Powerline

Not even close, Ditka all the way! Before the heart-attack, a 'one-hundred to tree', after the attack, major decision, 'fifteen to tree', these guys couldn't escape Ditka's mustache, end of story. 

Not even close, Ditka all the way! Before the heart-attack, a 'one-hundred to tree', after the attack, major decision, 'fifteen to tree', these guys couldn't escape Ditka's mustache, end of story. 

Not as impressive as majoring a defending state champ.  

I love Lee, but outside of Micic (who I love as well) that's not exactly a murder's row.  

How about mini Ditka? I know. Still mini Ditka.
And speaking of mustaches, how fantastic was the lip rug sported by the North Central coach? That man was half 'stache. I feel like the mustache grew him, not the other way around.

Not even close, Ditka all the way! Before the heart-attack, a 'one-hundred to tree', after the attack, major decision, 'fifteen to tree', these guys couldn't escape Ditka's mustache, end of story. 

Mendez won state, Lee didn't. Mendez by tech fall 

This is how you do it
 

This is how you do it
 

Our next to last update!
 

Wrestling is a legalized street fight and you need to be ready to scrap when you step on the mat. It is a physical sport that boys need to expend their energy and use their aggressiveness in a positive manner.
With that said there are times when there are dirty moves or extra-circulars that are not needed. The referees and coaches need to step in and emphasize to these kids that this is not warranted.

OK, I am going to post this knowing there will be quite a few who disagree, but just getting tired of a few things:
I have been around this sport for the last 46 years of my 50 years and wrestling is missing the boat for 90% of the wrestlers.  I read all the posts here and people talking about why numbers are down.  Here is my assessment.
The top 2-3% of wrestlers in Indiana are better than they were when I was in high school.  I officiated this weekend and have watched my son wrestle this year.  There is plenty of blame to go around.  This weekend as well as almost every other weekend, I have seen more kids raking kids faces, punching kids in the face, ribs, and pushing them after they go out of bounds, and trying to torque a knee after the whistle blows amongst other things.  I am not soft, but I am quite sure a good hard cross face is ok when trying to pick up the far arm or fight off a shot, but the re-rake and subsequent rake is ludicrous.  The coaches say he is just being physical.  Totally crap, it is not a move and you are not working anything but trying to intimidate the other opponent or injure your opponent with brutality.
If you watch the best kids in the state, I rarely see this happen.  It is with the second tier kids and/or programs.  Teach your kids how to wrestle, the above is not wrestling.  This is not college, this is high school where 90% of the kids may not even wrestle in college.  They are out because their parents told them to get involved and be a part of something, or were talked into it by a teacher or another coach.  Why would these fringe kids (70%) even want to be a part of a sport where some "heavy hands" have been equated to punching, raked faces lead to bloody noses and lips, and the extra pull on the knee or shoulder equates to stretched ligaments or eventually worse.  When the whistle blows, stop wrestling the best you can, coaches lead by example and let the kids know they did something wrong instead of arguing he is a good kid and would never do this.
These fringe kids will either quit during the season or worse yet, never come out the following year.  No fight shorts or uniforms will change that.  So by all accounts wrestling is a great sport and can hep teach kids a lot about life and to be great workers and citizens of this country.  As I always was told, "I will never miss an opportunity to teach or guide you whether you like what I say or not and you may not always come out on top, but life is not about short cuts, but about what kind of person you are in the long-run."
With this being said, I love wrestling and what it has done for me in my life and hope that others will enjoy it also.  The more who experience what wrestling is really about and the hard work, it will pay dividends for life.  Those who don't understand will still be making excuses for their kids and rationalizing where we are going.  
I would challenge the wrestling community which includes the coaches, parents and officials to make the right calls and do the right thing.  Maybe it will bring in more kids to the sport and maybe it won't.  One way, I am pretty sure we will head down the same road, the other, it will not get worse, but maybe a chance for more to experience this great sport.
TP

Ty is red-shirting this year at 133/141, but 2 days before their first Open of the year at Virginia Tech he got banged up.  He's still recovering and may end up with a medical red-shirt this year.  He's been able to get a little practice over the past few weeks, but still showing symptoms of his injury and not fully cleared yet.  
Jeremiah was ready to battle it out this year at 133, down from 141 last year.  However, he sustained a pretty severe concussion around the same time Ty went down.  He's been recovering from it since and I'm not sure if he'll be cleared after break or not.  
At this point, Duke is FFing 133, so I wouldn't be surprised if the first healthy one gets inserted into the line for the Dual schedule.  Regardless, Ty is loving the environment and I think found the perfect fit of academics and athletics.  I'm excited to see what Coach Lanham continues to build in the ACC!

Thank you for this. Sorry, he is the champ, but on this issue Burroughs is an idiot who does not appreciate all the hours non-wrestlers put in for the sport, paid or volunteer. It's bad enough for the sport trying to fill shortages of referees, but for him to go off without the facts or investigation being complete, is wrong. He has a higher responsibility to his accurate messaging and to the sport because of his following. 
This is all on the coaching staff who was warned, and even if they were not warned, did not prepare their teams. Every coach should have extra head guard/ with hair , and face-guard in event of injury.  The kid wore a non-regulation equipment item, and the kid & coach made the choice to then cut the hair. They then admitted at the previous meet that the kid “pushed his hair back,” (trying to say he did not wear a regulation cover) - which is on the previous referee.
Burroughs's lame excuse can be easily debunked by many internet videos. If I had a $1 for every-time I saw an official require hair clipping, shaving, and nail clipping being addressed I would have a new car. 
The best thing about wrestling is you compete with someone near your size, but style, length, strength, speed, technique can all be collectively unique and you can still win, regardless of race or ethnicity. But, this hair thing may be the one issue that may have uniqueness in a biological prevalence in ethnicity, but that does not make it a race issue. The National High School Association tried to address this in clarity of rules 4 years ago, and Burroughs is uninformed. 
And just like 5 O'Clock shadow is sometimes non-purposefully or disingenuously used to it's benefit, you can bet there are those that do and do not realize the effect that the abrasiveness of their hair style has on the eyes and face of an opponent, be it short and tight, or long and untamed.  I don't begrudge that sly advantage if they were judicious in its application. Been around the sport long enough to have many black, latin, middle-eastern, and white teammates and opponents with tight, thick hair, who knew how to groom it for maximum effectiveness during the season, and were not shy about it; more power to you. In practice or matches, they would use the crown of their head to dig in on tie-ins like a sand pad, into the eyes, forehead, and face, and those were predominately guys who cut their hair or cornrowed it.
Almost as bad is having a teammate whom doesn't follow appropriate methods to maintain and clean their dreadlocks, especially for wrestlers, who probably sweat and are in close quarters far more than any sport. Try going days with the equivalent of someone sticking an non-washed Force 10 Neoprene kneepad in your face and hour a day and tell me how lovely that is (and their were guys who liked to put on the smelly Force 10's for a match). You get an appreciation for the sweet smell of Baking Soda and Apple Cider Vinegar on the days my teammates deep cleaned their dreads.  
And to to have uninformed non-followers of wrestling, aided by reactionary posts like that of Burroughs now try and make this a African-America cultural issue is also a bit disingenuous, especially when the practice also has roots in Greece, Crete, India, parts of East Asia, and even Jerusalem.  
 
 

Wait, you just called other names and you post this, after the parents, lawyer,  and coach admitted the ref was not at the weigh-in? Do better.  

https://people.com/human-interest/family-black-high-school-wrestler-cut-dreadlocks-speak/
 
Parents of Black Wrestler Forced to Cut Dreadlocks Blame Referee Previously Accused of Using Slur
    Andrew Johnson Courtesy of the Johnson Family MAURA HOHMAN   December 26, 2018 05:20 PM After last week’s video of a coach cutting off a black high school student’s dreadlocks went viral, the family of the boy, Andrew Johnson, is criticizing the referee who made the call.
A lawyer for Charles and Rosa Johnson, whose 16-year-old son attends Buena Regional High School in New Jersey, contended in a statement on Monday that the referee was late to the match on Dec. 19 and missed weigh-ins, which the Johnsons said is normally when the determination of any rule violations takes place.
What’s more, “when he did evaluate Andrew, he [the referee] failed to raise any issues with the length of his hair,” the Johnson family’s lawyer Dominic A. Speziali said in the statement, which he released on their behalf.
Andrew had wrestled the weekend before with the same hair style “without issue,” according to his family’s statement, and he had asked to “be allowed to push his hair back as he did the weekend prior, but the referee again refused because ‘it wasn’t in its natural state.’ “
 

Call me whatever name you'd like but you have no evidence to support this had anything to do with race. I do find people like yourself comical...building straw man arguments to appease your political ideology. I've never taken the official's side, merely pointing out that many people played a role in this unfortunate incident. 

So someone doesn’t agree with you so you have to call them names? C’mon man...

Unfortunately this is how he and his ilk conduct themselves when discussing a controversial issue. Beacon of tolerance and diversity...unless it's diversity of opinion. In that case, they have no tolerance. His rebuttal will be he doesn't tolerate, "racist behavior," never mind there is not one piece of evidence that would suggest this incident has anything to do with racism other than the wrestler involved is black. Any fair-minded person would see that the coach, wrestler, and official all play a part in this unfortunate incident but somehow the coach and kid get a pass and the official is the racist boogey-man. At the end of the day, the kid did not report legally equipped to wrestle and the official enforced the rule. The kid could have forfeited the match and then made sure he had a legal head cover for the next meet. He chose to cut his hair mat-side which is on him and his coach. Yes, this should have been resolved at weigh-ins and the official is at fault for that mistake. Again, all three parties are at fault for this debacle. 

From a ref’s perspective, it seems as though the letter of the rule was enforced correctly—a local ref says he had seen the wrestler using an illegal hair cover a week prior and told both wrestler and coach it needed to be addressed. It sounds like they didn’t address it.  The penalty point and starting the injury clock to give the wrestler time to address the issue is the right call per the rule 8-1-1 that is referenced above.
I don’t think the intent of the rule is so that kids will cut their hair matside to make it legal. I think it is more so removing a brace that might not be legal or taping laces. I imagine we will see a ruling forbidding the cutting of hair matside. You either use proper legal covering or you don’t wrestle.
I wanted to start this topic because I’ve seen my fair share of illegal hair coverings over the past years. I’ve always addressed it with the wrestler and coach, but I’ve permitted it if I didn’t think it would have the potential to cause harm (example: skull caps that don’t attach to the headgear). There is a rule emphasis that we are to not permit it. Hair coverings must be affixed to the headgear.
If you are a parent or coach of a wrestler whose hair doesn’t meet the standards, please be sure your wrestler has a legal hair covering.
I am getting frustrated reading all about this and getting texts from my nonwrestling friends asking about this. It is bad optics for our sport.
 

It doesn't help that Jordan Burroughs has chimed in on Twitter excoriating the official but not mentioning the fact that the coach and wrestler also share responsibility for not reporting legally equipped. I'm not condoning what transpired mat side but it's sad to see a gold medal winner perpetuate the, "It's someone else's fault," mentality. I also find it baffling that somehow the race card got played as well when the kid didn't have the proper hair covering. It truly frightens me what kind of leaders we are producing after seeing incidents like this and seeing how many people are giving the coach and wrestler a pass on their role. 

Some interesting facts are coming to light that favors the referee.
1. Official start date in New Jersey was December 14th. Thus this was one of the first meets. 
2. The kid had an improper hair cover. On top of that the previous week he was allowed to wear the improper cover and him and his coach were instructed to obtain a proper one before the next event.
Also of note some states do not require a referee to be present at weigh-ins. I do not know New Jersey's rule, but this could be why it wasn't caught at weigh-ins. Or simply the coach and kid "forgot" it at weigh-ins and the ref said make sure you have it for your match like has probably been done a million times when a kid forgets his mouthpiece or hair cover.
We want refs, police officers, bosses, etc to enforce the rules, but when it comes to light about a rule we don't like somehow we can overlook it. 

It's all fun and games until a kid picks a Nickelback song to walk out to.

This is his 5th year of coaching - signed 5/23/2014 for the 2014-2015 season  and his 5th recruiting class.
His first recruiting class are either RS-JR's or true Seniors this year. 
 https://purduesports.com/news/2014/5/23/Tony_Ersland_Named_Head_Wrestling_Coach.aspx?path=wrestling
Year 1 = 2014-2015 Year 2 = 2015-2016 Year 3 = 2016-2017 Year 4= 2017-2018 Year 5 = 2018-2019 Guys in bold are still on roster or finished all 5 years, cross out means quit or transferred. Red are projected starters
Class of 2013 - (Freshman 2013-2014)  Coach = Hinkel - graduated 2018
Garth Lakitsky
PA
285
Luke Welch
IN
125/133
Cody Pae (graduated early)
MO
133/141
Josh Farrell
IN
149/157
Andrew Geers
IL
285
Aaron Assad
OH
125
Jacob Morrissey
WI
174/184
 
Ersland Year 1 - Class of 2014 - (Freshman 2014-2015) (RS Seniors)
Earsland Coached (Hinkel signed 5 of 6)
Peter Andreotti
IL
165
Austin McCloskey
IN
165/174
Ben Thornton
WI
125/133
Jonathan Marmolejo*
IL
125/133
Mario Leveille
IL
141/149
Jacob Aven
IN
197
 
 
Ersland Year 2 - Class of 2015 - Freshman 2015-2016  (RS-JR’s or Seniors)
Cole Wysocki
IL
141/149
Angus Arthur
MI
197
Austin Nash
NJ
133/141
Nate Limmex
MI
141 
Jonathan Morales
IN
184/197
Dylan Lydy
IN
174/ 
James Ford
OH
285
Gavin Murray
NJ
157
 
Ersland Year 3 - Class of 2016 - Freshman 2016-2017 (RS-So’s or Juniors)
Christian Brunner
IL
197
Shawn Streck
IN
285
Griffin Parriott
MN
157
Kobe Woods
IN
197/285
Devin Schroder
MI
125
 
Ersland Year 4 - Class of 2017 - FRESHMAN 2017-2018  (RS Freshman or Sophomores)
Tanner Webster
IN
174/184
Parker Filius
MT
141/149
Alec White
IN
133
Anthony Falbo
CT
174/184
Abdullah Assaf
IL
141
Max Lyon
IA
184
 
Ersland Year 5 - Class of 2018 - Freshman 2018-2019 (True Freshman)
Terrin Machart
MI
125
Kendall Coleman
IL
149/157
Zach Melloh
IN
149
Emil Soehnlen
OH
184
Nathan Cummings
IL
125
 
Ersland Year 6 - Class of 2019 - not enrolled yet - Freshman 2019-2020
Eli Pokorney
IN
285
Travis Ford-Melton
IL
133
Michael Leveille
IL
125/133

Well wraslin fans first weekend in November means da worlds greatest sport is in da swing of things. Lots of quality wraslin happen dis weekend. Michigan State open happin - a number of fellow rats competing. Since da rat is no longer slaven for da man so I will be doin some traveling in da 250. Some of you fellow rats looking for a road trip hit me up. Might check out da scuffle or catch a penn st / Iowa dual. Also ecxcited about tings happening in b-town. Got a number of rats down there. And Ole Angel goin to straighten out da mess Goldie locks screwed up for 20 years. Gonna take some time but he is gonna keep dat talent at home. Bein a retired guy got some time on my hand. So any rats need a roof put on a brake job not many tings da rat  can't handle. I do it for a fair price and won't cheat ya, Just keep da old lady away - they get infatuated wit da rats muscles. As far as da high school seen as usual we will lookin for allot of gold here. 5-6 aint a bad year for da region. So as usual you guys better sharpen your pencils cause your gonna need to by February. 
Fyi Da rate doesn't do any tutoring in English. Aint much help on term papers. But if you need a little help in wood, metal or electric shop I can help out.
 
Da Rat
 

Why do some coaches allow their kids to cut so much weight.  I’ve had my kid on a few travel teams here and watched same kids cut so much weight.  I witness coaches helping kids on scales and kids in basically tears.   When will be a coach to say enough is enough.  I believe some parents are to blame but so is the coach for allowing it.  There is a rule in high school in which the coaches allow the kids to cheat to get around it.   Shameful