I would like to preface this by saying that I wrestled for a 2A (I use football classes because they make the most sense to me) school in high school. I always had a decent record going into the state tournament because the local competition was so bad. Despite my record I never made it to semi-state. And to be honest I didn’t deserve to, I wasn’t good.
With this in mind I have been thinking about how many have called for wrestling to become a classed sport in the IHSAA despite every other individual sports (track, swimming, tennis) in Indiana not being being classed. I have compiled statistics from the state finals that I believe indicate that there is not a class problem. The first of these is that Brownsburg, Crown Point, and Center Grove brought 32 state qualifiers themselves that are going to produce almost as many state qualifiers as any other class before adding the rest of the 6A competitors. The statistics show that the percentage of students in each class is nearly the same as the percentage of state qualifiers they had in Gainbridge.
6A- 30% of students, 33% of State qualifiers
5A- 19% of students, 14% of State qualifiers
4A- 23% of students, 23% of State qualifiers
3A- 13% of students, 14% of State qualifiers
2A- 9% of students, 10% of State qualifiers
1A- 6% of students, 6% of State qualifiers
But disparities do start to show when you look at the depth of the runs of each wrestler based on the size of school. The stats for placers, finalists, and champions are as follows:
6A- 39% of State placers
5A- 14% of State placers
4A- 29% of State placers
3A- 11% of State placers
2A-, 5% of State placers
1A- 2% of State placers
6A- 47% of Finalists
5A- 22% of Finalists
4A- 18% of Finalists
3A- 8% of Finalists
2A-, 4% of Finalists
1A- 0% of Finalists
6A- 57% of Champions
5A- 14% of Champions
4A- 29% of Champions
It is clear that bigger schools have more success deeper in the tournament. But I don’t think this is something that warrants a monumental shift to classed wrestling across the state. There are a multitude of factors that cause “big school” wrestlers to be more talented than their “small school” counterparts. First is more motivation for specialization. Although it is not unheard of for top wrestlers to also be talented wrestlers, there are also many very talented wrestlers who do not apply their athleticism to other sports which gives them more opportunity to develop their skill. Second bigger schools have more students which means more wrestlers which means more competition. And competition breeds success. This causes the wrestler to wrestle better as well as better training partners. Third areas with big schools are more likely to have wrestling clubs in the area that allow them to get better outside of the season. I believe this is the biggest difference maker. These factors are not necessarily reversible and I don’t believe that’s a bad thing. Big schools have a higher probability of being the teams that are hoisting trophies at the end of the year. The 1A/2A state tournament put on by Southmont is the perfect solution for this. I would love to see this be an in season tournament so the wrestlers can have better in season competition and so that the wrestling can feel like it means more. But this is a phenomenal solution to the “unfair advantage” big schools have. I believe there is a problem that is handicapping some teams in the tournament:
The sectional, regional, and semi-state boundaries are absolutely atrocious. The distribution of placers among the semi-states was fairly even across the board. But as the matches meant more there were two clear semi-states that were better than the others. With Evansville even sweeping the final 4 in two different weight classes
Placers; Top 4; Finalists; Champions
Evansville: 35 (31%); 27 (48%); 17 (61%); 6 (43%)
East Chicago: 28 (26%); 15 (27%); 8 (29%); 6 (43%)
Fort Wayne: 25 (22%); 6 (11%); 1 (3%); 0
New Castle: 24 (21%); 8 (14%); 2 (7%); 2 (14%)
On top of this Brownsburg goes to the semi-state that is farthest from them by driving time (according to Apple Maps). New Albany and Floyd Central are 20 minutes from Jeffersonville yet they drive 2 hours and an hour and a half respectively to get to their regional at Bloomington South.
On top of that there is one sectional with 7 teams in it while there is another with 13 teams. That is almost a whole extra round guaranteed for the wrestlers at Jeffersonville sectional. I understand the map-drawing is not easy so I took the time to redraw the entire state series all the way down to the sectional. With every sectional having between 9-12 teams because the average is that there should be a little over 9 teams per sectional. I believe that implementing maps that make more sense and divide state powerhouses will make Indiana wrestling much better than classing it ever could. If assigned seats at state take that much energy out of the crowd, I would hate to see what happened if they only cared about 1/3 of the matches.
The sectionals I divided are as follows:
North (Notre Dame?)
1. (9) Whiting, Hammond Bishop Noll, East Chicago Central, Hammond Central, Hammond Morton, River Forest, Lake Station Edison, Hobart, Gary West side
2. (9) Munster, Highland, Griffith, Calumet, Andrean, Merrillville, Lake Central, Illiana Christian, Portage
3. (10) Crown Point, Hanover Central, Lowell, Wheeler, Boone Grove, Hebron, Kankakee Valley, West Central, North Judson- San Pierre, Winimac Community
4. (10) Laporte, Valparaiso, Chesterton, Michigan City, New Prarie, Marquette Catholic, Glenn, South Bend Washington, Knox, Laville
5. (10) Culver Academy, Plymouth, Triton, Wawasee, Northwood, Concord, Bremen, Fairfield, Goshen, Culver Community
6. (10) Rochester, Wabash, Warsaw, Columbia City, Manchester, Whitko, North Miami, Caston, Tippecanoe Valley, Northfield
7. (9) South Bend Clay, South Bend Riley, South Bend Adams, South Bend Saint Joseph, Mishawaka Marion, Mishawaka, Penn, Elkhart, Jimtown
8. (9) Northridge, Westview, Lakeland, West Noble, Central Noble, Prairie Heights, Fremont, Angola, East Noble
East (New Castle)
1. (9) Eastside, Dekalb, Garrett, Churubusco, Carroll (Fort Wayne), Leo, Fort Wayne Northrop, Fort Wayne Bishop Dwenger, Woodlan
2. (9) Fort Wayne Concordia Lutheran, Fort Wayne Snider, Homestead, Fort Wayne Northside, New Haven, Fort Wayne South side, Fort Wayne Bishop Leurs, Fort Wayne Wayne, Heritage
3. (11) Norwell, Jay County, Southern Wells, Southwood, Huntington North, Belmont, Bluffton, Adams Central, South Adams, Blackford, Eastbrook
4. (12) Peru, Lewis Cass, Maconaquah, Oak Hill, Southwood, Mississinewa, Jay County, Madison-Grant, Marion, Northwestern, Eastern (Greentown), Taylor
5. (11) Kokomo, Western, Tri-Central, Tipton, Hamilton Heights, Anderson, Alexandria Monroe, Elwood, Frankton, Lapel
6. (11) Wes-Del, Yorktown, Monroe Central, Daleville, Union City, Wapahani, Randolph Southern, Muncie Central, Delta, Cowan, Winchester Community
7. (11) Warren Central, Lawrence North, Lawrence Central, Eastern Hancock, New Palestine, Knightstown, Pendleton Heights, Shenandoah, Victory College Prep, Mount Vernon (Fortville), Greenfield-central
8. (11) Connersville, New Castle, Tri, Hagerstown, Cambridge City, Centerville, Richmond, Union County, Northeastern, Rushville, Blue River Valley
West (?)
1. (9) Terre Haute North, Northview, Terre Haute South, Greencastle, Sullivan, Cascade, South Putnam, West Vigo, Cloverdale
2. (10) South Vermillion, Parke Heritage, North Putnam, Plainfield, Decatur Central, Avon, Providence Cristo Rey, Ben Davis, Mooresville, Speedway
3. (10) Benton Central, South Newton, North Newton, Tri-County, West Lafayette, Harrison, Frontier, Twin Lakes, North White, Rensaleer Central
4. (9) North Montgomery, Southmont, Fountain Central, Crawfordsville, North Vermillion, Mccutcheon, Covington, Seeger, Attica
5. (9) LCC, Frankfort, Lafayette Jefferson, Rossville, Faith Christian, Delphi, Pioneer, Logansport, Carroll (Flora)
6. (9) Sheridan, Westfield, Guerin Catholic, Carmel, Clinton Central, Noblesville, Hamilton Southeastern, Zionsville, Fishers
7. (11) Bishop Chatard, Scecina, Cardinal Ritter, Crispus Attucks, Arsenal Tech, Christel House Academy, George Washington, School for the Deaf, Cathedral, Park Tudor, Purdue Polytechnic
8. (10) Brownsburg, Clinton Prairie, North Central, Brebeuf Jesuit, Pike, School for the Blind, Western Boone, Tri-West, Danville, Lebanon
South (Ford Center)
1. (9) Mount Vernon (Posey), North Posey, Evansville Reitz, Mater Dei, Evansville Central, Evansville Memorial, Evansville Bosse, Evansville Harrison, Evansville North
2. (9) Castle, Boonville, Tecumseh, South Spencer, Wood Memorial, Gibson Southern, Heritage Hills, Tell City, Forest Park
3. (10) Vincennes Lincoln, North Knox, Washington, Pike Central, Jasper, Southridge, Paoli, Mitchell, Bedford North Lawrence, Princeton
4. (9) Brown County, Edgewood, Owen Valley, Center Grove, Indian Creek, Martinsville, Bloomington North, Bloomington South, Eminence
5. (10) Crawford County, North Harrison, Corydon Central, Floyd Central, New Albany, Providence, Jeffersonville, Silver Creek, Borden, Rock Creek Academy
6. (10) West Washington, Salem, Eastern (Pekin), Scottsburg, New Washington, Southwestern, Madison Consolidated, Charlestown, Switzerland County, Seymour
7. (11) Batesville, East Central, Columbus East, Franklin County, South Dearborn, Lawrenceburg, Milan, Columbus North, Jennings County, Oldenburg Academy, Greensburg
8. (11) Shelbyville, Triton Central, Greenwood, Perry Meridian, Beech Grove, Franklin Central, Lutheran, Roncalli, Southport, Whiteland, Franklin Community
I would like to reiterate that Indiana wrestling has a structure problem and not a single class problem.