Kookie953

Agreed, with 20 kids banging and having to rely on trackwrestling it was very frustrating. 
But other than that great tourney!
Hats off to @JMILL and Ryan Parrish for herding the cats at weigh ins. 

A major part of it is parents and the events. Name another sport where a kid will get 5 minutes of "playing time" over 3-8 hours? The way we have always done it can't be an excuse to change the format of our events. I know we have a lot of success with the weeknight events where another club comes and they match up on the fly. 
We have to sell the sport to not only the kids, but also the parents or they'll find something else for their kid to do.

One of the biggest issues in wrestling is retention of athletes. 
Based on USAW statistics the retention rate in 2017 for Indiana was 53%. That means every year even we bring in 47% new wrestlers...at the same time we are losing that many. Indiana is actually doing well compared to the other states, but in most people's minds it is something that could use a vast improvement.
Indiana has 8,000 USAW members and every year almost 4,000 of them are new! Think if we kept 75% and then still added 4,000 new members! 
You can view the stats on page 15
http://content.themat.com/2016-17annualreport.pdf
Retaining kids...and parents is something that will grow the sport. There are many reasons kids/parents don't come back, one big one is the tournaments.

Let dem girls know that state champ Carson Brewer and state runner up Ray Rioux went years without winning matches. Both got skunked their first year.
I had tickets to a Colts AFC title game and skipped it to go see Carson get pinned two times in less than a minute total. 
Here my point. Don’t make it about winning and losing. Make it about a day with your family and hopefully a day of making friends.
Going back to the day may son got beat (the day if they AFC title game). It was at Columbus. One of the kids that beat him was a dude from Jeffersonville with giant feet and a million dollar smile. His name was Kameron Fuller. He and my son wrestled with and against each other for many years. I consider Kam and his mom good family friends. The day wasn’t about getting skunked or missing a Colts game. It’s about good family time, making friends, and gettin em next time! 

Y2, could you alert Coach Seltzer that Slivka hacked his account?

One thing that has always struck me as counter-productive is bracketed tournaments at the youth and middle school levels. The best wrestlers get to wrestle the most matches, and the kids who are still learning/struggling get a couple and are done. Wouldn't it be better for the health of the sport to run all of these youth and middle school tournaments round-robin style? That way everyone gets a good amount of mat time, and the kids who are (currently) the weakest get a chance at a competitive match against each other. I suppose wrestling 8-man brackets to 8 places could accomplish the same thing. Nothing feeds the fire quite like some success and feeling good about at least one match you've wrestled during the day - even if it's one you don't actually win.

#1 - Matside Weigh Ins - This would eventually eliminate improper weight cutting and the weight management plan.  And the added bonus of not having to wake up quite as early every Saturday will help keep some kids in the sport longer.
#2 - Step Out (1 pt) - I would make it 2 feet out gives the opponent a point.  1 foot really shrinks the wrestling area and does the opposite of the college out of bounds rule.  Also, 1 foot out is still technically in bounds.  Make it both feet out.
#3 - Stalling - First one is a warning.  Every one after that gives opponent choice of position.  If refs aren't "giving" points and they are earned/chosen instead, then they will be more likely to call it.  If a wrestler is called for it on top and bottom wrestler chooses neutral or top, then 1 point is awarded for either.  This also eliminates the dreaded (and lazy) "double stalling" call from refs (except for the warnings, which I'm okay with at times).  This takes the match result out of the ref's hands and gets rid of the end of match stalling call (or no call) that decides the match.
#4 - Five Match Limit - If a match ends in the first period, then it doesn't count towards the 5 match limit (similar to the thinking behind forfeits don't count).  This would allow for bigger brackets with fewer limit problems.  It will still happen, but a lot less often.

Mat-side weigh ins.  You said I'm czar for the day.  Haha.
As a process guy in my "professional" life, the whole idiocy of weigh-ins days or hours before actually wrestling defeats the purpose.  It would literally take a few seconds per match.  
You miss weight, it's a forfeit.  All the sudden you have eliminated your issue of kids cutting too much and people will wrestle their true weight.

To add to that... Get that GPA as high as possible.
Also... GET A HIGH SAT OR ACT SCORE!!! I have said it before. Start taking SAT or ACT early. I would say sophomore year at latest. Figure out which one your wrestler is better at and focus on that test. For Carson it was his SAT. The great thing about SAT is that it is given by The College Board. The college board offers Khan Academy training (SAT prep) free on its website. After you take the test, Khan Academy will know the result and cater a lesson plan for that student. Get on there everyday (5 days a week) and practice SAT. While you can not study for specific SAT questions or test, you CAN get really good at working through the test and become really good at taking test. Take the actual test as many times as possible until you get the score you want. The test will be super scored by the vast majority of colleges. For example: If you get a 650 on math and a 700 on reading the first test and 700 on math and 650 on reading the second time.... your score will be 1400. TEST PREP IS KEY!!!
The NCAA only allows 9.9 scholarships per team. most team carry over 30 kids. DO THE MATH!!!! You want that full ride??? Then most likely you will need some academic help!!! Unless you are a very top guy in the nation in a weight class, you are not getting a full D1 ride. With this said.. the NCAA requires student athletes to meet certain thresholds (GPA,SAT score, class rank, or ACT scores) to get the academic money. If this was not the case, they would just give everybody money and say "he's getting a full academic ride". 
This is information that my family had to find out on our own. I truly hope that this helps a few kids that want to wrestle in college. 
BTW... @Kookie953 Mrs. Mattyb is without doubt the beauty in our household. You cant look like me and get a catch like that by being dumb!!!  Haha!!!

I would like to see a riding point. 
If you ride a wrestler out for an entire period, 1pt will be added. You can only earn 1pt in a match. No need for riding time clock. 
A wrestler should be rewarded for a ride out. Most of the time the are called for stalling at some point. 
 

Mat-side weigh ins.  You said I'm czar for the day.  Haha.
As a process guy in my "professional" life, the whole idiocy of weigh-ins days or hours before actually wrestling defeats the purpose.  It would literally take a few seconds per match.  
You miss weight, it's a forfeit.  All the sudden you have eliminated your issue of kids cutting too much and people will wrestle their true weight.

Mat-side weigh ins.  You said I'm czar for the day.  Haha.
As a process guy in my "professional" life, the whole idiocy of weigh-ins days or hours before actually wrestling defeats the purpose.  It would literally take a few seconds per match.  
You miss weight, it's a forfeit.  All the sudden you have eliminated your issue of kids cutting too much and people will wrestle their true weight.

One your first point, isn’t that part of what makes wrestling so great? It’s available to kids of all grades and all weights. It’s the only sport where someone that weighs 100 lbs can actually contribute and be great.  

Clearly the Brewer kid must have a really smart mom.  Only thing questionable is her decision on who to marry.  😀

I have coached both sports for the past 8 years and it is a hard sell to the Head Football guy that losing even 10 pounds is going to be okay for the kids long term future. It was much tougher at smaller high schools as to fill out a line-up it was going to take 7-8 football players and obviously weight classes matter so to get in the line-up a 190 pound linebacker may go to 182 for the season.
That does bring into question the mat-side weigh ins a little as well though: If I'm at a smaller school and have 2 kids that weigh 164 naturally and a really good kid that weighs 178, obviously 178 has no problem maintaining for 182 and one of the 164 pounders easily goes 170, but the other one is fighting an uphill battle to keep under 160 on a regular basis. At HSE, I can probably find another athlete willing to do the sport because of our sheer numbers. When I was at Mooresville even (1400 students) or TC Howe (300 students), probably going to be a problem for me and may increase forfeits.
I think the rule nets positive overall, but probably won't happen because of small schools and trying to fill weights becoming more difficult.

Mat-side weigh ins.  You said I'm czar for the day.  Haha.
As a process guy in my "professional" life, the whole idiocy of weigh-ins days or hours before actually wrestling defeats the purpose.  It would literally take a few seconds per match.  
You miss weight, it's a forfeit.  All the sudden you have eliminated your issue of kids cutting too much and people will wrestle their true weight.

Add another weight class between 220 and HWT to give 15 classes so that "normally" number of matches won would be the only tiebreaker needed. Make HWT just be 290 with no allowances and have the added class be 255.

if adding a 255 or anything close to that, why not just make HWT an open class with no limit. Let the future D and O line kids wrestle. It would also bring in more kids as the football coaches would want their kids getting in better shape and improving footwork. 

Love the idea here too. Evens the playing field a bit and would likely grow the sport a lot because Football athletes (and coaches) are often not huge proponents of our sport (even though they should be with all the transference) because of weight cutting. They don't want their boys getting smaller for any reason. 

Mat-side weigh ins.  You said I'm czar for the day.  Haha.
As a process guy in my "professional" life, the whole idiocy of weigh-ins days or hours before actually wrestling defeats the purpose.  It would literally take a few seconds per match.  
You miss weight, it's a forfeit.  All the sudden you have eliminated your issue of kids cutting too much and people will wrestle their true weight.

Mat-side weigh ins.  You said I'm czar for the day.  Haha.
As a process guy in my "professional" life, the whole idiocy of weigh-ins days or hours before actually wrestling defeats the purpose.  It would literally take a few seconds per match.  
You miss weight, it's a forfeit.  All the sudden you have eliminated your issue of kids cutting too much and people will wrestle their true weight.

Mat-side weigh ins.  You said I'm czar for the day.  Haha.
As a process guy in my "professional" life, the whole idiocy of weigh-ins days or hours before actually wrestling defeats the purpose.  It would literally take a few seconds per match.  
You miss weight, it's a forfeit.  All the sudden you have eliminated your issue of kids cutting too much and people will wrestle their true weight.

Wrestling and coaching in Indiana, I always appreciated the Indiana single-class system.  I was lucky enough to also coach state finalists in both Georgia and Ohio who both use multi-class systems with same date/venue state finals.  In my opinion, that format really took away some impact on being a state finalist and placewinner.  I much prefer the single-class format.  
I wrestled at a DII college and, at that time, DII champions were often invited to the DI championships and some did very well.  There were some DI National Champions from DII schools.  I remember one heavyweight  from Pittsburgh-Johnstown and some others from Cal State Bakersfield.    

And I did mention that originally that it could just be the way Colorado runs it. which I didn't particularly like. If they are ran concurrently how would you be able to see all divisions? or at least focus on each class at the same weight class (for instance 126 at class 1A, 2A, and 3A)? My issue is the disconnect between each class that I experienced from CO. I feel it is inevitable there will be a disconnect over a span of 10 years. But I could be way wrong, just my opinion. I feel classed team tourney, non-classed individual tourney, add wrestle backs, make it 2-3 weekends instead of 4 (Regionals, semi state, and state for example) would be the best route at this time. But I've been wrong before. I know CA proves itself as a wrestling state and are 1 class. I am not up to date on how they run it, but I see adopting their route is the first big step. 

I have always only attended the IHSAA State Tourney, whether it was to watch as a youngster or wrestle in it. This didn't really give me much perspective on the class system and all the ins and outs of how it is ran at the state tournament level in other states. I recently moved to Colorado about a year and a half ago and began coaching at a 5A school in the Denver Metro Area, where I not only had the chance to experience it first hand, but also had the chance to speak to others on their thoughts on how Indiana runs it. I definitely got a lot of 'wow! no wrestle backs'...'if you lose first/second round at semi state or 1st round at state, you are done? what if you wrestle the champion first?'...but the overall thing they all stated was 'I really wish it was just one class like IN, CA, NJ, etc.'
I didn't want to judge it based on just their opinion, so I had to wait until the post season rolled around for the State Tournament, and fortunately I had a State Qualifier, so I can have added input. After going through it, I can express my thoughts. Colorado has 4 classes (2A-5A). I know a lot will say we wouldn't do 4 classes and would do 2 or 3. The concerns I have still pertain to what I saw, but who knows maybe it would be way better with 2 or 3 vs 4. 
My issues with the class system starts with the amount of division that causes between the state. They had 10 mats out but ran 2a/3a together and 4a/5a together making it two entirely different tournaments on the thursday, friday, sessions. They would make you leave multiple times within the tournament if your session wasn't going. Even though we ran our 5A session with 4A, there was no association at all. 4A  was on mats 1-5 and 5A was on mats 6-10. and I guarantee if you were associated with 5A, you will have no chance to see the 4a matches across the event center with 10 mats going. Let alone the 2a/3a you werent allowed to stay for.
This boils down to the recognition factor for these young men pouring their hearts into this Sport that will in turn grow the sport. There were 4 individuals going for their 4th state title. 3 achieved it. one was 2a, one was 3a, and one was 5a. Im sure you can assume the only one I was able to watch the whole time I was their. I wish I had the chance to watch Andrew Alirez ranked #1 in the nation at 152) in route to becoming a 4 timer, but he was in 3A. If you have affiliation with a certain class, you wont be able to watch others. There is too much going on. I did get to watch Cohlton Shultz capture his 4 timer status though, and keep his #1 in the country and #1 pound for pound status in tact. They keep everything separated and I dont see how that would be a good fit for the state of Indiana. I personally like seeing all the schools in the same tourney on the Individual side. 
A side note from talking to all of the individuals is the ones in the higher classes just talk down about the smaller classes and say 'everyone knows 5A is the only one that matters' and I know we say Indiana wouldn't say that, but I think over time it would trickle down and everyone would view the bigger class as more meaningful. Most of the people that were pure fans would only come for 5a and would not care one bit about the other classes. Even if I didn't have a wrestler in the 5A competition and went as a fan, it would be way to hard to watch multiple. 
My conclusion and my stance after experiencing it first hand (Granted Colorado may be an anomaly) is for the individual tournament for Indiana to stay 1 class, but we need to have wrestle backs at least at semi state and definitely state. I think the class system is perfect for team state, but the amount of people that weighed in that they wish their was a true champion rather than crowning 56 state champions was unbelievable. I think what draws me into keeping it one class is the amount of division between classes there is. I get why they call it 'States' now cause its as if there is multiple different state tournaments going on at the same time and you can't associate with multiple. So even if we class the individual tournament and a small school gets more state champions, they will be a state champ, but most will only be watching the bigger classes anyways. I couldn't tell you one thing about any 2a school in the state of Colorado. Name of the school, names of any wrestlers, how many they qualified/placed, etc. Because it is all separate. And I don't want that to happen to Indiana. I like being familiar with every school. I know chances of making it are harder, but Indiana is a hard state to qualify in. Just my 2 cents. It's mostly theoretical and we would never know until applied. One thing's for sure. I am sure missing that Indiana atmosphere when it comes to the post season.