Coach Brobst

At HSE I’d say the line-up would look like this: 106- Jacob Simone- 2018, 8th at 113 in 2019, but was a stud at 106 as a Sophomore and go pinned by eventual 4th placer David Pierson when leading 4-1 and in on another deep single when headlocked in the ticket round. Another option would be Klayton Anderson who qualified in 2015 as just a freshman, then moved to Missouri. 113- Austin Holmes, 2 time 4th placer at 113 and qualified as a Senior at 126. One of our all-time best! 120- Edreece Stansberry. Qualifier in 2014. 126- Thomas Pompei. 6th place in ‘06 and has gone on to an outstanding collegiate coaching career at INDIANA Tech! 132- Possibly the greatest Royal-Jack Chastain. 5th at 132 in 2015, succumbing to a terrible draw but scoring the only offensive points of the tourney against Nick Lee on Saturday morning. Also 5th in 2014 at 126 and qualified as a Sophomore at 113. Only 2 Royals have qualified 3 times, Chastain and Austin Holmes. 138- Mitch Snyder. With respect to One time qualifier Keegan Stansberry, Snyder was a 132 that placed 6th in 2013 and qualified at 112 as a Sophomore. We’ll bump him one weight. 145- Pat Robinson. 3rd as a Senior, NCAA qualifier at Purdue, so far HSE’s only one ever. He’s also on our staff here helping with the building of our program! 152- Jackson Bennett. 5th place in 2013 and current Head JV coach in our program. Corbin Gregg as a 6th placer is a close second. 160- Matt Irick. Cheating a bit here as he never wrestled 160, but finished 5th at 170 as a Senior and a was a qualifier at 140 as a Sophomore. He likely would have been 160 his Junior year, which was lost due to injury. He went on to be our second DI starter at IU. 170- Austin Neibarger. Really close one here as Irick was a 170 pounder and Patrick Turner finished 4th in 2004, but Neibarger was a two time placer, 8th as a Freshman at 152 and then 5th as a Senior at 170. 182- Spencer Irick. One of the biggest upsets ever on Friday night was his win over Andrew Davidson. He went on to take 3rd that year and was a qualifier at 170 his Junior year as well. 195- Brent Farrell. Our first ever two time qualifier and first ever placer. He was the runner up in 1996 at 189 and was our head coach for a couple years and is now a principal in the district (and father of Fishers’ 3rd placer this year, JD Farrell). They have another Farrell coming in next year that will be a very good wrestler as well. 220- Crae Kunkleman. Our highest 220 placer is Andrew Irick, but he will be our HWT starter leaving only qualifiers at 220. Kunkleman was actually a HWT qualifier in 2019 but would have likely placed at 220 (he only weighed 205), but was behind Irick. Only one other 220 ever qualified in Georges Brantley, and heck I’ll be biased with the kid I coached. 285- Andrew Irick. The third and final Irick Brother. He’s our highest ever placer as runner up this season and finished 4th as a Junior at 220, joining Austin Holmes as our only 2 time semi-finalists. Andrew is likely the most accomplished Royal and will try to win the starting spot and be our first ever All-American at the Division I level. We have many more talented athletes that could have been in the team, but that’s who I think would be our top 14. It seems like a recency bias, but we actually never had a placer until 1996 as little old Fishers used to be a tiny town and HSE wasn’t what we now know until the early 2000’s. Awesome to look at where a program has been. Gives motivation to our incoming Freshman and current HS kids to try to emulate and better themselves as we search for that first state champ.

Andrew Irick will be filling the second 285 pound slot. Don't know about the 220.

On track you have to decide beforehand. There are set-ups for these tourneys on there, you just have to pick the bracket-type you want. If you did it manually, I suppose you could definitely score it however you want. But even the pools were scored for bonus points, just no advancement points until the bracket, and then your placement points, of course. Perhaps an admin could change the scoring wrestler mid-tourney, I'm not sure. Someone like @redcobraor @trackgopher could probably tell you better than I.

Three options for this: You can set it up under Trackwrestling as 2 separate teams: for instance Alex-A and Alex-B and force coaches to choose who their "varsity" guy is to try to win the tournament but both teams score, just separately. Second way is to choose the "scoring" athlete prior to the tournament. This is what they do at the John Hurrle. You only score if you're the designated scoring wrestler for your team. The problem with this is of course, with random seeding (unless you do the tourney late in the year), sometimes your JV kid gets a better draw and actually outplaces the Varsity kid because they have an easier pool. Third way is to let everyone enter two per weight and everyone scores, similar to how they score an open tourney if they do team scoring. Downside here is there's a huge advantage to teams with full Varsity and JV rosters. Just a few options.

I like the idea. Not committing to coming or anything but it's a good idea. Zionsville hosts a tourney in December that does 2 pools and crosses over so you get lots of matches and at least a few at your level. The John Hurrle at Tech the first weekend is pretty much like that. A couple teams enter multiple athletes per weight, some don't and you have kids that are very talented and kids that are extremely new to the sport all in the same bracket, but by the end of the day, they've found their level. I will tell you, it takes a LONG time to run these tourneys because nobody is ever eliminated, but they're great for program development and meeting kids across multiple levels.

That would help and Scholars idea of giving a chance to win titles might incentive some for sure. But I can tell you as one of those small town boys that is now coaching at a large school that making a living is priority number one for most of us (Coaching is my passion, but doesn't pay the bills) and if you're a teacher there is a GREAT disparity between what I would make at a school such as my hometown school compared to here at HSE. A quick google search for what teacher contracts are at some smaller schools compared to pay scales at larger schools will show you why many leave. Obviously, if they don't teach, it won't make a difference, but having someone in the building to help with recruitment and retention is extremely helpful.

You'll get no argument from me that it is a locality issue more than a school size issue, but there are still sheer numbers, attraction of staff, and budgets on the side of the larger school. Unfortunately, classing based off of your "opportunity" is not really an option. And just like you are not as against classing as your posts may seem, I like one class just fine, but I still see the disadvantages of the small school and what they have to overcome to be as good. I appreciate hearing the other side as well and the sentiment you have brought forth is the common one here in Indiana, which is why I know classing will never happen here. It is great to see kids from small schools succeed despite the odds and upsets are fun. Nobody would say the tournament in Indiana isn't fun, I just wonder if it's what is best for the sport's health. For every coach up to the challenge like you, Courtney, and Coach King at Oak Hill, there's 2-3 coaches struggling to put together a full roster of bodies, let alone Regional/Semi-State level wrestlers.

Absolutely not stating that all small schools have poor coaching, don't get it twisted here. What I'm saying is that on average, the coaching received at a larger school is more solid and there's several reasons for this, namely the difference in pay between the large schools and small schools. I can tell you there are several coaches that have left smaller schools for larger because of opportunity to put kids into the state finals on a more regular basis (an issue that would be resolved with class wrestling), just as another reason. Put up a poll and see why coaches move from smaller schools to larger. I think it'd be interesting to see the reasons given. One obvious reason that hasn't been touched on is the fact that there aren't as many teaching jobs in small schools, so if they can get a great coach in place, he's often not able to be in the building to teach all day. This makes a big difference in the ability to recruit and retain wrestlers. And the larger the school, the more potential openings to get more coaches in the building and have more coaches period. I've been doing this for a decade and believe it or not, not every athlete I've coached has liked me or my style of coaching or wrestling. But I work hard to hire assistants who will stay in the same philosophy but have different strengths and expertise that allow us to be a well rounded staff. This catches many of the athletes that may not jive super well with me, but they really like being coached by one of my assistants. This opportunity is often lost at a small school where there is only one assistant stipend, if that. The ability to recruit and retain assistants is a HUGE difference between the different sized schools, eliminating even MORE of their potential athlete pool. I'm not trying to knock the coaching at small schools, I've known many awesome coaches at smaller schools that are still there. It's a labor of love for them and they are killing it in their own right. When they find their group of committed individuals they do great things and are just as successful, I'm just pointing out that it's a lot harder to get and keep a great coach at a small school with a limited budget. Of course it happens, but far more often it doesn't happen. I feel as though you point out the successes of a Mater Dei, Oak Hill, or Wabash, but neglect that there are dozens of 1A and 2A schools like Taylor Kokomo or South Vermillion that haven't had an individual qualify for state in years (Y2 just posted a bunch of this data, but I don't have time to review it all) and this year didn't even get a Regional Qualifier. I know the data suggests that 1A schools are qualifying the right numbers of individuals, but they're all from the same schools that have been able to buck the overall trends. That doesn't make it equal for all individuals. With regards to weight training, most small schools don't have a strength coach on staff so they're at the mercy of their own coach's expertise or the internet research they can do(which will be extremely variant from place to place). Is it a huge difference? Perhaps not, but these things all add up. Even if the kids from school A are only getting a 10% boost from their weights coach and a 10% boost from their practice partners, that's a 20% advantage (assuming they have equal coaching). I agree the crux is whether or not each INDIVIDUAL is on a level playing field, and I'm arguing they're not. A kid that grows up at Small school A with a coach that is part time because he owns his own landscaping company and can't afford to take off to help during the offseason and there is no local club and they have to drive farther for tournaments and they have to pay for hotels to stay there and compete and drive to a larger city to train just so they can have a practice partner that's able to push them is NOT on an equal playing field to a kid who grows up at Large School B where the coach is engaging athletes year round, they start wrestling in a club learning the system at the age of 4-8 and can train locally with quality practice partners whenever they please. Can these odds be overcome? Most definitely! But they are not on an equal playing field to start. It takes MORE sacrifice to succeed in our sport when you grow up in a small school system and that is by definition, not equal. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying these guys from large schools aren't working hard or sacrificing, they are and you don't succeed without it in our sport. However, there are inherent advantages to growing up in Avon/Brownsburg, Evansville, etc; compared to growing up in Fairmount,Salem, Bloomfield etc; that make the sacrifices slightly less (fewer hotel costs, a quality local club, more academy options nearby, etc;). I don't think anyone is saying that school size is the only factor here, it's definitely not, and I'd argue not even the biggest factor, but it's what everyone is used to using to classify schools, so there's the argument.

Do we feel as though the training offered (partners, coaching, weightlifting and nutrition etc;) at all the smaller schools is equal to the training that larger schools can offer? I think the Crux of the argument relies on whether everyone is on a level playing field or not and I think anyone whose ever been to both can answer this pretty quickly. Interested in the Thoughts here.

At the risk of opening a whole different can of worms, the two schools you guys are griping about him "skewing the data with" are both private schools that don't really have the same issues as public schools. I think everyone knows that there's more to the data than this, you're simply trying to use the data to fit your narrative, much like Joe is. Tradition means something, but tradition without land borders means unlimited potential. People from all over the state flock to those two programs because they can accept them without it being an IHSAA violation. Please note, I'm not saying they "recruit", I have no knowledge that they do, nor would I air that laundry on this forum, but if my son was zoned to go to a dying or floundering program and I had the opportunity and means to send them anywhere, well Cathedral and Mater Dei would be top choices, as they would be for probably anyone in the state. But these two schools, though smaller in numbers, are not like most other public schools.

I coach at a top 10 attendance wise school but went to a school with less than 400 kids in it. I have coached at Indy Howe, 1A, and Mooresville, 3A, and feel I’ve had about all the different experiences in the INDIANA Wrestling world from size and socioeconomic status, type of school, etc; and I can say WITHOUT A DOUBT that if big schools were allowed to enter multiple athletes per weight, there would be more kids from big schools make it through. In many weights at our Sectional, I know both the Carmel and HSE JV kids could have finished 3rd and 4th, bumping out smaller school Varsity athletes from even making Regionals, and that’s without having our athletes know multiple wrestlers could be entered. This years Senior class alone, we lost 5 kids that I am certain would have been Varsity at many schools statewide, but got beat out at wrestle-offs and would have been JV and probably 4 of them could have been Semi-State qualifiers had they been in the line-up. I’m unsure what this means with regards to class wrestling, but thats My experience. More students yields more talent, it has also yielded more quitting because kids don’t want to be JV anymore, but that’s a different story entirely.

One thing I think most coaches would agree upon is that trying to get and remember names of officials we had at big tourneys or out of town events is very difficult when we’re busy filling out weigh in forms, preparing wrestlers for matches, etc; to get everyone’s name and commit it to memory. Three times this year, we had officials that were exceptional (two exceptionally good and one exceptionally bad) and I tried to make a point of learning their names, and I forgot them every time. I know the guys who do our area tourneys and work with us at duals, but when we go outside the area, it’s hard to remember people so I’m sure I didn’t evaluate several I had during the season. Point is: I’m sure I’m not the only one who can’t remember every officials name and sometimes those profiles don’t have pics to jog my memory/l. Solution: list what events they worked that year on the profile, require them to put pics on the profile, will help with reminding us who they are. Secondary solution, probably less popular: evaluate officials after each event when it’s fresh in mind rather than at the end of the year. There are obvious drawbacks but also obvious advantages to this. Whatever is done, I believe having people vote on 100’s of officials, most of whom they do not know, is not helpful.

4 Teams in as of now: HSE Columbus North Team Bandits Westfield Looking for 2-6 more teams for this! Contact me at nbrobst@hse.k12.in.us

This what they use in Hamilton County. I like it ok because it allows kids to get used to the weights in HS early. The only thing that we have trouble doing is finding kids to fill both the 245 and the 275

First time we've purchased a suite for the program (and sorry, we're out of tickets). Just curious about how they monitor the suites and such. For instance, we have all our coaching staff and our athletes in there as well as a couple families. When my coaches and athletes go to the floor, can we have different athletes/family members/etc; go into the suite instead? Not trying to overstuff the suite at all, we'll keep it to 20 or less at all times, just didn't know if you could exchange the tickets and have different people enter throughout the weekend. Thanks in advance, everybody!