Super_Fan

As a junior Team Leader I am all in favor of a "two event" requirement. Those events could include tournaments or official RTC practice with at least a Silver Certified clinician running the session. I believe kids would get just as much if not more benefit out of a two hour session at an RTC as they would going to a tournament and getting a couple of matches. Another option would be keep the two events in place but mandate at least one of them is a tournament with an option of the second event being a tournament or RTC.
Requiring a silver certified clinician you can assure yourself of someone who has invested their time in learning and understanding the match strategy and techniques. The ISWA can provide a list of those individuals who reside in the state to the RTC's or the RTC's can contact the ISWA to make sure the individual is at least silver certified. The RTC's would require kids sign into the RTC they attend and be able to provide proof if necessary.
This isn't the final answer but it sure goes along way to resolve the stress of getting in two events in a four week span.

If people knew from the beginning that this rule was a farce, then how can I or anyone in the wrestling community continue to trust the ISWA?

That seems to be your go-to response! You act like we haven't..
 
I have a PM (personal message for those southern folk without the interwebs) in my inbox on this acct from a board member from March, so "check". I sent an email this morning to the ISWA "contact" address asking for clarification of some things, so check. It appears a highly decorated wrestler from a respected program did not get a response either.
 
No, we didn't send a snail mail letter via the United States Postal System..so shame on us!
 
Of note, in looking at the ISWA website for contact info today (before your prompting), is the fact that they do not have a posting that there is a waiver process now in place to get entered for their FS/GK state series. Wouldn't you think that might be tremendous, if not logical, way to communicate with your constituents along with (instead of), sending a memo to local clubs who in turn have to get the info out? BTW, since most clubs are now finished with local tourneys/seasons, do you think some of these clubs might not be checking emails on a regular basis and might not have gotten yesterdays urgent memo?

Again, similar to other events going on in the country, why does it have to be one or the other? Can't we find a happy medium.
 
So you want me to take the 3 hour drive down to Indy (northerner!), for an event my kid might not be able to participate in this weekend, so that I can ask Mr. Rosbottom et al if he can and to voice my displeasure? You don't think sending an email for clarification might be a tad quicker and save some time/$? You and others keep telling us to drive to the meetings. We keep telling you and others to embrace the technology. I have an idea, maybe if we rec'd responses to emails and were heard or replied to via 21st century technology, we might devote a day of our life on a Sunday to come partake in a face to face. But the fact our non face to face communiques/issues/attempts to contacts are haphazardly dismissed sure doesn't make us want to pile in the General Lee and tour on down to Naptown to hear stories about how great things are going. Sorry.

I don't have a good reason to complain, I suppose. I don't have a dog in the fight so to say.
 
Yes, 9 and 7 are close to each other. However, of those 7, 4 of them are in 3a, 2 of them in 2a, and 1 in 1a. That's not an even distribution. If it were to be an equal distribution, take the top 3 from each semistate. And if they took the top 2 from each class as stated above, then the wildcats from the south are 2 of 12, both in 3a.
 
I understand it can't be perfect, especially when classes are distributed evenly across the state. Their are only 17 schools in the evansville semistate that are 1a. There is a much better division in the other 2 classes. As I said before, my opinion doesn't matter in this.
 
I guess one issue I can see is that we want the best teams per class to wrestle each other, but the way we determine that is from the results the previous season, and everyone is grouped together. To be the best 1a team, you have to hope you can advance enough guys through an individual tourney that includes 2a and 3a schools. Same thing for the other 2 classes. At a dog show, you don't judge the best miniature breed, but throw a bulldog and St. Bernard into the competition. I know that's a terrible analogy, but I'm trying to say if you want the best per class, you have to have the tourney per class. If a 1a or 2a school is in a sectional that is loaded with 3a schools. What are the odd they can truly qualify for their state duals tourney the following season?

I didn't mean that we would decrease, I just don't see how it fits in the argument that it moves us into the top 5 by classing.  With smaller schools most athletes are multi-sport athletes. This will not change if you class or don't class.  Which doesn't increase the talent levels.  Now if we were to put more working models into play, like the one at Brownsburg than I can see huge increases in talent.  The issue IMO isn't system, but lack of advertising and things that keep kids out of the sport; like singlets (change to UFC shorts/shirt), hard work (make things more fun at youth level) and touching other guys.

it is to my belief that switching to class wrestling would be taking away the great achievement of being an Indiana state champ. It's diminishing to think that there are 1 or 2 other champs at your weight class.

Match by Match Results:
PH 72 DeKalb 24
PH 62 Crestview 33
PH 63 Norwell 28
PH 49 Carroll 36
PH 75 East Noble 39
PH 78 Westview 24
PH 81 Churubusco 29
PH 87 Fairfield 30
PH 67 Angola 50
PH 70 Eastside 36
PH 117 West Noble 3
PH 102 Lakeland 26
PH 106 Maple Creek 12
PH 100 Churubusco 19
PH 105 Blackhawk 18
PH 106 Whitko 24
PH 100 Edgewood 30
PH 82 Central Noble 31
PH 112 Fremont 3
PH 90 Garrett 28
 
Norwell Super Dual Champs, Whitko Super Dual Champs, Frank Iddings Invite Champs and Jr. NECC Tournament Champs

How about you get to pick from Fort Wayne Community Schools and I get to pick from Adams County. Using the IHSAA Football Classifications from 2013‐14 and 2014‐15: FWCS had 8712 enrolled and only had 3 qualifiers and 1 placer. Adams County had 1541 enrolled, but had 7 qualifiers and 2 placers. 

On a side note, look at the team classed state tournament. 1A schools love that! I know some schools like Adams Central have  greatly improved the last few years. I would say most of their motivation comes from wanting to win that tournament. This in result has built their program up (numbers, coaching, and strength). Having a classed tournament would build up the numbers and eventually strength of smaller schools. 

Good luck to the Indiana Tech Warriors at the NAIA national tournament and a special good luck to Kris McKinley and Brett Yarbrough who will be wrestling there last tournament as seniors..

Classing is not that extreme....40+ states already do it.  It seems extreme because of your emotional attachment to the status quo.
 
8 is 400% greater than 2.  You seem to need multiple Mr. Math's to keep you on the rails.

So, 14 weight classes X 8 places =112
 
300 (ish) schools x 14 weight classes =4200
 
112 state places divided by 4200 possible = 2.7 %
 
8 places divided by 300 (1 weight class) = 2.7%
 
Used Y2 Placer Percentage
1A- 4.5% X 2.7% = 0.12% of 1a wrestlers place     
4.5 x less of a chance than 2A & 16.9 x less of a chance than 3A
 
2A- 20.5% X 2.7% = 0.55% of 2a wrestlers place
            3.7 x less of a chance than 3A
3A- 75%   X 2.7% = 2.03% of 3a wrestlers place

It isn't about "closing the gap," its about growing the sport. The sport in those states seems to be doing well. In Ohio they sell out their state finals and if you have a kid unexpectedly qualify for state it may be difficult to find a ticket. 
 
The 3A kids are going to be wrestling the same kids at the state tournament, they might not have a Micic or Howe, but they'll have to beat the best like they do now.

no way.......with open enrollment kids would move all over.

Two class system. One class for red heads and one class for the rest

And the fact of the matter he is simply working harder or longer... which is what you don't belive in. You stated before kids in small schools shouldnt give up other sports. Kids at small schools are already working hard and so on...
 
Yet now you say they need to dedicate more time (Work Harder) in order to become elite... Which is what we have been saying the whole time...This is the students choice. They all know if they want it they
 
Is being the "ONLY" state chapion at your weight class not enough motivation?

So they are becoming more specialized and taking away from the other sports like you were completely against a few pages ago?

I'm sorry I shouldn't sound so condescending. I just want to put this out there again I completely respect your opinions and truly appreciate the fact you are putting this much time and effort into making the sport better. Whether i agree with you or not wrestling is an amazing sport and taught me many great life lessons. Hell it made me the person i am today. Thanks for your hard work and dedication to the sport!

Because as you get a smaller and smaller skill set, that set of skills is not found in all of the populations. 
 
So at each level we are looking at you would actually be eliminating  some small schools from the equation at each level.
 
Back to the height idea.
 
If we said 6 Foot tall= sectional roster.  It would be expected that all schools regardless of size would have 14 six foot tall kids.
If regional s= 6'5'' Then it is probably safe to assume that most schools have at least 1 kid walking the halls that is 6'5".  You would naturally expect there to be more 6'5'' kids at a big school, but most schools would still meet this criteria.
Semi-state- a bigger jump so lets say 6'10, at this point most big schools would still have a 6'10'' kid, or maybe a few walking around.  Several small schools would too, but now you would start to eliminate several small schools entirely, because they simply do not have a 6'10'' kid walking around their population.  The pool of schools at this point is lessened, this is why you would see the drop off. Now instead of 100% of the 13% we are dealing with 75% of that 13%.  At the same time we are probably dealing with lets say 90% of the 24% (2A schools) and 100% of the 63% (big schools).
 
State= 7' Now we would see that not even all big schools would have a 7' kid walking around.  Small schools it would be very rare, but there would still be  some schools with a 7' kid. So now lets say were are looking at a populations of 30 % of the small schools, 45% of the medium schools, and 75% of the big schools.
 
I could keep going on with this, but the point is that as the skill set becomes smaller, the % of schools that had a kid with that skill set to begin with gets lower, thus why we see the small disparity in qualifiers, and the larger on in placers. 

So how will class wrestling help them concentrate on one sport? It won't help our state get BETTER at wrestling... Just more average wrestlers Because they still won't be specialized...

Here is some of the Semi State data...
 
For Semi State it comes out to 18.5% for 1A and 28.2% for 2A and 53.3% for 3A.
 
I would imagine that the 1A % is even higher at Regional giving the conclusion that advancement is tougher for wrestlers at 1A schools. This would be consistent with the % dropping from state qualifiers to state placers to state champs
 
Point #1
Im guessing a little of the disparity comes from uneven number of 1A, 2A and 3A schools at each sectional but the downward trend from 18.5% semi state qualifier, roughly 13% state qualifier, 8% state placer, 0% State champ indicates that the higher up you go the more difficult it is for 1A schools. This is all compared to 13% of total school population (You will never get me to buy-in to just looking at sectional entries).
 
Point #2
All that being said... if you took identical twins and put 1 at Carroll and 1 at Churabusco I believe they have the same chance at being a state qualifier. Neither would have to "work harder" than the other. If they put in the same amount of work then they should both have the same chance at being a SQ.
 
If you believe that point #1 is so unfair that we should give those kids more opportunities to reach the state by basically having 2 state tournaments then you are typically for class wrestling.
 
If you believe point #2 that any kid has a shot as an individual in an individual sport then you are typically against class wrestling.
 
Is either stance wrong? I don't think so... I think they are just different. We can talk about chickens and make belief varsity rosters or raw data but at the end of the day it comes down to a difference of opinion and not who is wrong or right. At least that is my opinion.

Big schools and small schools VARSITY aren't equal.  Big schools and small schools WRESTLERS are.  Big schools and small schools varsity shouldn't be equal, but that doesn't mean it should be classed.  If it was classed a wrestler from a smaller school would have a significantly easier chance to win state than a wrestler from a bigger school

Hey I have it solved.  Lets use a handicap score for wrestlers to even things.  The kids with less experience gain a point for every year they have less experience, than if they compete in multiple sports they get extra points for how many they play, and if they come from a small school add 2 points for 2a and 4 points for 1a.  Problem solved.

One part that I haven't seen brought up is that programs are built from the ground up.  You are not going to recruit a bunch of High School kids to wrestle (who never have) and take them to state. I personally don't think, unless they are an anomaly, that this should happen. 
 
It is getting tougher to get kids from middle school to state.  There is a huge difference between the top 8 kids to the top 16 and even more so after that.  The problem isn't (at this time) increasing wrestling numbers at state, but talent that separates them.  How many weight classes this year couldn't be figured down to the top 4.  Maybe 3-4? 
 
The other thing the states that everyone keeps talking about have that we don't are stellar kid programs.  Most do elementary meets, tons of off season wrestling and work as a community. 
 
Most of us agree on it will take an act of God to get things changed with ISHAA, that there will always be things we disagree on, and that we all have a love for this sport.
 
CLOSE THIS POST AND START A NEW ONE WITH HOW WE CAN HELP EACH OTHER GROW THE SPORT WITHIN OUR CONTROL!!!!!!!!!