wrestleliferfan

where did you see McCammon wrestle? The kid has been pretty solid lately. Check out the common opponent of south adams. McCammon techfalled the south adams kid 16-1. The southern wells kid pinned the south adams kid in 5:46. It'll be a good match and you cant have Fiechter easily winning this match. 

I'm so glad someone else has this opinion. I've been walking around all week thinking people are crazy or I saw McCammon on a bad day. Hands down Fiechter will take that win! All good wrestlers in 138, but clearly some are more technicals.
I'm going with an amazing battle between Rutter-Fiechter for 1st. 3rd place will be a battle of whether Wells-Meiring wins. 4th place probably McCammon but I'm not counting out Schricker of Jay County to make him earn it! 
My hopes: 
Fiechter, Rutter, Wells, Schricker

You find that hard to believe? Look at football for instance, at Tipton your coach has been their 14 years and been quite successful. Would he have been there as long if he had to go through the same teams your wrestling program does for just a sectional title?
Two of the most highly regarded coaches in the state in Bud Wright and Bill Sharpe coached at small schools their entire career. Would Wright have stayed at Sheridan if the had to go through Westfield, Lawrence North, etc just for a sectional title? Would Sharpe have stayed at Jimtown if the had to go through Penn, Elkhart Memorial, Northwood, etc for a sectional title?
In wrestling you don't see coaches like that stay at small schools for very long.
As far as my situation I would be lying if school size wasn't a factor, I surely wasn't going to go to a smaller school. If we had the same opportunity for success as the other sports we would have had a nice streak of sectional titles, but instead had to go through powerhouses like Columbia City and the start of Carroll's run while there. We were close a couple times, but in the end the depth of the bigger schools did us in.

While I’m not big on classing Indiana Wrestling, I can see the benefits of it. The arguments of kids needing to work harder instead of classing the tournament is weak because this next weekend, you’ll see kids who work their butts off not even break the bank because of draws. It’s not the wrestlers who are flawed in this sense, it’s the system. There are no wrestlebacks in place, no classes, etc., so we’re not seeing the very best Indiana has to offer. While I agree some small schools have created a victim language in believing they cannot compete with big schools, some literally will just never break through. It’s true, though, that making state can transform wrestlers. I’ve seen it first hand with a wrestler who qualifies that no one or even himself thought he would, then the next year he’s in the finals launching a Purple Hulk. So, class wrestling could potentially have major benefit in the talent pool. You never know until it happens, until then, it’s going to take a leader like Gary Black to transform a small school program and bring them to prominence. Guys like that are few and far between.

My son made it to the quarters last year on sat and we were back at our hotel last year on Sat by 4:00 pm. They did a great Job running the tournament last year. I would highly recommend attending if you can. Was some great wrestling both days.

I think we were out on day 1 around 4 iirc last year..Was very well ran and the venue was great...Was really impressed by the quality of wrestling as well. 

When it comes to Class wrestling there is no right or wrong. But if there is a way for more children to get into the Sport of Wrestling I am all for it. If it takes handing out ribbons and medals to every one then so be it. The Class idea isn't simply to help the "Small" schools be competitive in a watered down version of State. It also may help the larger inner City Schools attract one more guy. At the Perry regional this weekend there were several Schools barely represented that would not be in the same "Class" size wise as Perry, Roncali, Warren Central etc.  Wrestling has absolutely made a huge impact on my life personally. I would not be where I am today without it. I can assure you it wasn't easy to get my ass handed to me over and over. I wanted to kill my buddy for talking me into it. Turns out I am thrilled that he did. If there is a way to get more people into the Sport then I say please do. If there is another way then do that also.

LOL! I at least calmed the situation down long enough for security to handle it! 

State could still be held at Bankers Life, there is plenty of room for more mats. I'm glad you are so concerned about the venue though.

Couldn't agree more. Had this conversation with our head coach after I posted originally. The small school state champs and state placers are still going have to work their butts off. Success in wrestling is hard no matter what. So let's do something to get more kids believing they can be successful. As confidence grows, they'll look forward to dual meets and in-season tournaments where they can match up against the "big school" guys, but still look forward to their tournament run.

Applauding you very loudly right now!! Couldn't agree more. Why others can't see this is beyond me or they are selfish? 
 
Side note- I think wrestling is the toughest sport, mentally, emotionally, physically. So NO Wrestlers is a "soft ass kid" like Asbury4040 mentioned! Get over yourself dude! 

People will disagree with me, but one of the hardest things about developing a program in Indiana is the constant moving from one school to another to be more successful. I have struggled with sending my son to a big school but at the end of the day, we are staying put. But, I have the resources to pay for private coaching in the offseason and travel. I believe better athletes will stay at their own school if they don’t feel the need to move to accomplish a deeper run in the state series. This helps develop smaller programs which increases competition everywhere. I can tell you that it’s much easier to recruit kids to wrestle if they feel like a deep run is attainable. I love our state title matches, but I think we’d develop more and better wrestlers and programs in a classed system. For the record, the head coach at our school disagrees with me. I’d like to see us give it a shot though. Try it for a few years and see what happens.
And the Mason Paris argument is silly. That kid wrestles enough across the country to prove he’s dominant. He doesn’t need the top class title to prove that. But maybe the kid that doesn’t have the same resources can obtain some meaningful accomplishments... that maybe, just maybe, can help achieve more confidence for the rest of his/her life.
I watch a lot of college wrestling. When the announcers talk about state titles, they never mention what class! I honestly believe kids are just as proud of their 1A state title as the kid that won at 3A. 
A class system would somewhat dilute our state championship, but would help grow the sport. So, are we in this for the fans? Or the kids and the sport overall?

Funny how Mr. Asbury moved his son from Cloverdale, a small school, to Brownsburg, one of over 2000. Sounds very interesting from someone that is opposed to class wrestling.

Maybe we should have a Freshman only state, a sophomore only state, a Junior only state and a senior only state. 
then older kids aren't picking on younger kids..............#NoClassWrestling
<Pound Sign>HendricksCountySmellsFunnyTough
side note......... @asbury4040 I love your posts buddy !!!   Keep up the good work  #PainTrain

I have been leading the charge for class wrestling for quite a while. I have always been very vocal about it.
So if a kid doesn't make it to state he has no heart or determination? Amazing that only 224 kids each year have that, such a sad society we live in.

For every school and every sport my kids  competed in, they always got a participation certificate at the year end  banquet/meeting.  Does the soft ass/ entitled label  only apply to trophies or does it also apply to certificates.  If it does, Im going to go give them back right now?  Nobody is going to call my kid soft ass and entitled.

Because I have coached at a smaller school and have seen the differences first hand.

138 Fiechter over undeafeated Yorktown's Rutter! Fiechter went to work! Great job. 

Now before you respond and say how this is such a terrible idea, let me just say this - I am not sure if I am even in favor of this. Like a few other contributors have shared, we have to take a different angle. The IHSAA isn't responding to the current request. So instead of throwing the same bait into the water and hoping to catch the fish, maybe we switch the bait. I was going to just give a quick video explanation because I don't want to type all of this, but let's think through some of this and pull out all the pros and cons. Try to read through all of it so we can have productive dialogue. 
I think if we are going to improve our state tournament or reach the desired end, it will have to be a gradual shift. The seeding idea certainly isn't a perfect solution but I think of the BCS in college football and I think we hear less complaining with the playoff than we did with an outright one and done championship game. If our case is going to be strong, I believe it needs to accomplish the following:
1. Not cost the IHSAA any additional money or cut into any potential revenue 
2. The length of the tournaments can't increase
When I considered those two factors, I thought a "seed meeting" could help avoid some of the issues we are facing in semi-state. Keyword: some, not all. I cringe at the idea of reproducing the already painful sectional seed meeting but maybe it could look different. Perhaps coaches do a lot of legwork ahead of time and submit their data to a seeding committee. I am not sure how we could do this effectively but I thought you could have IHSWCA member coaches volunteer to seed a tournament they are not associated with. There would not be a physical seed meeting where all participating schools show up and talk in circles for three hours. 
Could the committee members have ulterior motives and try and miss-seed a regional so their kid gets a better draw down the line? Well hopefully a multiple-member committee would provide checks and balances to prevent this from happening. A strong ethics code and pairing coaches with regionals that don't feed into their semi-state could also be beneficial. If a coach doesn't wish to seed his wrestler or neglects to do his homework and submit the appropriate information, then his kids have to suffer at his lack of care. It would also help if the committee members were knowledgeable, invested in learning about all the teams and wrestlers and could get close to the right seeds even if a coach didn't do his job. 
When it comes to semi-state, I had one additional idea. You don't necessarily seed 1-16. Maybe you seed the 4 1's, 4 2's, etc. Then, you could still have a random computer draw if we found that to be an effective protocol. 
Seeding criteria:
I think it could be similar to the sectional criteria but it would be awesome if it was a little more intelligent. We have such great minds on here that put together great stats, rankings and information. Now obviously none of that is flawless but the NCAA seems to get their championship tournaments right and they use math and logic, along with results, to determine proper allocations and seeds. But I am just dreaming here. I'm just thinking of the case where the "weak regional" has a kid with a 40-1 record and you have a kid who has gone through a meat-grinder of a schedule and has 7 losses. Well if we don't have head-to-head or common opponent, I guess weak schedule wins. Hopefully at the regional level we should have plenty of head-to-head and common opponents but it's not a lock. It may also be helpful to realign some regionals and try to balance things a little better on a competitive basis. Again, I am dreaming but I am trying to think of solutions that meet the two criteria above. 
Whatever solution we find, if we ever find it, is just a means to the end. What I think most of us want in the end is the best 16 kids at state, with the best 8 standing on the podium. Even if we decide that "wrestlebacks" is still the best proposal to take to the IHSAA each year, let's call it something different. It is a term exclusive to our sport and these people don't understand how our sport operates. THEY DON'T GET IT. They ain't one of us. So at the very least, let's hire a marketing firm and develop a better brand, image and slogan for "wrestlebacks". 

Just seeing this post. Hope he is getting better everyday?! What happened? 

Wow that escalated quickly. I just want to say that class 1A wrestling is dying! I know because we see it every year. And I strongly feel like the reasoning is because the kids from these small schools can't stand a chance to these big schools. The numbers sometimes are so low that they can't even have a good practice. They have dual meets that consist of getting mopped on the mat, learning nothing. So eventually they give up the sport. (Not saying I agree with that) but they do. 
You aren't going to get a "good" coach willing to move to a program that has a total team of 5. So it's a never ending cycle of being stuck with a mediocre coach who just coaches wrestling during football's off season. Again I know this is true because I see it every year. 
Class wrestling may actually give kids a chance to compete with someone their own size. As well as not overinflating class 3-4 wrestlers to thinking they are better than they are because they stack their records, mopping the mat, with 1A wrestlers all season. My kid is a decent wrestler but I wouldn't want him earning a championship title and holding his head high if it's because he smooth sailed through to the top; he'd never know his true potential. 
Class wrestling isn't a "everyone gets a trophy" scheme, it's what makes sense and is fair. Still allowing true warriors to advance. 
*MY OPINION* if allowed  

So we should let 1A wrestling die? Ohhh I know, they should just work harder.
Note wrestling participation is down across the country, even in our great single class state. What are we going to blame that on? 

You can't answer my questions, that's fine because it would hurt your argument. I understand because you are the same as the others.
You're a fan, I don't care about you, I care about the health of the sport and the number of kids participating in the sport. If there is a good product on the mat people will come, they won't care about classes. 
Gable Steveson has won three world titles and is wrestling in a classed system right now.  How will he survive? Why is he even doing it? He probably is going to throw his medal in the trash with the other four classed medals he has. Such a great rebuttal because YOU think one kid would 
Feel free to tell me why Gable Steveson left a single class state to go wrestle in a classed state. I can't wait to hear this reasoning since only the top kids would want to wrestle in a single class state according to you.

William Fiechter (Southern Wells) beats Colt Rutter (Yorktown) 5-3

What a great match! My favorite of the day by far.