I am curious is this an argument in track, swimming, golf or any of the other individual sports? It would be interesting to see how other sports feel about this issue.
Also as a small school coach I have been wondering this. When my guys loose at sectionals, regionals, semi-state, state, where ever, am I supposed to feel that they were somehow cheated by the system? Currently I just tend to think when my guys get knocked out that they simply need to get better if they want to make it further in the tournament.i Is the better option to tell them that they need to work harder, but also that they are getting screwed over by the set-up of our tournament?
I can tell you we had two kids go to semi-state, both lost. I thought a lot about why they lost, the quality of their opponents, their ability to step up to the occasion, their skill level, I even thought about how difficult our state tournament is. I never once thought to myself, man if these guys just went to a bigger school they would be state qualifiers. If our school wasn't so small these two would have made it for sure, I guess I just don't understand the mentality behind classing an individual sport.