Coach Brobst

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.

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!

I like the idea of changing qualifiers but that would require wrestle-backs to determine a true 5th in some amount. IHSAA would already have to move around semi-states, but it could be an idea to help in the future. At some point, there will be some changes made but I worry it’ll be a while. Before 3 years ago those sectionals had t been touched in quite a while. Someone who’s been around longer than I can probably speak to the exact length of time.

That was a wonderful article! Myself and everyone involved with HSE wrestling will be keeping Eric and Silas in our thoughts and prayers. What a tremendous amount of grit they have both shown. Everyone needs to read this. Thanks for sharing!

I 100% agree there. It isn't good for your program or any others your size to be having to compete there.

I'll agree that getting 6-8 to Regionals yearly would improve a program, but I'm not certain that would happen for anybody involved at the small schools. What we'd likely see is more Fishers kids qualify, more HSE kids qualify, and more Westfield kids qualify. Removal of Carmel and Lebanon would have resulted in the following numbers moving on (if we just bump 5th to 4th and 6th to 5th, etc; though I realize it wouldn't go down that way exactly). HSE: 12 (11 originally) Westfield: 12 (10 originally) Fishers: 12 (8 originally) Frankfort: 7 (2 originally) Sheridan: 5 (1 originally) Rossville: 3 (1 originally) Clinton Central: 3 (2 originally) Clinton Prarie: 2 (2 originally) Champs would have been broken down this way: HSE:6 (2 this year) Westfield: 5 (3 this year) Fishers: 1 (1 this year) Frankfort: 1 (0 this year) Clinton Prarie: 1 (0 this year) As you can see, of the 19 available spots vacating, 7 went to large schools, 5 more to Frankfort (much larger than the other schools in sectional) and a grand total of 7 went to the 4 1A schools. On the champions level, large schools increased by 6, Frankfort took 1, and 1A schools got 1. This doesn't even count the fact that moving 2 schools out, means at LEAST one (likely 2) schools come in, which will compete for and take their share of the spots as well (most likely candidates geographically are Crawfordsville, Zionsville (would create the same problem we're trying to fix), Western Boone, and North Montgomery, but it doesn't really matter which move over). The fact of the matter is, the only way any small school in the Frankfort Sectional at their current level is getting 6-8 out annually is if they moved them to Crawfordsville/Lafayette Jeff/etc; (which doesn't help the Frankfort Sectional become less dominant), there's serious redistricting of all REGIONALS and SEMI-STATES (in which case somebody is getting screwed no matter what), or class wrestling takes over the state of Indiana.

The IHSAA wants success from all levels of schools, I truly believe that. Also true, I think the IHSAA cares about balancing sectionals, or we would be at Elwood or Lawrence Central, both of which are significantly closer (by more than 35 minutes drive time to Elwood and by more than 40 minutes drive time to Lawrence Central). However, with Cathedral and Mt. Vernon (as well as North Central, Lawrence North, and Lawrence Central, which in any give year could be very good) already at LC, which feeds into the same Pendleton Regional as the Elwood Sectional, we'd have to rob Peter to pay Paul to move us. Sure, moving HSE and Fishers to Elwood, would make that Sectional stronger, but then that Regional is HSE, Fishers, Noblesville, Pendleton, Anderson (who has 4-5 really good kids), Lawrence North, Lawrence Central, North Central, Cathedral, Mt. Vernon and several other smaller schools with 2-3 very solid kids. In my opinion, that'd be more of a meat grinder than Frankfort, so you're just moving your problem and making it Alexandria/Frankton/Lapel's problem. In my opinion, The real issue is too much talent in Indy overall. We have head to head wins over several kids that are likely to qualify for state in the Evansville and Ft. Wayne Semi-States, but our kids' chances of getting out are not so kind due to the strength of our area. The only way to balance talent in the Indy area (as long as we have one class) is to move some of our schools from the I-69 Corridor on down to NE Indy up to Ft. Wayne for Semi-State. In order to do that, we'll have to have teams near Jay County, Muncie, etc; come down to New Castle and I don't see the IHSAA ever doing that unless a great many people cared a whole lot (and I'll bet that Muncie Central, Delta, Jay County, et al. would be less than pleased). With regards to just balancing our Regional out more, do you think that moving Lebanon and Carmel (for example as they're the biggest schools farthest west) over would really make much of a difference with your program? I'm really asking here, because it seems like, yes, there'd be an additional 1-2 spots open per weight for Regionals, but if you were going to lose to that kid at Sectionals, you'll lose to him at Regionals, right? Is making it to Regionals that much different than being put out at Sectional? Perhaps it is. I don't have a problem with it either way. As long as that Regional is the same teams, there's not likely to be much difference in how many kids from each program go to Semi-State.

Wolf wrestled Driver at North Central as mentioned, but it wasn't a beat down like the result appears (though it may have turned out to be one anyways, who knows?). I was on another mat and not paying that much attention, but I know Driver took him down then in an ensuing action (I believe after he got out, though I'm not sure if it was earned or he was released) Wolf put Driver on his back and pinned him (no idea how). He's good for sure and very tough, no doubt about it. Not certain he can beat Cottey, though I'm sure he'll be a tough out. I've seen several tough Freshman come into New Castle and a grizzled veteran show them why New Castle is so tough (Allred as a Freshman had to learn this lesson). I've also seen several returning state placers get taken out by some tough Freshman, so I guess it's 6 in one, half dozen in the other. One thing to mention, Ingalls of Fishers is a 4 coming out of Frankfort with losses only to Driver, Hooper, Frazier, and Anthony. I'm certain that Wolf/Ingalls will be one of the most fun first round matches at that weight and the winner gets rewarded by getting to face a two time state runner-up. Strength of schedule doesn't matter too much at this point, but Wolf hasn't been tested in a while. It'll be a very interesting quarter bracket for sure.

They may have said "attendance", but coaches not using starters and essentially not caring about it is what lost us Team State. Nothing to do with girls wrestling, but simply people doing shady things to win wrestling duals or not caring about winning and just throwing JV kids out there so their Varsity guys would be ready for Individual State stuff. Because it's not a weakness. I'm sure there are boys on that team that would have had no problem wrestling the girls. If the school says they can't, they can't and that's using a SCHOOL policy against them rather than a wrestling weakness. I stand by what I said. If they were starters to begin with, then it is what it is. But if they brought them for the sole intention of getting forfeits so they could win the dual, then it's below the belt.

Like lights out, knocked out? So concussion likely? That would explain it. Still...very sad to see a young man not get to finish his season, especially when he qualified last year and likely would have this season as well. I hope he recovers quickly.

What happened with Teusch from HN? I see he's no longer in the bracket. Tough kid and good wrestler. Sad to see him not get to finish his season.

This is the same stuff that got our duals taken away from us by the IHSAA. In my opinion, you start your starters and let the chips fall where they may. I'm not saying don't bump weights for match-ups but if the girls weren't already the starters, then that seems very below the belt to me. If they were, then more power to them. Not their fault that the Catholic Schools won't let them wrestle girls.

There’s also schools that are closer. We travel to Frankfort then to Crawfordsville. Pendleton is 5 minutes up I-69 from us and 7 from Fishers. In our case, that’s over an hour in time SAVINGS by rotating. not sure I’m for it but I wouldn’t complain personally. Now if we could discuss sectional competitive balance again, I’d be very interested....

This is something they do here in Hamilton County as well. It's on the "honor system" and coaches are supposed to weigh kids in prior to lunch that day rather than at the meet. Drives me nuts. Simply too easy to lie or say he was on just to fill a line-up. My understanding, however, is that they believe this minimizes the stress of making weight on the athletes and helps with retention, but from my end, it just leads to a bunch of Freshman who have no idea how to actually make weight. Without a governing body for MS wrestling, it's really kind of like the Wild West. Every time one of our MS teams heads to a different county, there's new weight classes, some count forfeits for points, some don't, some weigh in before duals, some don't. It's just crazy. If there was a way to organize it all so it was uniform, I'm certain that schools would benefit.

JD is one class act. Great kid from a great family. Too bad he grew up on the wrong side of the Interstate! I hope he accomplishes all he sets out to do this February.

It's one of the IHSAA's ways to account for strength of schedule. If you made it to Semi-State Ticket Round the year before, you should be seeded over kids that haven't been there. You've proven you're good and may have more losses simply due to wrestling tougher competition. It's not easy to make that round, you have to win one at Semi-State, which eliminates some of the difference in Regional strength, and everyone starts with an equal shot to achieve it. W-L is a huge variant based off of who you schedule and how good they are. I, for one, would be extremely frustrated if they made this lower than W-L. It would de-incentivize (is that a word) scheduling tough competition for fear of getting crappy seeds.

They did win state in baseball but you’re arguing my point too. Does Alex’s baseball team win a title in single class baseball? But because they knew they had a shot, fringe kids that are great role players stuck with it and were rewarded with a championship ring. Bring class wrestling to INDIANA and we see the same thing. Those kids that are on the fence give it a go or stick with it because they actually have a shot of being a multi sport athlete that finds success. its absolutely the beauty of small school sports! But I’m certain, having taught, coached and grown up in small town school, there are 10-20 kids that could help a lot of these struggling programs that won’t come out because of the ceiling they perceive. A good athlete that plays football and baseball may be a state qualifier in classed wrestling and keep doing it because of that shot. That same kid looking at getting dipped at Regionals as a Senior May make a decision to focus on his other two sports.

Sorry. Don’t want you to get what I’m saying twisted, I think Alexandria is doing an OUTSTANDING job of doing things the right way! Every time I go to a youth event and see 30-45 little Tigers out there and all the parents getting into it, I get excited for what that town has coming up! My entire family minus myself are Tigers, and you are absolutely doing fantastic things! just pointing out how you (and others in your boat) could have more immediate success at the HS level of it were classed and the work would be lessened. Burn out in our profession is very real. And many small towns don’t have another guy to take up the torch when one leaves due to it. Keep up the great work! No doubt we’ll start seeing maroon and gold Tigers at Bankers life soon!