Super_Fan

You are probably right actually for the individual tournament.

So according to your post we should keep 1 class since you only want to look at the 14 varsity wrestlers and not the 2000 Carroll students.
 
Supporters for class wrestling use all these numbers but at the end of the day the % of state qualifiers matches up with the % of population within each class. Its not % of wrestlers entered in the tournament it is % of total population. If you cant see that then I don't know what to tell you. Now as far as placers and champs its not equal. The data shows us that it is harder to place at a 1A school than a 3A school. If you want to change the whole tournament for about 3% of all the wrestlers in Indiana then that is your opinion.
 
Is more kids wrestling (not just at state but at every level) a good thing? Absolutely!
 
Will class wrestling achieve more kids wrestling? I don't know. Only time would tell.
 
Are there other ways to increase the number of kids wrestling? Yes. Improving the relationship of youth association. Improving youth tournaments (eliminate 12 hour long days--Heck eliminate the 12 hour long days for high school). Make wrestling as fun and enjoyable for all kids as possible.
 
If you think class wrestling will get more kids out to wrestle then I am fine with your opinion but the rest of this is just white noise.

Yeah your correct you are picking the individual AFTER the school and coaches have sorted through all 2000 kids and determined their varsity team...
 
but an individual at a larger school is more likely to be better than an individual at a small school becuase they have a larger sample size to draw from...
the school size matters because a large school could have 5 106 pounders to find the best one from while the small school may only have 1 kid in the whole school who is 106 pounds... so as individuals they are not equal...
 
The school size doesn't mean that if that single 106 pounder from the small school had all the characteristics to be the best 106 pounder in the state he couldn't do it...
 
I'm done arguing this topic... Obviously the IHSAA understands this and that's why they haven't classed individual sports... For heavens sake...

Qualifiers are generally with-in 2-3% of what you would expect, I wouldn't see that as being this devastating statistic that others consider it, and if we looked close I am sure there are a myriad of reasons for that missing 2-3%.  
Placers is the only stat that I do see as being truly statistically off of where it should be from simply looking at the population statistics. That was a tough one to explain, but I think you could probably look at it as being that having a state placer is such a rare occurrence that the characteristics simply do not exist with-in that population from year to year.
What I mean by this is we are tracking a skill- wrestling ability.  At each round of the tournament that skill gets refined more and more.  Each time we go to another level of the tournament there are fewer people who have this skill.  I would say that the drop in qualifiers and placers at the small schools is simply that with-in their populations no one has the skill which we are looking at, not to the fault of anything other than their population not having someone with that skill.

So now the 106 kid losses out... Either way someone loses
 
More kids is good. But that doesn't mean that kids will be BETTER. As we discussed earlier if kids want to reach that elite level they have to put in the mat time. 2 average kids wrestling each other likely wont create a state caliber kid.
 
 
Your bet is ludacris because the fact of the matter is those 3A schools have selected 14 kids for their vasity team out of THOUSANDS.
1A schools have selected 14 kids out of a few HUNDRED.
 
BEFORE we even pick our 700/100 kids...
So the sample size isn't the varsity teams the sample size is the student population... How don't you guys understand this fact???
 
So the bet really looks like this:
I get to pick 700 out of 10,000 kids to make it to state
While you get to pick 100 out of 150,000 kids to make it to state.
Who has better odds of having more state caliber wrestlers???

You are talking about a team sport though. First off... but besides that point this just shows that INDIVIDUALS from small schools don't have a disadvantage because of work ethic, size of the school or anything of the sort. The TEAM has a disadvantage because they don't have the same probability of having AS MANY wrestlers. This does not limit the INDIVIDUAL from being state placing quality.

Student percentages
1A- 12.9%  1A teams had an individual at state this year that accounted for 9.4% of the state qualifiers
2A- 24.4% teams had an individual at state this year that accounted for 27.7% of the state qualifiers
3A- 62.6%  3A teams had an individual at state this year that accounted for 62.9% of the state qualifier
 
The "data" that is used to show a huge disadvantage for small school individuals all depends on how you read the data.  The numbers are pretty accurate to how they should be, in my opinion. 63 percent of the students go to big schools, and 63 percent of the students who qualify for state go to big schools.  If any thing there would be a small advantage in attending a 2A school, and a small disadvantage in going to a 1A school if that is how you read the data.
 
The way that class advocates use the data is to say that there is a huge disadvantage to going to a 1A school, they feel that if everything was equal then, 33.3% of the state qualifiers would be from big schools, 33.3% from medium schools, and 33.3% from small schools. 
 
Everyone is free to read the data how they choose, but it doesn't make any sense at all why anyone would expect 12.9% of the population to make up 33.3% of the state qualifiers.  If the qualifier numbers worked out that way I would see it as a huge advantage to go to a small school, as a matter of fact if 63% of the population accounted for only 33.3% of the qualifiers then attending a large school would be a big disadvantage.
 
I feel that the data shows very little correlation to school size having an effect on an individual making it to state.  If you randomly took kids from these schools and had them wrestle, you would expect that 63% of your top kids would come from big schools, 25% from medium schools and 13% from small schools.
 
The myth that there is this huge effect on individuals all depends on how you read the numbers.  

I question the increase in popularity for our sport aspect of classing. The way our finals are currently set-up gives Indiana a very unique situation were winning the state title really stands out. The kids that won in their interviews pretty much all said that there is no other tournament like ours, some even brought up that winning our tournament was a better experience than big national events. That for me is something that makes our sport better, and also makes it popular here in Indiana.I coach at a small school. I recruit kids like crazy. I have heard a million excuses come out of kids mouths, they work, it's weird to them, they don't like the singlets on and on. I have never had a kid tell me that they cannot win, or that they couldn't be a state qualifier given for a reason not to come out.
Beyond that if the only way to grow our sport is to create more state qualifiers then I think we are pushing in the wrong direction anyhow. You can have success and gain a lot from the sport without being a state champion. I have gotten way more kids out for the team by telling them they could be part of a team championship than telling them they could be a state champion. Why not push the kids in that way. We had two kids make semi-state, finished 2nd a couple of tournaments, 5th at team state and finished a match above .500 as a team. It wasn't a perfect season, acctually we were pretty average in a lot of ways, but I wouldn't say that nothing good came of it because we didn't have a state qualifier. Our guys know that they need to work harder if they want to improve and get there next year. If having a state qualifier is the only way to promote our sport you are going to end up with a lot disappointed kids classed or not.

I used to attend the open room "way back in the day" , wow now i feel old, and can say it was one of the best rooms throughout the entire summer.

IF you get first or second at SS you get a bye first round. we use to do that at SS with the 1 seeds.

Because this is clearly obvious by his profile...

Lol i have no idea who you are but I would still wait and hear it from your coach rather than someone on Indianamat.com

Yeah, but then add the normal Friday night which is another 4...It would be at least a 12 hour day on Friday.

Nah, constant themes cutting weight, moves guys used to beat us, and always how tough our practices were. Everyone beat someone to get to regional, semi state, and state; only 14 end their career with a win. Respect for doing what we all had to do to compete has made the accolades less important and fellowship strong.
 
Do what ever we need to do to get more kids involved and 35 years after it is all over they will still be thanking and remembering their coaches!

So once again why should we stop there? Let's make it 5 classes and qualify 1120 kids rather that two classes and 488 kids. 5 times the kids experiencing glory will increase interest even more than your terrible idea of just trying to double it. There are 5 states that have no tournament leading to state finals. We need to get on their level of interest. Everyone qualifies for state finals.

I think all wrestlers would agree that the medals and ribbons are just for show. I bet most if not all would say that being the best wrestler for the day they compete is their goal. Whether that be a class tournament or our current or both.

Did you ever wrestle? It's not a sport of glory. It's a blue color grinding life lesson. If kids are joining wrestling so they can be state qualifiers then we are making it too easy to qualify.

And in our opinion adding more weak/mediocre wrestlers will not make the state better at wrestling...just increase the amount of matches and people attending the state series.

So do you feel if we moved to 5 classes, like some of these states that have less wrestling teams than Indiana, we could qualify 1120 kids to state every year and nearly every team in the state would see number increases from having the publicity of a state qualifier?

What would be the argument for classes in track and in cross country?  Bigger schools get to practice on better surfaces?  Proximity to Dick's Sporting Goods allows larger schools a better opportunity to purchase top of the line track shoes.  What disadvantages are faced by the small school kids in track or CC?
Ill bet he was kicking himself in the butt for having a quitters mentality when you guys beat the adversity holding your athletes back and won two state titles in the last five years. 

Participation ribbons to all, and free cokes after it's over.

2a and 3a schools get to wrestle at bankers life but 1a schools at another high school? I bet the 1a schools would love that

mtv2112 I agree with you on that rule!  Many states allow at least club and clinic practices during season.  It is very hard for a kid to work hard in the off season and then come back in season to a room with no one that can push him and not loose his edge.  Iron sharpens iron.  You see this often in smaller school programs.  

Yeah the kids who win state are the best in the state... not the best in the state within 1a schools.... "THE" best... singular... The olympics dont have 3 gold medals for each event broken down the the size of the countries do they?

Isn't one of the reasons team state was taken away because the IHSAA made the excuse that wrestling is an individual sport?  When a wrestler wins in Indiana they are crowned THE state champion.  What would be the point in diluting the field if a small school has just as good of chance of having a state champion?  Sports like swimming and track are not classed because they shouldn't be.  Just because your school is bigger than mine doesn't mean you can run or swim faster than me.  Just because your school is bigger than mine doesn't mean you are a better wrestler.