indypharmd

I think a few posters have put the triple crown in perspective - it serves to recognize kid's dedication to wrestling over a continuum. Mattyb hits the nail on the head for youth wrestlers and the recognition of the triple crown. Having a 7th grader, the TC has kept him interested in learning more FS & GR (which he gets nightly at Red Cobra after folkstyle is over). It was a very happy day in the house when he said to hell with baseball, I want to do more FS & GR. As for GR, it's great for kids that are bigger and don't shoot a lot of legs. Also, add in the 4th TC for a <Pound Sign>HendricksCountySmellsFunny #paintrain 7th grader who came very close to winning MS State, too..!

What Leighton will wrestle at MS State will depend on how well he can get to 176 for McDonogh duals Jan 27...

Brewer was the team leader for the MS Heartland Duals Gold team this past April and that group of talented young men came home with a third place finish. Quite a few of those same middle-schoolers participated in SB duals earlier this month and were very competitive as a squad, but due to some injuries and subsequent forfeits didn't place as high in GR/FS standings. The Blue Team gave up 5-6 weight's worth of forfeits, but were solid against the non-Gold pool types as the "developmental team". So, the quality of our wrestlers is there and we are closer to be on the cusp of contention with the big boys, especially for a state with our population size! I think someone mentioned it earlier in the posting, but these top shelf wrestlers know each other really well through past national team/travel team tournaments. They communicate via social media (SnapChart, Instagram, etc.) almost daily if not hourly in some cases. They know who is doing what - where and when... ! I know my son loves to hang with his "buddies" from Lake Central, Chesterton, Penn, Edgewood, Castle, Tell City and Madison in addition to the friends he has made from the metro Indy area. These kids know who the other "bangers" are in their age groups across the other weight classes better than a lot of the parents do. So a big question that should be asked is, "How does the team get the best to participate?" For solutions... If there could be a greater colloboration and consideration with team leaders, association leaders, academy/club coaches and parents, we might see a few improved outcomes in these dual events? Also, I did notice that the TN SB team had "Check into Cash" singlets on, so corporate sponsorship must exist at least in the Volunteer State...

You might be able to do a Kokomo/Bloomington "semi-state". That way not many would have much over 2h drive time. Metro Indy could go to either in ~ 1hr or less...

JMILL - I think the max wt for Elementary Division is 160 lbs. Great trip with great people. Triple B and Ryan did a heck of a job last year!

Brownsburg doesn't have open enrollment... Also, this may be of interest to those looking for a quality top-to-bottom school system --> check this link out: http://tinyurl.com/zealt92

Why is the wheel trying to be re-created? Many on this board tout the strengths of CA, OK, IL, MO, OH, MI, PA, IA, etc. So, what do these states do (or don't do) to improve participation numbers? How parallel is the Indiana experience to these other states (not including high school class wrestling)? If the current state in IN is not that much different than the "premier states", then what is their competitive advantage that puts them ahead of IN (other than population size)? I'd be real interested to see if there were significant differences other than the elite clubs/academies train in all styles and bring together their respective regions' best to practice against day in and day out... Clint - For elementary age - 6th grade, you'll have football programs going through October and early November. So, I'd imagine you'd lose a considerable number of kids - especially in central Indiana - due to that fact alone (if folkstyle was limited to the late fall). There was another post in the boycott thread regarding training in the style doesn't equal competing in the style at local tournaments. Many of the best youth wrestlers are already bypassing local events on the weekends to travel to the big tournaments in the winter and spring, but WANT to come together to represent the state at the big dual events -- both FK & FS/GR. Personally, the more FS/GR experience my son gets, the better - especially given that he's taller & heavier than the vast majority of his classmates and prefers to wrestle on his feet. However, I rather doubt having more local FS/GR tournaments is going to lead to more improvement than he gets in Chad Red's room night after night.

A few of posters have espoused RTC's as a solution for qualification events, however, this forum misses the key target audience of Pee-Wee through Novice aged kids by definition. As of this posting, there is less than 25% of registrants in PW-NOV registered for FS state that wrestled in FK state. Solution: open RTC's to younger crowd? Younger kids still play baseball - this interferes directly with FS/GR season. Mid week friendship meets/RTC/Academy practices could help. Run tournaments like Illinois does with bracketing and do FK/FS on same day and everyone gets out at a decent hour. Do away with the two qualifier rule - don't legislate/regulate but determine how to encourage participation by creating value. (Heartland Duals was super cool. (Just wishing my son would have another opportunity to wrestle it his 6th grade year, but wt limit caps at 160lbs)). Limiting FK opportunities for Cadet+ does nothing to help encourage off season participation after high school season. Great minds can determine ways to entice participation in FS/GR by these groups. Whatever other solutions are dreamed up, don't penalize the next generation of #bangers like Drousias, Mis, Alred, Mendez, Purdy, Campbell, etc. by making them choose between banging with the best in the country in spring FK events and hitting qualifiers in-state. They get all the FS training they need in their respective academies... The other thought is to evaluate your target audience's interests and see how FS/GR training/tournaments work into their goals. One of the worst things leaders can do is to impose their specific, learned behaviors of decades gone by on the next generations. Too many choices out there, gotta figure out how to meet the customers' wants to make the sale...

Mattyb - quite a few of us had the opportunity to experience Kingsport and Heartland this month. I'd not say Kingsport was suffering. The interesting thing about the two were that there were few groups that overlapped other than PA, IL & IN. The geographical and affiliation differences are probably more at play than anything else. The odd thing about about this discussion is no one is voicing what seems to be the clear issue regarding choice and value other than Joe C. Is it possible to inquire what the kids' and parents' decision points were? This is probably only the case if offered/earned a spot on Gold/Silver but took the dark horse option... Kids like the swag now. The elementary kids and parents were really pleased with JMILL & Lauren's gear for Heartland esp for the rate charged. So, the value and coolness factors played a role in customer satisfaction. Has anyone engaged a chamber of commerce/tourism office to help the event like visitkingsport.com or the group from Council Bluffs. That type of partnership can't hurt either....

As a native of Wabash County now living in #thecounty, glad to see some academy love coming to town. Between CIA on Tuesdays and Outlaws out of Crestview MS in Huntington on Wednesdays, should be a heck of a lot more kids from central north east IN getting better!

Matt - I spoke with the big guy from the southern reaches of the state regarding this inane rule at the 2015 FK state meet at BD. I had also previously contacted 2 regional reps and neither replied back via the email address listed on the ISWA website. Neither did any good. So, now I'm headed up to Columbia City this weekend with my son, who will not have any matches b/c of his age/wt class. Then, having Easter weekend off, then USAW Nationals, AAU Elementary Duals, then Heartland Duals and hopefully get one tournament in before the second weekend in May. All the while, missing an opportunity at OH TOC or Viper Pit b/c of having to go to a local FS tournament with no matches. There was a thread last year (too lazy too look it up) that discussed that most of the #bangers get more from their academy practices than from these local tournaments. Not sure if that is the way to go, but definitely having a requirement for 2 local tournaments is a bit antiquated... So... what is the resolution?

Can't imagine the time and effort it took to coordinate one massive weekend experience at Warren! Kudos to the WC staff, volunteers and ISWA staff! As we all start to rely on TrackWrestling for events, a big chokepoint for parents/coaches is having a good wireless data connection (wifi/cellular data). It felt like the fieldhouse at Warren was a giant Faraday cage where no radio could penetrate (at least with AT&T and Verizon). I wonder if anyone across this great state could work out a deal with an ISP/telco/etc. to provide adequate bandwidth to patrons of this event? Either as sponsorship or "paid plan" or roll it into the cost of the tournament. So, if bandwidth/bars would not be a chokepoint, then you could more easily go to first available mat set-up more easily, if desired, yada yada yada....

Any video to be posted of this instant classic of a match?

It was a very long day yesterday and the Franklin Community folks did a fantastic job in putting this on with the adverse weather conditions adding a few wrinkles. I was able to watch a few matches in the main gym during the pool rounds and was really impressed with the showing that Seymour put on. Kudos to that group! As Matt Brewer stated, the level of competition of this event has continued to increase and has made it pretty exciting to watch as a spectator. The semi-final round of Avon vs. Penn was a cliff-hanger! From a Brownsburg parent/coach perspective, it was really nice to get our kids that attend different academies together (along with wrestlers who just participate in our club) as a community group to wrestle as a team. Hopefully it will foreshadow good things to come in the future. Great job to the men and women from ISWA who managed this event - most of us managed to refrain from bugging Louis R. regarding waivers for the 2016 FS State event, too... ;-)

#paintrain #believers #bealovernotahater Congratulations to Coach Snyder and the crew from #purplesburg! Awesome team win!

Were any matches available via live stream or recorded anywhere for either weekend?

Were these recorded or videotaped on Sunday? I saw that you could choose to watch Saturday mats via TrackCast, but not anything on Sunday...

Another scenario is one in which few of us find ourselves in - finding matches for our kids... Local tournaments do not have competitors in my son's age/weight class, heck, Liberty Nationals only has 1! So, if I pay Franklin and Center Grove's entry fees (or any in northern Indiana tournament) and no other wrestler is near his weight, would I still need to make the hike to weigh-ins in order to qualify for ISWA FS/GK state? Some others on this thread have articulated the concerns about competing priorities better than I could, so I won't echo their sentiments. Mattyb, please consider changing the rule to participation in one (1) event prior to ISWA as a qualifier. BTW - I emailed two ISWA regional reps about this after the September 2014 annual meeting and didn't get a reply...

Very nice to have Coach Snyder and Fabio Jr in the 'burg!