CoachTJC

On 7/9/2019 at 1:11 AM, nkraus said:

Well...I don’t know the stories, but I do know the school was called CMA for the longest time, which stands for Culver Military Academy.  I’ve only got a quarter of a brain...sorry...and you just bashed (PUBLICLY) on a head coach and a program.  Not cool.  Do that in a garage somewhere with your  buddies...not publicly.  

I am sorry that I’ve edited this post multiple times, but I want to to be classy.  I hope your son does extremely well and wins some huge titles, but I just don’t think public bashing is appropriate towards a coach, or his program.  Best of luck in the future endeavors!

This is quite a strong opinion for someone who admittedly doesn't have any knowledge of the facts or circumstances. I responded to the post regarding an inaccurate comment about my son and clarified why we left Culver to set the record straight and diffuse any additional ridiculous rumors being circulated. This is nowhere near bashing, it is not a loosely formed opinion, it was a personal experience along with others who are not returning. Had we not been misled in the first place, we would have had a completely different expectation level to base our decision to attend upon and this situation would have never occurred. Titles are irrelevant, the type of person my son is and the character of those he's surrounded by is far more important. Furthermore I'm not seeking anyone's approval of my explanation. Although I could have, I specifically did not elaborate with additional details. You can take it however you want but "bashing" was not my objective. I'm simply stating the facts.

I'm Brennen's father. I received a text from a parent who's son attends Culver regarding this post and the comments made by AdamscoBuschhh. Just to clear the air you don't know me and we never met prior to the finals. I have no idea who you are or why you felt obligated to completely fabricate a post like this. We were in our hotel room between the break prior to finals and my dad doesn't even drink. Anyone that has been around my son knows that he is a quiet, respectful, and focused young man that is a hard worker. I truly feel sorry for you that you would make false statements aimed at a 15yr. old, its pathetic. My name is TJ Cernus, I'd like to know your real name as well. Moving forward, feel free to contact me directly so you can direct your false statements towards me rather than my son. Culver is not a military academy for kids with disciplinary issues. Any one with half a brain would already know this. If they did they would be gone in less than a month, the school has zero tolerance for this. It has military structure however it is not what would be considered rigid. Wyoming Seminary was initially our first school of choice last year prior to enrolling at Culver. We ended up choosing Culver because it was much closer to home and there were a few other families that we are friends with whose son's were also attending. We left Culver because the head coach was not what he portrayed himself or the program to be. There was no direction for the program. It was very unorganized, undisciplined, and there was a severe lack of technical coaching ability. Josh Harper was later added to the staff, he was the reason we decided to stay this past year. Josh was solid, he was intense, a good motivator, and he was there to make everyone better, he cared. Culver is an excellent academic academy and we were disappointed to leave. It was not an easy decision. Academics are our top priority and we expected to have a good balance with wrestling as well, unfortunately that was not the case.

1prouddad, thank you for your comment, we greatly appreciate it. 

Indiana puts on a great state tournament and we were proud to be able to be a part of it. My son and our family received an outpouring of support from complete strangers during the course of the season and this is rare. Indiana is very much like Ohio, the wrestling community is a pretty tight knit group that for the most part supports one another. There were numerous people who congratulated Brennen and our family after the finals that were genuinely happy for him. This will be an experience that we will never forget. Thank you Indiana. Best of luck.

How does this stack up against the record books? The IHSAA records online aren't very detailed, look pretty basic.

3 hours ago, SWINfan said:

I get they want to limit travel (both time and expense), but what is the benefit of restricting the opposing school?  

Whether it is the Iron Man or a basketball game held in Columbus, OH, what difference does it make if the team they are competing against is from Ohio, New Jersey, Florida or California?  Its that part of the rule I don't get. 

That is exactly how the rule is written, which has absolutely no relevance to time or travel expense whatsoever for the Indiana team/athlete...that's what makes this section of the rule even more ridiculous

12 minutes ago, Wrestling Scholar said:

One thing that underlines multiple IHSAA policies is that they want to limit the amount time student athletes miss the classroom.  I think the travel rule is implemented to eliminate the chance of our kids traveling long distances resulting in the athletes missing school.  Also, IHSAA is conservative and old fashioned and doesn't want high school athletic departments spending a large amount of resources on travel expenses.   I disagree with the rule also,  but the IHSAA is very set in their ways and we've had discussions on the board in prior years relating to the topic.   Like mentioned earlier,  football and especially basketball coaches  would like to take their teams to  compete nationally and have been denied.  They would be drivers for change and IHSAA would not make an exception for a wrestling team to for example compete at the Iron Man, which is sad.

Thank you for the explanation.... I'm unaware of any other state that has anything remotely close to this restriction, it's an obsolete thought process, I'm going to look into starting an online petition maybe that's the only way to get the point across to the committee that there's people other than the coaches and AD's that care about this topic. 

What is the committee's logic or reasoning behind it? I can't wrap my head around any rational reasoning behind it

Every head wrestling coach and high school AD in Indiana should be arguing and advocating for this IHSAA restriction to be removed. There is absolutely zero logic behind the reasoning to have this rule in place. This rule handicaps every single athlete in Indiana regardless of the sport that they participate in.  This drastically limits the exposure for the athlete(s), their school, and high school athletics in the state of Indiana as a whole. Take a look at the limited amount of nationally ranked wrestlers (or any other sports teams) from the state of Indiana over the years.  Aside from off season tournaments outside of Indiana, there is no way to even know about a kid who's schedule is handcuffed by this rule. Ironman for example would never allow an Indiana wrestler into their tournament with this restriction but how ridiculous is it to think that assuming they did, you can wrestle a kid from Illinois 1st round, Ohio 2nd round, have a kid from Minnesota 3rd rd and have to forfeit your match because his school is 300+ miles from Indiana's border ?? What kind of logical sense does that make? Don't think for a second that this doesn't severely limit an athletes ability to earn an athletic scholarship when a recruiter has such limited knowledge of how they stack up against legitimate out of state/ national competition.

Does anyone have any insight or ideas for best practices to petition for this rule to be eliminated from the IHSAA rules? I'm assuming this needs to be started by coaches and AD's, not sure how much traction a general public petition would get. This needs to go ASAP.

RULE 10 – INTERSTATE CONTESTS AND PRACTICES REQUIRING SPECIAL

ATTENTION

10-1 Out-of-State Contest Limitations

The address of out-of-state schools participating in a Contest against a member School as

well as the site of such Contests must be within Six-hundred (600) miles round trip travel from

the Indiana state line and shall be sponsored or co-sponsored by a member high School.