ghughes1974

I think the larger population is absolutely a factor that helps large schools dominate. The reason I think the training partner issue is an even bigger factor comes from my experience as a youth coach. I have three sons and they all wrestled at elementary age level. I coached several ISWA club teams before I started coaching HS. I coached a number of kids back in the day that ended up at large schools in HS. I've seen many of those kids consistently outpace the small school kids who may have been just as good or better when they were younger. Second experience that makes me think the "room" is the greatest factor is that when I was in HS, I was on a team that was second in state in the 2A (large school) division in Illinois. I am a first generation wrestler and I got real good real quick in that environment. I had good coaches, but I learned just as much from them as I did from battling day in and day out with the other beasts on the team. When I started coaching in Indiana, I knew the room would be important, but I completely underestimated how important. There's moves and techniques, counters to counters and third/fourth moves in a series, that you can't even coach if your training partners can barely figure out move 1 or 2. Last argument, look at the success of the wrestling academies in Indiana. One of the core principles of those places is, put a bunch of studs in the same room and watch iron sharpen iron. I totally agree that population size is a factor. My experiences make me believe training partner differences is the greatest factor that gives large schools a huge advantage over small schools.

Indiana has an opportunity to grow wrestling, especially at small schools. If we want Indiana wrestling to be at its “best”, we should be pushing strategies to grow the sport. I define better as creating more kids embracing the ideals and life lessons of wrestling. But even if we define “better” as being more competitive against other states or when our elite guys succeed at the college level, then let’s recognize that elite wrestlers at any level; most of them come from “wrestling families”. Wrestling families are created from there being someone within a family that got a lot out of the sport and cares deeply about wrestling. Let’s call this person a “wrestling mentor”. Wrestling mentors stay involved in the sport and contribute to it throughout their life. Wrestling mentors end up coaching. Wrestling mentors are dads that get their kids wrestling at an early age and take their kids (and other kids) all over the place to wrestle. Wrestling mentors run youth clubs. Wrestling mentors start academies. Wrestling mentors may officiate. Most wrestling mentors had some success at the sport when they wrestled. This could be achieving big goals or at least achieving smaller personal goals. But either way, they came out of it feeling they were good at wrestling and valuing it. All you reading this post, does that sound like you? So how do we make Indiana wrestling better? Create more wrestling families and wrestling mentors. You can accomplish this by keeping more kids in the sport. Part of what’s fun about wrestling is getting caught up in and chasing goals. Give more kids who are wrestling a better opportunity to succeed at some level. Success is fun! Even if you fail, believing you can achieve a goal and pushing yourself going after it, that's fun. A classed state tournament gives this experience to more wrestlers. Give it 10 years and watch how many more “wrestling mentors” we create. But it won't happen until our wrestling coaches start uniformly asking for it…and we need to push the IHSAA to embrace it. My understanding is the IHSAA will consider changes if the sport’s coaches association is 80% in agreement on it. So when the IHSWCA sends out that survey about class wrestling, vote for it. You’re simply voting for a strategy to grow the sport by deliberately trying to increase the number of “wrestling mentors” are out there. Think of how much fun it would be to coach when you have more incoming freshman who have already wrestled for 3-4 years. Look at Iowa, half our population and three classes! Wrestling is great in Iowa because their participation level is significantly higher than the norm. If we want to be at our best, seems to make sense to do what the best do.

Anyone who believes Indiana wrestling isn’t classed, I disagree with you. Wrestling is classed all year. Small school programs generally have few opportunities to wrestle the large schools…maybe their JV team. Large schools typically don’t schedule dual meets with small school teams…why would they? Most of the time, it wouldn’t be competitive. Also, school conferences are typically set up among schools of similar size. Wrestling is classed all season. It’s just the IHSAA state tournament at the end of the year that suddenly isn’t classed. I've coached at a small school for nine seasons now. Having to face off against huge school programs in sectionals absolutely hurts our participation. I coach two types of kids. "True wrestlers" and "guys who wrestle." True wrestlers, they love it and are committed no matter what. But "guys who wrestler", newer/developing wrestlers, when they see the better guys on their team who have been competitive all year get smashed, many of them wash out or check out. They just chose to focus on other sports...guess what, they pick ones that have a classed state tournament, where their small school typically does well and gets a lot of attention. When the "guys who wrestle" start to wash out, then your "true wrestlers" have fewer and fewer training partners...it doesn't matter how hard they work. When they have no one to wrestle that can push them or no one to wrestle at all, you're not going to be competitive against wrestlers from large schools that don't face this problem. There's always rare exceptions, amazing kids, but this is the general result for small schools that are grouped with large schools at the sectional and regional level. It's a fact, large schools more consistently produce elite wrestlers than small schools. There’s a number of factors, but the single greatest factor is rooted in the nature of wrestling. Wrestling is the only sport where you compete as an individual, but the training and development aspect of the sport is 100% a TEAM activity (you cannot train alone). Large schools with large rooms full of talented wrestlers can train at an “academy level” within their own program. This is a significant advantage and allows large schools to more consistently produce elite wrestlers.

On the sixth day of Christmas, IHSAA gave to me, random draws determining advancement Several of you have made this point already. But here it is again. In regionals, we have 2 rounds of wrestling to determine seeding at semi-state. At semi-state, we have an additional 2 rounds of wrestling to determine seeding at state. However, the seeding from both regionals and semi-state is randomly drawn against the other 3 regionals or semi-states. That’s 4 total rounds of wrestling to determine seeding only to feed into a random draw. If your regionals and semi-states are not balanced, what is more important, your seed or your draw? Seeding definitely matters if you’re the first place finisher. But let’s say you didn’t win your regional. If you’re still one of the best four in your semi-state, your advancement may depend on a random draw. Here’s a scenario. Let’s give the wrestlers names to make it easier to follow. · Wrestler 1 – First name “State” Last name “Champ”. You guessed it, STATE CHAMP is the best wrestler in the state. · Wrestler 2 – First name “State” Last name “Placer”. STATE PLACER is a top 4 kid in the state. · Wrestler 3 – Frist name “Your” Last name “Son”. YOUR SON is easily top 8 in the state. All three wrestlers are in the same semi-state. If YOUR SON and STATE PLACER are in the same regional and STATE PLACER beats YOUR SON there, YOUR SON is a 2 seed coming into semi state. STATE CHAMP won a different regional so he is coming in as a 1 seed from that regional. The fact that YOUR SON was second in your regional and a high seed, may not matter. To advance, YOUR SON needs to NOT draw STATE CHAMP. YOUR SON has the same chance as the 3rd and 4th place finishers from his regional of NOT drawing STATE CHAMP even though he finished higher than them. The draw is more important than YOUR SON’s seed. In this example, the draw could determine YOUR SON’s ability to advance, and YOUR SON could go home early even though he’s better than others who advance. Isn’t that unfair to YOUR SON? I’ve seen scenarios like this play out at New Castle, top wrestlers not progressing to state because of their draw. We just had a post confirming it happens in Evansville as well. At state, to get on the podium, you need to win your first match. If you’re 2nd, 3rd, or 4th out of your semi-state, your seed may be important, but with imbalanced semi-states, your draw is potentially more important than your seed. We do a lot of wrestling for seeds that often don’t matter. We can solve/reduce this issue by better balancing sectionals and regionals or by instituting wrestling backs or by seeding the top seeds using additional criteria. Without this, we somewhat consistently send home higher caliber wrestlers due to a random draw. Does the wrestling community want a draw to be a significant factor in advancement and placement?

On the fifth day of Christmas, IHSAA gave to me, uneven semi-states Indiana wrestling has consistent imbalance at the semi-state level. Use the same criteria in the last post and same year as a case study. Percentage of advancers, 4 seeds beating 1 seeds, and concentration of large schools. CASE STUDY (using 2021 tournament results data) Semi State Advancing to Top 8 % East Chicago 28 25% Fort Wayne 20 18% Jasper 33 29% New Castle 31 28% Percentage of advancers supports that East Chicago his highly balanced and there’s imbalance between Evansville/Jasper, New Castle and Fort Wayne. Also, in 2021, 21.4% of 1 seeds from Fort Wayne (3 of 14) were defeated by a 4 seed from one of the other Semi States. Fort Wayne has a lot of good teams, especially a lot of good small school teams. But what it’s missing is the same or similar level of large schools that are present in the other semi-states. Here’s the numbers from 2021 using IHSWCA class criteria. 4A is Indiana’s largest 35 schools and 3A is Indiana’s next largest 61 teams. Semi State East Chicago Evansville Fort Wayne New Castle Teams 72 83 76 75 1A (smallest 1/3rd) 25 22 32 28 2A (middle 1/3rd) 23 30 26 23 3A (next 61 largest schools) 15 23 14 9 4A (largest 35 schools) 9 8 4 15 When it comes time for realignment, wouldn’t it make sense to attempt to shuffle some large schools to Fort Wayne semi-state? Maybe the Northeast corner of Indianapolis? Better balance could also be achieved by shifting more highly competitive teams to Fort Wayne. IHSAA did the opposite. Instead, they moved one of the top teams, Rochester, out of Fort Wayne to East Chicago. The IHSAA may say that regional and semi-state advancement metrics change from year to year. They do at some level, but tracking the data allows one to easily spot patterns. When there’s a consistent pattern, I believe it would make sense to attempt to address imbalance when there’s a state tournament realignment. Instead, the IHSAA appears to have ignored the data and made changes that go in the opposite direction. When you have among the lowest success rates in the country and you don’t allow wrestlebacks, it makes fair/balanced sectionals, regionals and semi-state even more important. BTW, I think classing wrestling creates balance. It wouldn’t be my first choice to send a bunch of large schools up to Fort Wayne so their small school programs experience what it’s like for small schools close to Indianapolis. But if the wrestling community is against classing, then it seems to make sense to spread out large schools more evenly. Members of the Indiana High School Wrestling Coaches Association have been asking to better balance semi-state. Several proposals on this topic have been submitted. Ideas for better balance are not acted on by the IHSAA. Is that what the wrestling community wants? If you think a reasonable level of effort should be applied to balance sectionals, regionals and semi states when it’s time for realignment, click like.

On the fourth day of Christmas, IHSAA gave to me, unfair regionals In wrestling, Indiana has a high level of imbalance at several regionals. How do you identify unfairness/imbalance? Here’s three ways: 1. Percentage of advancers. Each semi-state is fed by four regionals. If your regionals are balanced, each regional would produce roughly 25% of advancers to state. However, if a single regional starts to consistently produce more than 40% of advancers, that’s a sign of significant imbalance/unfairness. 2. 4 seeds beating 1 seeds. If you have a regional who’s 1 seeds are consistently beaten by 4 seeds, it’s a sign of significant imbalance. If a 4 seed beats a 1 seed, that could mean there’s a 5th place guy who was eliminated who may have been able to beat ALL advancing wrestlers from a different regional. 3. Concentration of large schools. Large schools more consistently produce elite wrestlers. If a significant number of large schools are grouped together in early rounds, it is likely to produce imbalance. CASE STUDY (using 2021 tournament results data) New Castle Semi State Regionals (2021) Regionals in New Castle Advancing Wrestlers to state % Frankfort 12 21% Pendleton Heights 11 20% Perry 24 43% Richmond 9 16% 43% of advancers supports that Perry is loaded. Richmond produced only 16% of advancers and 21.4% of 1 seeds from Richmond (3 of 14) were defeated by a 4 seed from another Regional in 2021. When it comes time for realignment, wouldn’t it make sense to attempt to shuffle some highly competitive teams out of Perry and into Richmond and vice versa? IHSAA did the opposite. Instead they shifted four highly competitive teams from Pendleton Heights to Perry to load the Perry regional further. Evansville Semi State Regionals (2021) Regionals in Evansville Advancing Wrestlers to State % Bloomington South 13 23% Evansville North 12 21% Jeffersonville 7 13% Mooresville 24 43% 43% of advancers supports that Mooresville is loaded. Jeffersonville produced only 13% of advancers and 14.2% of 1 seeds from Jeffersonville (2 of 14) were defeated by a 4 seed from another Regional in 2021. When it comes time for realignment, wouldn’t it make sense to attempt to shuffle some highly competitive teams out of Mooresville and into Jeffersonville and vice versa? In this example, the IHSAA made a positive move. They moved Franklin Community to the Jeffersonville regional. This is a great move, but I would argue more teams should have been reshuffled. When you have among the lowest success rates in the country and you don’t allow wrestlebacks, it makes fair sectionals, regionals and semi-state even more important. Members of the Indiana High School Wrestling Coaches Association have been asking to better balance regionals. Several proposals on this topic have been submitted. Ideas for better balance are consistently denied by IHSAA assistant commissioner Robert Faulkens. Is that what the wrestling community wants? If you think a reasonable level of effort should be applied to balance sectionals, regionals and semi states when its time for realignment, click like.

On the third day of Christmas, IHSAA gave to me, poor philosophy: “crowning a champion” is their only responsibility The IHSAA will make statements that their responsibility is to “crown a champion” or “identify the top 8 wrestlers in each weight class.” These statements are generally made when you’re questioning the fairness of an IHSAA practice. I believe statements like this represent poor philosophy. Is the champion or top 8 the only ones who matter? What about the responsibility to create a fair, positive environment for competition that allows our athletes to learn and grow as young men and women? What about the responsibility of fostering sportsmanship? Often times the word “fairness” comes up in conversations about sectional alignments. The IHSAA openly states that it makes no attempt to separate programs based on competition level in a sport. Is it good for the sport for top teams or athletes to eliminate each other early? Perfect fairness is impossible. However, does this mean the IHSAA should make zero attempt at improving fairness? Should they turn a blind eye to scenarios that are completely unfair? I believe this happens today in wrestling. I think of fairness as a scale. On one side is perfect fairness and the other side is complete unfairness. Perfect Fairness________________Middle__________________Complete Unfairness Realignment activities could easily make improvements to create a higher level of fairness, somewhere between the “middle” and “perfect fairness”. The IHSAA simply needs to try. The IHSAA preaches sportsmanship to our athletes. Ironic that abandoning fairness contradicts sportsmanship by definition. Sportsmanship definition: fair and generous behavior or treatment of others, especially in a sports contest. OR conduct such as fairness, respect for one’s opponent, and graciousness in winning and losing. So if the IHSAA doesn’t advocate for fairness, does that mean they’re not advocating for sportsmanship? Does the wrestling community believe in the pursuit of fairness, or do we think that crowning a champion is all that matters? If you agree fairness for all wrestlers should be a priority, click like.

On the second day of Christmas, IHSAA gave to me, no wrestle backs Indiana is one of the only states that doesn’t use double elimination format with full wrestlebacks in its state tournament. We have a total of 5 single elimination rounds in our state tournament series. We are a state, possibly the only state, that eliminates half of its state qualifiers in a single match. Here’s a comparison to other states: The Outlier State Population Wrestle Backs? Placement Indiana 6.8 million first round single elimination Remaining 8 wrestle for placement to 8th The Norm (8 state comparison) State Population Wrestle Backs? Placement Iowa 3.2 million full wrestle backs (no single elimination) Placement to 8th Pennsylvania 12.9 million full wrestle backs (no single elimination) Placement to 8th Illinois 12.5 million full wrestle backs (no single elimination) Placement to 6th Michigan 10 million full wrestle backs (no single elimination) Placement to 8th Ohio 11.7 million full wrestle backs (no single elimination) Placement to 8th Missouri 6.1 million full wrestle backs (no single elimination) Placement to 6th Nebraska 2 million full wrestle backs (no single elimination) Placement to 6th Tennessee 7 million full wrestle backs (no single elimination) Placement to 6th Part of wrestling is wrestlebacks. Wrestlebacks allow a wrestler to deal with the adversity and bounce back from losing a match. Colleges scouts want to see how wrestlers handle failure. Also, if they are scouting at state, they want to see their prospects wrestle more than one match. ISWA tournaments use wrestlebacks. NCAA tournaments use wrestlebacks. Other states use wrestlebacks. Not having wrestlebacks is changing a fundamental part of the sport. It’s like not allowing the forward pass in football (go back to 1905), not allowing 3 point shot in basketball (go back to 1966), not allowing a designated hitter in baseball (go back to 1972). When you have among the lowest success rates in the country, it makes using wrestlebacks even more important. Indiana High School Wrestling Coaches Association has been asking for wrestlebacks (especially at semi-state). This request is consistently denied by IHSAA assistant commissioner Robert Faulkens. Is that the right decision? If you agree Indiana should have wrestlebacks, click “Like”.

Tried that already. More to come on experiences with Mr. Faulkens in a future post.

I spoke to Jim Tonte. He confirmed he was not on the sectional realignment committee. I’ve also talked to a couple folks who were on the committee. What was described was that Robert Faulkens dismissed feedback from the committee and proceeded to execute the changes without their input. If there are any other committee members out there who feel this is incorrect, I'd be happy to hear from you. One sectional change I believe was a good one was moving Franklin Community out of Mooresville. Mooresville regional is ridiculously loaded. Moving a good team out is a step towards better balance. If anything, they needed to move more top teams out of there. ,

On the first day of Christmas, IHSAA gave to me, lowest success rates in the country. Indiana qualifies a significantly lower number of wrestlers to their state tournament annually when compared to other states. Here’s a comparison to 8 other nearby states: The Outlier State Population Annual State Qualifiers Classes Qualifiers per Class Indiana 6.8 million 224 1 16 The Norm (8 state comparison) State Population Annual State Qualifiers Classes Qualifiers per Class Iowa 3.2 million 1008 3 24 Pennsylvania 12.9 million 840 3 20 Illinois 12.5 million 672 3 16 Michigan 10 million 672 3 16 Ohio 11.7 million 672 3 16 Missouri 6.1 million 896 4 16 Nebraska 2 million 896 4 16 Tennessee 7 million 616 3 16 (12 in 1A) A big part of wrestling is setting and pursuing goals. The IHSAA does a great job at its state tournament of putting on a great show…the wrestling state finals is an amazing event. However, it is an event that very few Indiana wrestlers get to experience. Think of some of the positives that occur when a wrestler makes it to state: 1. The community gets excited about wrestling and their wrestlers 2. The school makes announcements about their accomplishments and hosts student pep rallies for wrestlers 3. T-shirts are made with the wrestlers name on it “road to state” 4. Coaches recognize the accomplishment by putting a wrestler’s name on wrestling room wall (list of qualifiers) 5. Young athletes see all of these activities and are inspired to want to be wrestlers (youth and middle school participation numbers get a boost) By qualifying so few to state makes these types of positive activities a rare occurrence for wrestlers and wrestling programs (except for powerhouse programs). Also, the IHSAA consistently eliminates amazing athletes at semi-state. We have college level wrestlers coming out of Indiana who never qualified for a high school state tournament. Indiana High School Wrestling Coaches Association has been asking to take more to state. This request is consistently denied by IHSAA assistant commissioner Robert Faulkens. Is that the right decision? Given we don’t have classes, should we only take 16 wrestlers per weight, which appears to be the minimum when compared to other states? If you agree Indiana should take more to state, click “Like”.

IHSAA Wrestling Grievances – The 12 Days of IHSAA Christmas This post is designed to be an opportunity for coaches, wrestlers, parents and wrestling fans to share grievances with IHSAA practices around high school wrestling. I have several grievances that I plan to roll out one at a time over the next 12 days. For fun, I’ll do it 12 days of Christmas style. I’m a wrestler, a parent of wrestlers and a high school varsity wrestling coach. I also coach elementary and middle school teams. I’ve coached in Indiana for 15 years and I’m in my 9th season as a head wrestling coach of a small high school in Indianapolis. I also coach off season teams for small school wrestlers and coordinate wrestling tournaments for Indiana’s small schools. I am frustrated with how the IHSAA administers wrestling. A recent poor sectional alignment decision that is completely void of equity is the tipping point for me. The goal of this post is to be a dialog with the wresting community. Are the IHSAA’s practices I bring up in these posts what is best for our kids and our sport? I don’t think so. I’d love to hear what the rest of the wrestling community thinks. Greg Hughes Wrestler, concerned parent and coach 317-753-7786 greg@continuumgames.com

I'm going to continue this post with a new post called "IHSAA Wrestling Grievances – The 12 Days of IHSAA Christmas". Check it out.

Here's an interview on the topic of sectional realignment in Indianapolis. Scroll forward to minute: 117:30.

My understanding is that some schools are starting a letter campaign from parents.