awood1

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. The coaches you mentioned had mentors / coaches before them that heavily impacted who they are and how they behave today. I still coach youth sports today and hate losing with a passion. But at the end of the day, the wins and championships aren't WHY I do it. I've done it long enough now to know that the biggest reward has nothing to do with competitive events but life skills. Nothing in my life makes me prouder than looking at the young men today that I was blessed to coach as kids and realizing any positive impact that I had in "who" they are today. Seeing them as coaches, teachers, sons, husbands, fathers and community members brings a sense of pride that is immeasurable. I'm glad that I've lived long enough to see it come full circle. It has brought a sense of perspective and a respect for the mentors and coaches that impacted my life that I wouldn't have thought possible had I not lived it.

My kids are well versed in what is acceptable language and what is appropriate where. They were also taught that you shouldn't ignore unacceptable behavior simply because "everybody's doing it" or it is awkward to correct. The post your original response was directed to described the broadcast as "definitely not kid friendly". Only ignorance would believe that HS kids don't curse BUT it is a reasonable expectation by any responsible adult that any kid can understand the context of being broadcast across the world wide web and considering that ANYONE could be listening. A simple reminder should be all that's neccessary to correct the situation. Pretending that everyone that may be listening to a HS wrestling match should be accepting of foul language as part of it is ignoring the problem and failing the kids in question. If you let it go as "just what kids do", then you have no expectation of anything better out of them. It may not be comfortable, but I think the kids deserve to be told when they're f'in up. *Even this forum has *corrective measures" for inappropriate language....for a reason.

Nice strawman argument, but I'd rather stay on topic. When I'm standing behind your kid in line at concessions, with pre-schoolers or grandparents, and he/she is dropping f bombs. Don't be shocked when I do your job of parenting for you.

There's some solid parenting. Just don't be a snowflake when someone takes the role of raising your kids and tells them to watch their language and shut their pinhole later when they're talking like a truck driver in public

HAHA after 3 decades of ref bashing, awood2 jumps in and steals my thunder!! All those years of hanging over the rail telling refs that everything from their eyesight to their hairline was fading, but none as fast their officiating skills! Awood2 makes a simple observation that kids (dare I say athletes) deserve a certain level of consistency and BAM!! Pandemonium ensues and the topic goes viral!! I had to cut dreadlocks mat side to butt hurt as many people! Tubcutter would be proud.

...and this doesn't help. What is posted above is a snippet of an article that mentions the "racial" incident. What is left out is that this incident happened at an "event" after a tournament where a group of officials had assembled. The ref in question apparently put a finger in the chest of a black ref and used a "racially insensitive" term to which the black referee responded to with whooping his arse. Of course this all gets reported and BOTH parties were sentenced to 1 year suspensions, of which both were overturned on appeal. Does any of this sound vaguely familiar to anyone? Co-workers involved in an after hours function involving alcohol, testosterone and poor judgement making bad decisions? Anyone? Am I the only one for which this describes most of my nighttime existence through my 20's? (Thank God my 20's were before cell phones!) So the guy may very well be a bag-o-hammers. Maybe hes not the fella you want holding the whistle in a championship bout. But it appears that he knows the rules and were enforcing them (albeit the timing is in question). It's just WAY to simplistic though to "fill in the blanks" on the details in such a way that makes this a racial issue between the official and the wrestler. IMHO I have found that the absolute best way to handle questions re: the rules is to A.) Know them and B.) Abide by them. IF the coach and/or (in my opinion to a lesser degree) wrestler would have know the rules and abided by them, this most likely would never have been an issue. Interesting side note: The original report / tweet posted to Twitter by SNJ Today News sports director Mike Frankel was followed by the description of "Epitome of a team player" and went on to celebrate the wrestlers commitment and his subsequent victory in OT to help his team win. Soon after, the twitter-verse made it a racial issue to the point that the reporter had to issue a formal public apology for not "framing" the "incident" as a racial issue and admonishing the referee for his actions (aka. enforcing the rules). I seldom by in to the over arching conspiracy theories that the "media" is purposely creating news intended to draw a racial wedge between us all. But in this case it is obvious that what was originally reported as a celebration of an athletes perceived sacrifice for his team has since been manufactured in to a racially motivated hate crime. And as for the "dumb" rule itself, you may be right! In a sport desperate to stay relevant on a national and global stage, fussing over hair styles may need to be looked at differently but I certainly wouldn't want the change to come as a knee jerk reaction to accusations of racism. The NFL ruled that dreads (see Edgerrin James) that extended out of the helmet would be regarded as part of the equipment and as such could be USED in the act of making a tackle. Is wrestling prepared to respond when the racial overtones start rolling in from kids being taken down by the dreads (or their mullets!). I thought the initial post was spot on in bringing the issue forward for discussion in hopes of ever repeating it!

10 years? C'mon now, I remember bitchin' about having to take my 2yr old out of Conseco when it was -2deg outside between sessions.....that 2 year old turns 26 this year!?!

Thanks fellas for the assistance! Exactly what I was hoping for! I think I'll stick around for awhile and re-familiarize myself with the IN wrestling landscape, this time as an old-timer, former parent, has been, never was! It will take awhile to get back up to speed with the names but it may be worth a trip to MSA? Conseco? Whatever the F they're calling it these days, some March to see some good wrestling!

No, seriously!! It's been awhile and I can't recall the guys name but there used to be a ref in da 'region that was doing research on islet cells at Northwestern. Any of you old dudes know who I'm talking about? Can you help me out with a name?

Not sure of the attendance #'s at either but Chase Akers from North Posey in '93 was pretty small (grown since then). I know at the time that he was the 1st athlete to make it to a state tournament for the school in any sport.

As a numbers geek, I like to see what the raw data tells me, without regard for extenuating factors, first. Start with the "all things equal" data and see what it tells us. So in the data below, I compared each states population with # of NCAA entries and arrived at a ratio. So if a State A contained 5% of the overall US population, it would be reasonable to expect that they would comprise 5% of the entries to the NCAA tnmt (about 16-17guys). This would be reflected in a ratio # of "1". If State A had 10% of the entries, the ratio would be "2" If State A had 2.5% of the entries, the ratio would be ".5" State B is a much smaller state and represents only .25% of the overall US population, it would be reasonable to expect that they would comprise .25% of the entries to the NCAA tnmt. (about 1 guy) This would be reflected in a ratio # of "1". If State B had .5% of the entries, the ratio would be "2" If State B had .125% of the entries, the ratio would be ".5" The table is sorted by the ratio number. It seems useful as a starting point because if a state like CA has 13 qualifiers and a state like SD has 4, it's easy to say WOOHOO CA has more, so it MUST be better! When you consider the populations though, you can see that basically the probability of a kid in SD being an NCAA qualifier is about 14x's greater (4.66 vs. .33) As a state that comprises 11.91% of the overall population, to achieve a 1.0 ratio CA should represent 39 of the 330 NCAA entries. [table] Abbrv % of US NCAA entries % of NCAA field Ratio PA 4.06% 63 19.09% 4.70 IA 0.97% 15 4.55% 4.69 SD 0.26% 4 1.21% 4.66 ND 0.21% 2 0.61% 2.89 NJ 2.81% 24 7.27% 2.59 OH 3.69% 30 9.09% 2.46 MT 0.32% 2 0.61% 1.89 MN 1.70% 10 3.03% 1.78 OK 1.20% 7 2.12% 1.77 CO 1.61% 9 2.73% 1.69 WY 0.18% 1 0.30% 1.68 MO 1.91% 10 3.03% 1.59 IL 4.10% 21 6.36% 1.55 MI 3.16% 16 4.85% 1.53 WI 1.82% 9 2.73% 1.50 HI 0.43% 2 0.61% 1.41 VA 2.56% 11 3.33% 1.30 ID 0.51% 2 0.61% 1.19 DE 0.29% 1 0.30% 1.04 UT 0.88% 3 0.91% 1.03 WV 0.59% 2 0.61% 1.03 IN 2.07% 7 2.12% 1.02 MD 1.85% 6 1.82% 0.98 NY 6.19% 20 6.06% 0.98 OR 1.22% 3 0.91% 0.75 KS 0.91% 2 0.61% 0.67 WA 2.15% 4 1.21% 0.56 CT 1.14% 2 0.61% 0.53 NE 0.58% 1 0.30% 0.52 NC 3.05% 5 1.52% 0.50 GA 3.10% 4 1.21% 0.39 NV 0.86% 1 0.30% 0.35 CA 11.91% 13 3.94% 0.33 FL 6.01% 6 1.82% 0.30 MA 2.09% 2 0.61% 0.29 SC 1.48% 1 0.30% 0.20 AL 1.53% 1 0.30% 0.20 TX 8.04% 4 1.21% 0.15 AK 0.23% 0 0.00% 0.00 AR 0.93% 0 0.00% 0.00 AZ 2.04% 0 0.00% 0.00 KY 1.39% 0 0.00% 0.00 LA 1.45% 0 0.00% 0.00 ME 0.42% 0 0.00% 0.00 MS 0.95% 0 0.00% 0.00 NH 0.42% 0 0.00% 0.00 NM 0.66% 0 0.00% 0.00 RI 0.34% 0 0.00% 0.00 TN 2.03% 0 0.00% 0.00 VT 0.20% 0 0.00% 0.00 [/table]

The majority of the music in Roadhouse was from Jeff Healey. An excellent guitar player with a particular handicap. Name the handicap?

Parent or student, coach or wrestler, official or table help, you will always find someone that disagrees with you whatever the topic. Simple answer is, only one person has control over how they act after winning a state championship and I leave that totally up to them. As long as they are not directly belittling their opponent (which I don't ever recall seeing) then I am all for it. I can feel for the kid that "loses it" and celebrates like a whack-job as it tells me that they are truly excited about the win and are realizing the benefit of, for many, a life's work. There won't be many other life events that rival winning a state championship. The first time you become a father some dudes sit in the chair and wait for the kid. I ran down the halls, crying like a baby, cheering like a school girl, and handing out cigars. Hell I remember Pat Day getting ***potty mouth*** for hugging his opponent!? Some people wake up with urine on their corn flakes and your never going to make them happy. ???

And a toothbrush a teethbrush?

It's easy to feel like you are getting the short end of the stick when your last. Assuming they still draw for starting weight at duals in IN? Saw something new last week at Divisions here though. It's a 16 man bracket, 2 day tnmt. (necessary as they have full wrestle backs w/ the 5 match limit). So on day 2 they wrestled all of the consolation matches on 4 mats. Then for the finals they used 2 mats, starting at the top on 1, the bottom on the other. So 1st matches were 106 on Mat 1, HVYs on Mat2, 112s on Mat 1, 220's on Mat2 and so on. There was some grumbling about the championships should have everyone's full attention but as it played out there was seldom "action" on both mats. A few occasions where wrestlers from the same school were on both mats, but by in large it kept the energy of the gym "up" most of the time. When there was blood time or coaches talking at the table people weren't sitting on their hands trying to stay awake. Wouldn't want to see it in a State Finals, but think it's a good idea for most other tnmts.