have fewer kids to draw there athletes from. But that doesn't mean that the few elite athletes they have are at a disadvantage in an individual setting.

No speculation needed here. I’m staying a Hobart.

Vote-in candidates at 1A now updated to include Bremen according to our special covid-year provisions. They had 13 starters out due to quarantine. We found they had good evidence that their score would have most likely been between 154 and 166 (other vote-in candidates are at 153 to 169.5). They return 13 starters--all .500 records or better--and their lone senior starter had multiple wins over semi-state and state qualifiers. Several other teams had me help them figure out the effects of covid on their score as well. No others were very close to justifying inclusion in the vote.

^^THIS^^ At the highest level BJJ tournaments, you must wear street shoes to the bathroom. If spotted not following this rule, you can be disqualified. Similarly, if spotted wearing street shoes on the mat, you can be disqualified. I would even love to see coaches who are on the mats pre-tournament either bring a pair of wrestling shoes or at least be in their socks. Another big difference this year was that fans, parents and siblings didn't have access to the competition floor. This significantly cut down on the number of kids running about on the mats and Cousin Larry showing off the move that worked for him in the 1987 Nowheresville District 2A qualifier. The mats are for the wrestlers.

I'm pretty sure the most disgusting thing in wrestling is watching our wrestlers go into the disgusting bathrooms and then walk out and step on the mat and wrestle someone.

hey eshcoach, Toby was IPRA world champion all around cowboy and bull riding champ. i remember his start in high school rodeos. i clowned/fought bulls at a few of his rodeos. that was many years and pounds ago !!

I look at the data and one thing that keeps popping out to me is that it seems like a small amount of schools are dominating wrestling. 8 wrestling schools (Cathedral, Brownsburg, Warren Central, Chesterton, EMD, PM, Crown Point and Penn) had 25% of ALL the qualifiers.... If you add East Central and Floyd Central into that mix this year, then you we at 29.4% of ALL state qualifiers in just 10 schools.

As we do every year with this topic, I think we have clearly arrived in Yanny/Laurel or white-gold dress vs black-blue dress territory between the 2 sides.

The easy way in life to put it . Unfortunately unexpected life events puts you in positions that you don’t wanna be in . (Job loss, job relocation, divorce, separation, death... I can go on & on) Happens to everyone at any giving time in life. Just gotta try to make the right decision for your family .

Just don't put yourself in that position...

Large schools have advantages, which you have stated. Those advantages in turn get passed on to the individuals in those schools. Is that really difficult to understand?

So are you saying that all the 1A schools had (8) placers? Given the percentage of all 1A schools enrollment they should have had (9) placers. So if they had (8) then they weren't far off from what should be expected. Did Chesterton far exceed their expectation given the enrollment at their school? Absolutely, but so did many other schools both large & small. Given Chesterton has an enrollment of 2063 (per 2019/2020 data), they should expect to have 0.8 placers a year. Given Mater Dei has an enrollment of 497 (per 2019/2020 data), they should expect to have 0.2 placers a year. So Chesterton performed 10 times better than their enrollment would dictate, but MD performed 30 times better than their enrollment would dictate. I have already stated that large schools have an advantage. They are going to have more state qualifiers & placers, but this should be expected because large schools make up such a large percentage of the overall enrollment in the state. Garrett for example has an enrollment of 591, thus they should expect to have 0.44 qualifiers per year or approximately (1) qualifier every 2 years (precisely every 2.25 years). They had (2) this year, thus they performed 4.5 times better than what their enrollment would dictate. I'm at a loss as to why this is so hard for small school coaches & fans to understand. I concede that large schools have an advantage. They have much larger enrollments & thus are going to have more elite athletes. Do some large schools excel? absolutely, but so do some small schools. I am not actually against classing. I understand that small schools would benefit from it. But I also acknowledge that the individual participating in an individual sport is not at some huge disadvantage because he or she attends a small school. Some large schools offer an advantage to individuals in certain sports but so do some small schools. The best argument for classing is that it will provide more kids with the opportunity to succeed. And success breeds interest which will then hopefully lead to growth within the sport. To say that small school individuals are at a disadvantage is at best a poor a poor argument. The small schools themselves are at a big disadvantage but not the individuals themselves. Would Garrett's (2) qualifiers been better had they attended a large school? Maybe, but that would depend on the large school. It is very possible that at some large schools they would not have been as good as they were.

Last year I went through the process with a kid and it was brutal. After the hearing they felt they were not going to "win" his eligibility, but for some reason they changed their minds. The thing that gets me is how they pick and choose which kids to "audit" and go after.

Trust me he will have all the input and final decisions! I am hoping for more than a stock catalog ring.

They have students paint them before state.

Does your school give individual State Championship and/or runner-up rings? Does your school pay for them? If so would anyone be willing to post a picture of your ring? My AD is wanting to design a ring for our Runner-up.

I have read every post here and I have concluded that despite classing the team state tourney and giving more awards to more teams, the total number of wrestling teams in the state have decreased. Using what we have learned from this, some would like to class the individual tourney and (at minimum of going to 2 classes) double the number of champions and placers, feeling pretty confident this would increase the number of wrestlers in the state. Despite the fact we haven’t seen this to be true. Any proposal to actually improve the skill level of any wrestler (feeder programs, clubs, wrestling outside of the high school program, etc) are not fair and generally speaking too difficult or impossible to do. Wrestlers only wrestle because they like ribbons and shiny things and standing on uneven pedestals. Maybe the fact that none of this makes sense is why the last 3 pages of this post are the same as the first 3 pages (and my guess is the same as the last 20 threads discussing this). And for the love of God can someone give Y2C a random number between 25 and 100. And stop calling small school wrestlers lazy.

But there are outliers in the large schools as well. If you are going to throw out the best small school then you should at least also throw out the best large school & adjust all the percentages accordingly. By that I mean you have to adjust the total amount of qualifiers, placers & champs by the number that has been throw out. But I guessing you simply threw the MD numbers into the large school data set. Is this what happened?

What an individual classed tournament gives small schools is a foothold to sell all of that hard work. At our school, we have had two state champions. One was a guy who was 275 pounds and still athlete enough to run the 200m dash on our track team. The other was literally the best athlete in the history of our school. My point is, not people I can walk up to the average kid walking the hallway and say, "hey, just do what he did!" The class wrestling foothold gives us a chance to have more wrestlers of reasonable athletic ability who have put in the work show success, thus making the work more of a selling point. This in turn leads to more success, etc.

Fair enough. I wasn't trying to agitate you in any way. But those elite academies had to start from scratch in the their beginnings, and what they've accomplished can be replicated.

Or someone in Fort Wayne could open up something like CIA, etc.

You’re welcome...

You are correct about IHSAA. As for the community as a whole, we are actually on much better ground that we were ten years ago. The civility of the conversation alone is like another planet from the discussions in 2010, 2011, etc.

Now look what you have done - you've made me have to post again. I'm not sure where you are getting 55%, but basing expectations on total enrollment is perfectly logical. This is because the small schools have less kids to draw their athletes from thus it stands to reason that they will have less elite athletes. It is exactly the reason why small schools are at a huge disadvantage from a team standpoint. Now I can't answer definitively what would happen if schools were allowed multiple entries at each weight, but neither can you. You can speculate as I can. I would speculate that at the sectional & regional levels you would see a big difference, but by the time it got to semi-state & state it wouldn't be a huge change. For the small school guys who are advancing that far are not guys that many large school JV guys could beat. I'm sure you are going to speculate differently, but no one is going to be able to prove anything. FYI, 3 champs per year for the small schools is exactly what I said they should get and that your data shows that they are only getting 2.

Thanks for sharing that info. I actually really appreciate all you do for this forum. And one last time, I do acknowledge that small schools would benefit from a classed system. The worst deviation is in the amount of champs generated & that is only 8.31%. While it looks like a big loss for the small schools (8.31/22.6 = 36.8% loss), it only equates to the loss of one champ per year on average. 22.6% of 14 weight classes would dictate that small schools should have (3) champs per year. 14.29% of 14 weight classes shows that they are only getting (2) champs per year on average.

I knew you could only resist for so long.

Happy to know that even when he isn't saying he cares, @UncleJimmy is still keeping an eye on things:}

Remember we are talking school success in an individual setting. So yes, if small schools are succeeding at a rate that coincides with their enrollment rate then it is what should be expected. Why is that so hard for some of you to understand. I understand that as a coach &/or a fan you want your school to be able to have success. From a school standpoint it makes total sense to class even an individual sport. But I am coming at this from the individual perspective. I am not against classing, but I admit that I like that Indiana crowns one true champ in it's individual tournament. but I also recognize that from a team/school standpoint it is very unfair.

The one class system assumes that EVERYONE is equal and has an equal shot at thing such as qualifying for state or winning state. If there is not an equal shot at that "success" then we would go to a class system. That is why they classed team sports as they saw that the Southern Wells baseball team did not have an equal shot as the Carroll baseball team at success. The data shows that the entries for small schools are MUCH more likely to not qualify for state, place at state, or win a title.

Why are we using enrollment to determine how many qualifiers placers and champs each size school should have... all teams can only enter 14 per team... yes some schools have forfeits but by using school size alone to determine how many each size school should have is agree that big schools have a big advantage. The percentage should be based on sectional entries to determine if small schools are on par with big their percentage. Enrollment shouldn't have any baring if things are on even ground. but obviously they do. All stats should be based on kids actually wrestling not kids that are in school not participating in the sport.

Mr. Gorilla: Alex Cottey- Perry Meridian 1st Runner-up: Bryer Hall- East Central 2nd Runner-up: Tristan Ruhlman- Bloomington South Miss Gorilla: Sarah Huse- Lebanon 1st Runner-up: Alexie Westfall- Crown Point 2nd Runner-up: Haley Mattingly- Carmel 4A Coach of the Year: Greg Schaefer- Mater Dei 3A Coach of the Year: Adam Wolf- East Central 2A Coach of the Year: Nick Kraus- Garrett 1A Coach of the Year: Neal Stahly- Tell City Girls Coach of the Year: Jeremy Goodlett- Lebanon 4A Wrestler of the Year: Jesse Mendez- Crown Point 3A Wrestler of the Year: J Conway- Floyd Central 2A Wrestler of the Year: Isaac Ruble- Bellmont 1A Wrestler of the Year: Hayden Filipovich- Indianapolis Lutheran Past Award Winners 1A Coach 2015- Tony Currie 2016- Brett Smith 2017- Gary Black 2018- Chuck Fleshman 2019- Tony Currie 2020- Cody Moll 1A Wrestler 2015- Sawyer Miller 2016- Evan Ellis 2017- Eli Stock 2018- Noah Cressell 2019- Silas Allred 2020- isiah Levitz 2A Coach 2015- Trent McCormick 2016- Mark Kerrn 2017- Trent McCormick 2018- Frank Bumgardner 2019- Chad Shepherd 2020- Paul Gunsett 2A Wrestler 2015- Brock Hudkins 2016- Brock Hudkins 2017- Mason Parris 2018- Brayden Curtis 2019- AJ Fowler 2020- Clayton Fielden 3A Coach 2015- Brad Harper 2016- Darrick Snyder 2017- Chris Johl 2018- Matt Schoettle 2019- Sean McGinley 2020- Sean McGinley 3A Wrestler 2015- Chad Red 2016- Blake Rypel 2017- Joe Lee 2018- Asa Garcia 2019- Jordan Slivka 2020- Eli Dickens Mr. Gorilla 2015- Tommy Forte 2016- Chad Red 2017- Andrew Davison 2018- Brayton Lee and Mason Parris 2019- Asa Garcia 2020- Silas Allred View full article

I see you @Kyle Ayersman liking that post...........is that a hint one of the regions best may return to the area and compete against his alma mater and former coach?!?!? Or is @Jcjcjc going to head back to his former coaching school and give up the reigns at Hobart to @brickfor6 Lots of speculation and possibilities.................tbd

Where are our big schools? Love to see what sla few more of them are doing.

Except Seltzer got it done in the championship game (I say that as a Notre Dame fan).

All 3 Welch bothers made it to state in both 2010 and 2011. In 2010, Luke (freshman year) drew Ayersman (champ) in the first round & lost 5-0. Doug was runner-up and Chad was 3rd. In 2011, Luke placed 5th & Chad and Doug were both champs. And yes, I had to google that.

They are in the same discussion, if a school isn't fielding a full roster consistently it can and will lead to the discontinuation of their program. At some point administrations will cut ties due to lack of success even fielding a decent number of athletes. The state qualifier and forfeit numbers both show how different the level of wrestling is at the small school level.

1. Participation numbers are dropping sharply, yes we need to increase participation. Per this year's data 1A teams have an average of 5.07 forfeits, 2A has 3.65, 3A, 2.46, and 4A has 1.26. So saying here is Pike who has a small roster and trying to compare it to the 108 1A teams that only average 9 kids on their final roster is disingenuous. 2. More kids getting a taste of success is good for the sport. More kids getting to the ticket round or first round of state... heck even getting to regional are good things for programs and the kids themselves. Dangling that carrot in front of them isn't a bad thing. 3. No there will always be teams that rise to the top. That's no different in class or no class. That's not a bad thing at all to have teams with success.

But that’s the thing...they weren’t at Busco. In three years you’ve sent 6 to state at EN. I’d bet you send another 12-20 in the next 7 years. Let’s say you only send another 12. That’s 18 qualifiers in 10 years. You had 4 at Busco in 10 years. You cannot tell me going to a school almost 4x larger doesn’t make a difference.

My argument used to be about fairness, but now it is about keeping the sport alive (hopefully some day growing it). Even if a big school does not have a lot of success, chances are they will retain a program. This is true not just of wrestling, but of any program. It is much more likely that a smaller school chooses to cut a program that hasn't had a lot of success, especially if said program is only impacting a half dozen students.

This is dumb. Where are all the UFC Champions from? The bigger gyms. I'm not saying at Garrett we can't get kids to the finals and win a state championship. We have made the finals and we will have an individual champion. But, to say, or to infer that big schools don't have an advantage is ignorant. Period. We've had 3 placers since I've been at Garrett. They've had to work their butts off to find matches outside of season and their partners are typically our coaches who were collegiate wrestlers. We don't have the luxury of having a kid show up in our hallways as a freshman, we get him to wrestle, and boom he's under the lights within 4 years. Since I've been at Garrett we've started them young and I'm sure we will have some high placers in the future, but wouldn't it be a lot easier at a bigger school with more money, more resources, better training partners? We can out coach some of the biggest baddest schools in Indiana wrestling and still lose. Iron sharpens iron. We've been getting the best athletes out for wrestling at our school, but again, there'd be a lot more to choose from if we had 1500-3000 kids instead of under 600. 106 state champ (enrollment 1819) 113 state champ (enrollment 2445) 120 state champ (enrollment 2063) 126 state champ (enrollment 1099/parochial--not saying they recruit...they don't have to--people come to them) 132 state champ (enrollment 2810) 138 state champ (enrollment 2855) 145 state champ (enrollment 2055) 152 state champ (enrollment 1815) 160 state champ (enrollment 497.....MD...parochial...don't argue with me, but this is not a normal "small school" 170 state champ (enrollment 1225) 182 state champ (enrollment 497 ...MD...see above) 195 state champ (enrollment 225...they should make a movie about the kid...awesome) 220 state champ (enrollment 1747) 285 state champ (enrollment 2412) But, the big schools just work harder than us little pions ... btw I like the one class system for individual state...but some of these arguments are flat out arrogant and ignorant

Mater Dei could move up if they wished as they do for team state. More kids getting recognized for their work is never a bad thing. Is it horrible that we hand out 1A, 2A, 3A, and 4A awards for kids and coaches? Am I breaking some unwritten sin to recognize more kids for their efforts in the sport? Looking at participation numbers we won't have much to work with in the very near future unless something is done. Losing 25% of our athletes in 10ish years and almost doubling our forfeits isn't exactly a good sign for the future. We have lost 2000 wrestlers which is 6 per team or 140 full squads. We have lost 25 full teams just in forfeits. I don't want to be Chicken Little here, however those aren't good signs. As stated earlier, what will it take for you to consider class wrestling? Do we need to lose 25 programs? How about 50, 100? What if we average 7 forfeits per team? Just curious what the tipping point is.

It's been said over and over to "just work harder" and only the kids that work hard make the finals. Just like your snide remarks about your name for a classed event. Obviously you would be fine with 20 programs in the state as long as we had the true champion and only 150 kids participating in the sport.

De'alcapon Veazy will be at Snider next year

While I don't agree with any of this situation. My son is that "South Carolina" kid. I did everything right. It took until Dec 23rd for him to get eligible. Sorry for moving my family back to where I grew up because I'm retiring from military service. I don't agree with what happened to Christian, but keep my son out of your grievances.

Probably just the natural beauty of the South Bend metro area?