ghughes1974

Everything you are saying is correct...however, at a small school, it is difficult in good conscience to truly push kids to wrestle to get better in the spring. They are busy making sure our baseball, softball, track, and golf teams are as competitive as possible. How would I feel if the baseball coach was leveraging the wrestlers to start tuning their arms up in January? It would p*@# me off. And of course big schools also share athletes. However, if the wrestlers at small schools focus on one sport, the other sports don't do poorly - they cease to exist. Small schools are playing a differnt game. That's why team sports are classed. There is no difference for individual sports. Everyone has to block another individual in football. Everyone has to mark another individual in soccer. You get where I am going here.

Yes

If this whole "just work hard and you can do it" attitude is valid for all schools, regardless of size, some people from some of these elite programs should start branching off to help grow and enhance the sport.
 
Supposedly we all care about the sport...put your money where your mouth is and come make a difference. Can you imagine how one would be lauded for taking a program like Culver Community and turning them into a school that consistently produces medals at the state tournament? First ballot hall of fame for sure. So...please come and show us.
 
This is not a sarcastic post. This is a genuine request/challenge from a guy who loves wrestling, loves his school, and has two sons who he wants to see have as much love for and success in the sport of wrestling as possible.
 
Interested parties, send me a private message.

You literally just said why. Large schools can produce ten times the amount of elite athletes than a small school can. If a small school wrestler has no one to wrestle with, but a Perry Meridian wrestler has three backups that are all state level, how is that NOT an advantage? Jacob Cottey in 2014 literally had both Ngun Uk and D.J. Brookbank as his backups. Cottey was a three-time qualifier and two-time medalist, while Uk and Brookbank both medaled placing sixth and seventh respectively. You think being 3-4 state qualifiers deep on the depth chart isn’t advantageous against a team like West Central or Churubusco?

I have said this before, but wrestling is completely different from other individual sports like track or golf. In track, you can practice the high jump, or shotput, or 400m perfectly well without a high level partner. Golfers spent inordinate amounts of time on individual skills like putting, chipping and driving.
 
It is literally impossible to improve much at wrestling without a practice partner near to your size who is at a good enough level. A few small schools (Way to go, Rochester!!) get a critical mass, but without it you are in trouble. And outside practices or camps are banned in-season. How do the small schools compete then?
 

Legitimate question: is wrestling truly an individual sport? Or is it just coincidence that the top-talent chooses to go to Iowa, Penn State, Minnesota, Ohio State, Oklahoma State, Michigan, and Cornell to have the best training partners and increase their odds for success. If it were truly an individual sport then in theory if you are "that dude" you can lace em' up anywhere and win the state title or national title - and some guys did (i.e. Mason Parris). It seems obvious, and 100% reasonable, that the top talent wants to be an a place to maximize their potential and being surrounded by the right team and coaches allows for it - iron sharpens iron. Unfortunately, it is negatively impacting smaller schools with less resources.
 
JV wrestlers at Brownsburg, Avon, EMD, Penn, Perry Meridian, Belmont, Center Grove, Crown Point, Portage, Merrillville, Lawrence North, Cathedral, and so on (throughout various points in their schools history the last 25 years) have been able to compete when called upon because of getting beat up in practice by their state ranked partner(s). A benefit small school athletes do not have. 

The success of the 1A/2A state championship is proof that the depth is there for Indiana because most of the medalists in that tournament were stopped at the semi-state level or were low IHSAA state medalists, yet were still placing ahead of or beating higher medalists or qualifiers in the ISWA state tournaments which means the talent and capabilities are there, but they’re being swallowed at semi-state by so many big schools in a terrible format. That last statement is for anyone who thinks small school wrestlers aren’t good or are weaker. Also, a reminder that, as far as I know, we are the ONLY state in the U.S. with FOUR stages in a state tournament series for wrestling. California has three (Sectional, Masters, State), Illinois has three (Regional, Sectional, State), Michigan, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania three (District, Regional, State), Minnesota has two (Sectional, State), and Ohio has three (Sectional, District, State). So, it is fair to suggest that most of our wrestlers at the Semi-State level are State caliber athletes. 

At this point, small schools aren't even playing the same sport as the big schools. South Adams has to balance putting the work in for wrestling while having nearly every single member of our roster playing three sports, all while wrestling in the cafeteria. Next year we might not have a heavy weight because there's only 3-4 kids in the entire school that I could identify as even being the right weight, not even getting to those kids already playing basketball, or not wanting to wrestle. Brownsburg has a million dollar facility filled with year round wrestlers and all the resources they need, in an area surrounded by other talented big school wrestling programs and big city clubs and about 1000 kids to recruit in the school. But sure, we can just outwork them. 
 
I would love to see South Adams have a state champ at some point in my life, but that is going to be highly unlikely with the current state of wrestling in Indiana. Last year, the state finals looked like a Crown Point-Brownsburg-Center Grove dual meet, and that isn't changing any time soon. Last year the 1A wrestler of the year topped out at 5th place, couldn't even get one 1A wrestler in the semis. 

I’m not arguing either way as I am no longer in high school and I‘ve also already competed in the state finals for a 4A school. Classed wrestling wouldn’t have changed outcomes for me in any way, so it truly doesn’t affect me what decision is made. However, I am just infinitely curious as to why or how classing wrestling would be hurtful, yet no one can give a valid reason beyond their personal preference and what they think wrestling should be which only reads as, “I don’t like change.”

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.  
 
 

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.  
 
 

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.    

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.  
 
 

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.  
 
 

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.  
 
 

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.  
 
 

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.  
 
 

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.  
 
 

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.  
 
 

You keep mentioning these state champions like they are just everywhere.
 
The thing you fail to realize is that we have approximately 4000 high school wrestlers in this state. Only 14 become state champions, that is .35% if you are good at math. 
 
The people beating the drum of class wrestling don't give a hoot about those 14 kids. Those kids will be successful in the sport no matter what. If we only allow the champs from sectional, regional, and semi-state to advance to state, these guys will likely still win. These guys aren't the ones people are concerned with.
 
What people are concerned with are the 1500ish wrestlers at small schools. What those small school wrestlers represent are people learning the great lessons of the sport. The more people that can participate in wrestling and have a good experience in doing so will be better for everyone. The more kids that participate in athletics at the high school level overall is good for society. Those kids represent the future referees, coaches, wrestling parents, and wrestling fans. If they do not have a good experience in wrestling they will not continue to support the sport and it will die. As shown every year, the forfeits at the small school levels are rising at a steady pace. One of the best ways to help that is to make the playing field level for those athletes. Why would they choose to wrestle when football, basketball, baseball, etc are all classed and they enjoy way more success in those sports? Why work hard, cut weight, get beat up, wear a singlet, etc and have very little success? That's a simple question and I'm sure you'll say something about kids and society being weak, but that's a copout without looking at something as simple as classing the sport.
 
There are 45 other states that have class wrestling, why are we one of the last ones on this boat? It definitely is not making our wrestlers better as we have been hovering in the 10-15 range as a state for 20+ years. Having single class wrestling isn't helping us in participation as we are basically average in the midwest. So at what point do we look at our fancy spotlight and wonder if it is worth it to kill the sport at the small school level?