MattM

Is Howe going to be back in the room much or spend most of his Olympic Redshirt at the OTC and other places? Unless he is taking classes on campus at Wisconsin he not need to be in their room much. Haven't heard from anyone "in the know" about it though, so just wondering?

Several of the fights last night were as good as most seasons semi-finals. I'm sure Dana hatted to send a few of those guys home.

Orville Smith got caught in a rear naked choke in the first. Casey Dyer was overwhelmed with strikes and was TKOed in the first. Though break for the Indiana crew as none of them move on. However, the competing looks solid for the rest of the season.

Fight to get in house: Several so called favorites didn't even make the house so that should tell you how deep this years group is. Jaggers had some good back and forth trades early but got KOed at the first round bell so will not make it into the house. Tough break considering it may have been one of the top two best fights of the prelims though. Dana did comment on it being good fight so that is a small upside.

Good to hear.

So in this interpretation the IHSAA would like the "Varsity 2" teams meets considered JV meets? If so would there individual wins even shiner another schools varsity be considered JV wins. Which would not count towards there varsity record nor against the other individuals varsity record? While this maybe there intent it may need to be more clearly written. Especially since the current by-laws do not limit the number or varsity teams which can compete for your school in any sport. Heck it seems like we constantly need a rules interpretation for the IHSAA rules interpretations.

I think the IHSAA and wrestling world bump heads mostly as a result of them going around there own stated ruled (sometimes at the last minute) and instating their own opinion of how it should be done. If the IHSAA is against the event then they can simply come out with a clearly defined rule about the situation When they try to manipulate already existing rules or just outright ignore them and then point to coaches as breaking the rules or being unethical is where we usually end up with at. If the IHSAA understands the sports and the rules they have outlined for then this case shouldn't be an issue. Either make a rule stating the "wild card" is allowed or not and leave all the other rules manipulations and unethical accusations out of it.

So by this example if a school's Varsity Team had only 16 team points they used a year they could sent someone from their Varsity to Al Smith even if the rest of their varsity was competing someplace else that day? Since by that logic the team nor the individual would be going over their 18 point maximum.

That's a long an winding road, but some solid starters posts.

thecomets, That would be the rule. Not sure or not but it may also have a statement someplace or a part of the Q & A that said something more specific about a school having more than one varsity squad.

You mean like "dark horses" or "wrestlers to look out for" or "most improved" Must be getting close to the season starting. ;D

Has this decision been announced, it's been over two weeks? Any word on the possible indiana recruit Coach Davis said he was trying to finalize for Wisconsin if that was a different announcement?

We do have a school wide lifting program that all sports now do, however that hasn't done much to curb the issue. I think it's more of a philosophy issue. Though it would be nice if e realized some of the best football years we had did coincide with some of the best wrestling years where kids were involved in both. I agree the weight cutting us usually a football concern too, but again a somewhat miss informed one. If wrestling coaches are doing it right there big guys will only be dropping weight according to there weight lose program so nothing extreme. I'm guessing most coaches are not forcing football guys to drop weight. I'm also guessing most weight lost is hindering fat that is leavig the football guy more agile and still strong which helps them move better for football. And lastly most guys will still have the whole spring and summer to fatten up to football weight and strengthen up if wrestling isn't just maintaining muscle. But to most coaches that have a straight football they seem to see the fall backs of wrestling instead the benefits (even when shown examples). I think vest way to fix this is getting the youth football kids into wrestling. For one they may be hooked enough to not be persuaded out of wrestling by a later footballinded coach. Two the football minded coach may see those kids coming up through the system and realize those kids gained some skill through wrestling. The other thing would be to keep the lines of communication open with the middle school and high school coaches to try to continue persuading them of the benefits of both programs working together. Guess we are going off topic though. What other programs have wreatlers on the football team. So far not to big of numbers, hope that is just a coincidence of the first few teams and not a sign of coach encouraged football specialization being more prevalent in the state.

Agreed they are asked (told sometimes) by many coaches to lift weights in the winter. Most end up coming to weights less as the winter goes on. They then hardly show up for spring lifting. Then wonder why they are not gaining muscle when they seriously start lifting in the summer right before the season. Seems like staying in shape and wrestling woudl be good for the winter then they can get into lifting seriously over the spring and summer. Probably with greater results. Somehow not all football coaches see it that way though.

This comes down to Mr. Cox not understanding that it is very hard to find enough competitions for JV wrestlers since not all teams have them and even if they do their weight classes may not line up with yours. The only reason Varsity 2 exists is to getting the rest of your team more competition instead of letting them sit on the bench almost the entire year after they have worked so hard in practice. Most JV kids barely get any matches through the year becuase the other team has no one at that of weight or your team has more than one JV at the weight. Thus Varsity 2 at least allows your top JV kid to get matches and possibly let your second or third JV kid at that weight pick up a few more matches during other dual meets. This is different than most other main team sports where most schools can field a full JV squad to compete against other schools on a regular basis. Thus most other schools have no want or need to ever create a Varsity 2 team since they get more than enough game in during their JV schedules. Heck many even have Freshman teams because of the amount of competitions. Maybe if wrestling in each school would grow a lot more we would have more true JV team duals between schools but as of right now those are very few and far between to find. It is also different than most other individual sports where you can enter multiple JV kids into the same event since it not divided into weight classes. I believe this is another situation where the IHSAA doesn't fully understand the parameters of our sport and tries to lump it together with other team and individiual sports. Seems to me if no individual exceeds the # of total points than anything that would help them get more matches and want to stay on the team would be something the IHSAA should be promoting. While I would agree that the creating of a "wildcard" situation of team points vs. individual points is an extreme example of this situation I would think a Varsity 2 team is not and should be worth having until a more established JV division can be created on most teams. We'll its wasn't deceitful or unethical to the IHSAA by-laws at an earlier time that said a school could field more than one team varsity team for competiton, they just could only enter one itno the IHSAA tournament. Though maybe the rise of Varsity 2 squads in the last 2 years has prompted him to amend that earlier rule.

We looked into it during a previous discussion about the Varsity 2 teams. Unless, the just recently made the adjustment in wording according to somewhere in the IHSAA rules a school is allowed to have more than one varsity squad. I'd have to go back and look at about 150 pages of the by-laws to find the wording so that may not happen any time soon. However, it did mention only one could be entered into the IHSAA sanctioned tournament. They did not say junior varsity in the wording of it though that may have been their intent when it was written. So they may consider them to be an actual second varsity allowing you to count their wins as true varsity wins for future purposes. Seems the IHSAA belief here over how to do points could conflict with more than just Varsity 2, as it would go on to effect anyone on your squad (injured, sick, JV) that wrestled in a certain event or not. So clearly it doesn't fit the actual reason for the point system. Which leads me to believe they just didn't like the idea of spliting up teams and allowing individuals seperately. Which to me means the IHSAA needs to find a different reason to not allow this type "wildcard" or "true" individual tournament to take place or them must change how points are given out.

Brownstown Central does not have wrestling. They made an effort around 2003 to start it but that never panned out.

Coach Snyder reported in another post that the IHSAA said that if anyone entered as a wildcard to the Al Smith that it would be counted against the whole team. Basically the IHSAA must have not liked the idea since that reasoning doesn't follow the rules for how points counted up. But if their interpretation of the rules was correct then any meet Varsity, Varsity 2, JV, or Freshman that occured during the year would count as point towards the entire team which is clearly not how the rules are written. It's not the first time we have seen rules handed down that doesn't fit the written rule, but were to be followed. In this case it seems IHSAA is treating wrestling as a team sport but obviously in other cases they make decisions that fit wtb there idea of it being and individual sport. Conflicting messages indeed.

I don't think they are actually having a US Open for Men's Freestyle next year to decided Olympic Trial order. I believe its just for Grec0 and Women's Freestyle. I think it had something to do with the shortness of time and new multi-level qualification system (not same in other styles) that some may have to go through if the did do well at a major international event. So they are using winning World's as the automatic qualification to the Team Trial finals in place of winning the US Open. Not sure if winning other events like the Pan Am Games will allow the wrestler the same jump to the Trial finals.

They don't use all the weights. I believe I read somewhere on USA Wrestling that we have qualified 3 Olympic Women's weights (Grey was in a non-Olympic weight) out of the 4 weights.

It's basically the same long qualification process Humphrey's had to do to get to Worlds because of Bunch winning a major international event. The idea being that if you can prove yourself at a major world level event that your opponent needs to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt he's capable of that same by not only beating you at the Team Trails, but also placing over you at a major international event too. By the way thanks for the multiple updates maligned. Great job all week on keeping us busy people informed.

Just for clarification it's actually considered tied for 5th because of how the international brackets work with having two 3rds. But the good news is he and Varner did qualify the US for their weights for the Olympics.

On things for sure Seymour's finest make an appearance for it.

Saturday Oct. 1st at Seymour High School the Seymour Wrestling Association will host its annual 5K Run/Walk. The event will start at 8:00am. This is a major fundraiser to help support our youth wrestling programs. To sign up for the 5K Run/Walk and check out other information about the Oktoberfest check out this site http://www.seymouroktoberfest.com/Mainpages/Events.html Feel free to stick around after and enjoy many of the other activities at the Oktoberfest Festival occurring in downtown Seymour.

I'm trying to work on some old records and for some reason can't recall the first they switch from top 2 to top 4 being sent from Sectionals to the Regional. I was thinking it was during the 2003 Sectionals. Any help?