Galagore

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?

You just opened up a can of class-wrestling whoop a$#
Small schools = multiple sport athletes because they have to
Big schools = more common to specialize
 
Ah, class wrestling debate ... how I've missed you!

Might also be because it is 9:00 or later when the 285s wrestle, and many of the fans have been in Indy all day...and many of them are not die-hard wrestling fans, they came to see "their guy/gal" wrestle under the lights. I feel fairly confident in predicting that a large number of people will leave before the end, regardless of which match is last...provided that match is chosen randomly, and not something like Lee v Red.

This is recognizing the need for just classing it.

Exactly,   I don't think some people see the irony of this comparison.   There's this criticism of these sectionals with a large majority of small schools and a corresponding pride of being superior.  But its really just  a negative byproduct of a single class system where big schools routinely beat up on smaller schools.    And we complain, why cant those small guys just try harder and be better.      Please spare me from bringing up the wrestling version of Hickory High School in Indiana.  

Volunteering does not prevent criticism. It's the same with iswa stuff when they do things people don't agree with (qualifiers) you can criticize. Yes busco is giving his time that's admirable and I don't think he as a person should take the heat for this but I'm sick of people using the exscuse of volunteering as a means to avoid criticism for doing something poorly.

So being tough and manly means if someone is doing something that you view as unfair, you just shut up and take it? Don't see a lot of whining here...more exchanging of ideas to try to point out where people are coming form...

Finding a way to fill a line-up is much easier said than done. Especially if you want to hold any kind of high standards and have any kind of expectations.

Finding a way to fill a line-up is much easier said than done. Especially if you want to hold any kind of high standards and have any kind of expectations.

Adding to MattyB post with my two cents, this is bad for Indiana wrestling.  This will result in a drop in quality competition mat time for good kids from smaller, developing programs.  Teams will be dropped or strong teams will pull out of duals with small teams to avoid being penalized for forfeits.  Developing teams will find it harder and harder to get back onto a schedule that exposes their talented kids to other quality talent that pushes and raises their skill level.   A greater rift will be formed between large programs and small programs resulting in a stagnation in the smaller program talent development.  As a whole, this hurts those kids in that situation and has an overall impact of lowering the depth of Indiana wrestling talent.

Yeppers.  I was thinking the same thing.  This is going to hurt struggling programs get duels.

Then why do we seed at all?

Some schools are throwing small schools a bone and keeping them on their schedules with the hope to keep their wrestling programs alive. By wrestling a team with a bunch of open weights, it hurts a school. I can see programs not being able to get duals and dying because of this. This is BAD for wrestling.
And Danny,.... Sometimes a forfeit does show who the better wrestler is when you have coaches unwilling to send kids out against better kids. Coaches need to start coaching those kids up and put them on the mat. I see this way too much.  

Kids aren't softer, that is on the coaches. There are still kids that are tough, you have to bring it out of them. Every generation says that "kids these days are soft." There are more distractions and activities for kids to do these days. There are club sports like lacrosse and rugby, but also other activities are year round including things like band and choir along with the sports. 
As far as the super dual issue you allude to there are several factors.
1. The weeknight dual was replaced with super duals. Kids aren't able to perform in front of bigger crowds including family and friends.
2. The two day events are not good for the sport. I have tried telling our IHSWCA leaders to try to implement the rule of one two-day event is worth 2 points all others are 4.
3. The super dual is easier to keep the lower kids engaged vs. the tournament. If a kid is sitting around all day after going 0-2 they are much more likely to quit. 
The state series is always more exciting because the best start rising to the top. During the regular season you get lineup shifts and kids out due to injury and sickness. There is much more at stake during the state series, that is why it's exciting.

I have have been around this sport for about 45 years and I have several theories why kids are leaving the sport.  First of all, I agree that kids don't seem to be as tough nosed today as they were 20-30 years ago.  It is true that the caliber of wrestling is much higher today than in the past, but the majority of kids are softer and much too quick to quit.  Cultural shift is mostly responsible for this.  Parents in the past simply would not allow their kids to quit a sport once they started.  It was a responsibility issue that is not present with today's parenting.  Technology is probably the biggest culprit.  30 years ago all kids had was sports, now they have far too many other things to occupy their time which makes quitting easier.  Let's also face the fact that wrestling isn't a sport that you do just for fun or something to do.  Unless you are good at it, it probably does suck to get your butt pounded every time you go out.  However, my main theory why kids don't stay interested in wrestling is due to the lack of individual tournament style wrestling.  The sport has mostly gone to super dual formats where you take kids to an all day event where you wrestle 6 times on one day and maybe even another 6 time the next day.  I feel that most kids find this format unmotivating and quite frankly boring.  When there are championship style tournaments the excitement factor raises about 10 fold for everyone involved.  I realize the reasons why coaches prefer the super dual format.  Their kids get more matches in and let's face it, super duals take very little effort to run and championship style tournaments are a logistical challenge.  It is my belief, that if we provide a more interesting format for the wrestlers, the retention would be much much higher as would overall interest in the sport.  It is almost impossible to sit and watch an all day super dual without wishing you were doing something else.  But, when the end of year state tournament season starts, interest soars.  As a fan of the sport, I have gradually quit going to any wrestling events until mid January.  This is just my theory.  And the big argument  against my thoughts are that kids don't get as many matches with tournament wrestling.  To that I say, kids probably shouldn't be wrestling 50 -70 time a year.  Not sure the human body was meant to take that much punishment.  These are just my thoughts on the subject.

Speak for yourself.

So the answer then, is no?  Is that what I am gathering from the responses so far? Classing the tournament would not be deemed a reasonable trade for allowing teams to enter two wrestlers in the state tournament?

Not a debate. Just a question. If the answer is no, then I have no intention on trying to sway opinion. Just wondering where the opinion is.

First post on class wrestling...not made by me. 

Hi-Jack continued... Not being an Indiana native, I find the ferocity of this debate about class wrestling almost comical. 
However, since this thread is essentially about being competitive I looked up the following article on FLOW: https://www.flowrestling.org/articles/5065531-which-state-is-the-best-at-producing-ncaa-all-americans- 
It looks at the states who are best at producing NCAA All-Americans.  I don't see Indiana on the list of the top 20.  I see lots of states with multi-class state tournaments in this list.  So is our 1 class system actually helping? 
Here's another list (not quite as recent, but NOT adjusted for state population). http://mwolverine.com/Top_Wrestling_States.html
Indiana comes in at #18 here, but still behind many multi-class states.

That's exactly what i was wondering. Seems to me that the bigger schools keep getting more and more out.

I'd love more details on this, 1000 new wrestlers.
Are they from big, small, medium schools?
Are they freshmen, sophomores, juniors, or seniors?
Are they new to the sport or coming back out after sabatical?
Etc....
1000 new wrestlers is a lot and good as long as it's across the board.

To remain anonymous:
 
"You guys gotta cut out the swearin'.  I'm tired of this s#@*!"
"H--- yes, I'm competitive!  When my wife beats me at checkers, I get p---ed off!"
".......QUIT GETTIN HURT!"

One of many, but fairly recent...and based on evidence in Indiana. No wrestling mentioned, but good stuff about multi-sport athletes...
article

In particular I would like to thank the students/athletes who helped ref and run tables.  They did an outstanding job.  Always impresses me when these Sunday meets find young people to give up a Sunday to donate back to the cause.