aoberlin

Not only did your Friday night go bad.  But hey get in line and buy a ticket like the rest of them you bums!!!  So nice of them.

I would agree. Adjust every year as far as I am concerned. Create a committee and have them decide every year what match should be last after the semi finals are done. Call it the main event.

We will rise again!!!! Everyone of you trolls can shut it.

I love the excitement of the ticket round also.  But I personally have been affected by the lack of wrestle backs and I have helped coach way too many heart broken kids that should have made the trip to State. 

Unless we are missing something taking 5 to State may be a great idea.  It may have been explored before but I am not sure.  This would be something they have allowed before at the Semi-State level and would bring more attendance to State which brings more money.  The logistics of adding another round at the beginning of State would need to be explored.  Maybe we do round one of the 5 vs 4 then round two we do 2 vs 3 first then 1 vs (winner of 5 v 4) to give time for recovery.

It's not true that the other individual sports don't allow you to lose.  All of the sports you mention except for tennis allow you to not be the winner and still advance.  We have to do a better job of helping the IHSAA understand that not having wrestle backs in wrestling is like dividing swimmers or track runners into heats and taking the top 2 per heat to state, no matter their times.  That wouldn't be fair and neither is our random draw system.

Not just the tough kids who have their careers ended in a flawed system. The impact on a team race based off of individual system. 1 dollar more pre person at the door 5000 people per venue. Can we trade 20,000 for 1 more hour of wrestling?

Wrestle backs. Individual class tournament can suck it!

Can we go back and see what the presentations were for wrestle backs in the years past to see if we can add to them or improve on them? Not assuming they were bad just wanting to see them.

I could live with this!!!  You get 4th or 5th you really have to fight your way back.  Actually I would say it gives the 4th or 5th placer a better chance at beating the number 1 placer because they would have that first match out of the way.

Our best chance at getting any form of wrestle backs is to use the IHSAA's own idea of wrestling back to 5th, just like they did a few years ago.  Top 5 qualify for state.  No extra time at semistate than they have done before.  
 
4th & 5th placers wrestle first round of state before the winner faces a semistate champ.  Adds about 2 hours to Friday night, but would bring in more money with ticket sales for the IHSAA.  It would actually take less time Friday night if they did this and put 8 mats down - I've been told that is possible at Banker's Life.  
 
It's not full wrestle backs, but does give a chance for terrible draws to have a chance to still qualify.  And those 4th/5th matchups would be fun to watch.  I'm guessing a majority of 5ths would beat 4ths.  That data could be used to try to get full wrestle backs in a few years.

Can we go back and see what the presentations were for wrestle backs in the years past to see if we can add to them or improve on them? Not assuming they were bad just wanting to see them.

I wouldn't waste any time on his comment.  Even Leo's coach said it was the right call for your team.  It is called "Team" State for a reason.

Only for you coach!

House?  Does that come with some deer hunting property?

I wouldn't waste any time on his comment.  Even Leo's coach said it was the right call for your team.  It is called "Team" State for a reason.

I wouldn't waste any time on his comment.  Even Leo's coach said it was the right call for your team.  It is called "Team" State for a reason.

I wouldn't waste any time on his comment.  Even Leo's coach said it was the right call for your team.  It is called "Team" State for a reason.

OK, I know this won't make me popular, but facts are facts.
 
As much as people on this board say they want a dual meet tournament, the fact is that when you had one, only a few schools really supported it.
 
And by that, I mean this:
 
Most years, when the tournament was at Center Grove, the stands were full. The IHSAA liked that. But most years, both Evansville Mater Dei and Bellmont were there, and 2/3 of the crowd was from those two schools.
 
Then a strange year came along. I believe it was 2010. And horror of horrors, neither Bellmont or Mater Dei qualified for the meet.
 
And what did the IHSAA discover when they got there? The bleachers were half-empty.  And it was quiet.
 
So, the IHSAA did some investigating, and what they discovered was -- other than the big two -- most teams only brought a couple hundred fans at most to the meet.
 
Some schools barely brought a hundred. I won't name names, but all you had to do was look around and you knew who they were. 
 
So, a light went off in the heads of the IHSAA bigwigs. All of a sudden, they realized that whether they made a profit or not depended entirely on two teams.
 
If there's one thing the IHSAA isn't going to do, it's lose money. And having your gate reliant on the fans from Mater Dei and Bellmont made them squeamish.
 
Second, this investigation also made them realize something that the rest of us already knew:  It was the same teams qualifying year after year.
 
​Not entirely, of course. But face it, you knew that Mater Dei was going to be there pretty much every year. And Lawrence North. And Mishawaka or Penn. And Portage or Crown Point.  Yadda yadda yadda.  There were exceptions, but for the most part, it rarely changed. 
 
So what was the motivation for everybody else?
 
Heck, whether you realize it or not, one of the reasons the team semistate was dropped was because the same teams were winning every year. In fact, it got to the point that some schools were sending their jayvee teams to the semistate, because they knew they couldn't win. So they just punted it.  Ask the folks at Bellmont what happened at their semistate one year.
 
So, the IHSAA got the sense that other than the top 8 or 10 programs, nobody really cared about team state, because they knew their schools weren't going to be there.
 
AND, they also saw that most teams that lost in the first round at the team state finals would immediately leave.  If the wrestling was so good and the tournament meant so much to everybody, why didn't the fans stick around and watch, just a little bit.
 
Combine this with the fact that the coaches -- who had begged for the team tournament -- continued to hand out their own championship trophy at the individual state finals. That did NOT go over well at the IHSAA.
 
So the IHSAA said to hell with it, and dropped the tourney.
 
My source for most of this, by the way, is somebody very high up at the IHSAA.  Name rhymes with Rocks.
 
As always, just because I report these things does not mean that I agree with them. But, again, facts are facts.
 
So, be mad at the IHSAA all you want. But while you are doing that, take a look in the mirror. It's a very simple question: In the 17 years of the team state finals, where were you?

Actually I just bought indianaclasswrestling.com so Joe couldn't.

You see this every year. Kids come into sectionals with pretty solid records, get seeded, and then get beat out and don't advance. That will never change. You can't penalize a kid for not wrestling a schedule that is as tough as another wrestler's. It's not his fault. Say that wrestler's school would start beefing up their schedule, and then the team starts doing really bad. I bet the numbers on that already small team start to dwindle away. When it comes to seeding the main job is to get the two best wrestlers on the opposite sides of the bracket. Sure sometimes the top 2 end up at the 2&3 seeds, but the actual matches itself usually start to weed out what some would call "inflated" records. Either the kid is going to be good enough to advance, or not make it out of sectionals. Usually the better 4 are moving out of sectionals anyways.

I honestly don't think classed wrestling will help that much if at all.  The one thing I know it will do is ruin arguably the best wrestling state tournament in the country.  In my opinion wrestling already is classed and that is by weight class.  I really like the classed team state and I believe that is how it should be.  When the kids get out of high school and decides to do boxing, MMA, or Jui Jitsu will they still be in the classes they were put in during high school?  Nope they will be put in weight classes.  I have just always honestly felt classed individual state champion is a watered down state champ.  There should be only one.  If we were classed anticipated matches have more of a chance of not happening.  (Red vs Lee) 
 
The bottom line is wrestling isn't for everyone and shouldn't be.  We as coaches have to instill the love of it in the kids because when it is done right it is way too hard to stay committed without passion for it.
 
Maybe wrestlers are becoming a dying breed but I don't think school sizes have anything to do with it.
 
Just give me wrestle backs!!!

I honestly don't think classed wrestling will help that much if at all.  The one thing I know it will do is ruin arguably the best wrestling state tournament in the country.  In my opinion wrestling already is classed and that is by weight class.  I really like the classed team state and I believe that is how it should be.  When the kids get out of high school and decides to do boxing, MMA, or Jui Jitsu will they still be in the classes they were put in during high school?  Nope they will be put in weight classes.  I have just always honestly felt classed individual state champion is a watered down state champ.  There should be only one.  If we were classed anticipated matches have more of a chance of not happening.  (Red vs Lee) 
 
The bottom line is wrestling isn't for everyone and shouldn't be.  We as coaches have to instill the love of it in the kids because when it is done right it is way too hard to stay committed without passion for it.
 
Maybe wrestlers are becoming a dying breed but I don't think school sizes have anything to do with it.
 
Just give me wrestle backs!!!

Thanks for the lesson.  But we can agree to disagree, it is totally different when you are that small.  I actually weighed 95 pounds my freshman year and there is absolutely no way I could have done anything against a kid that naturally weighs at least 110.

Joe can I ban him please!!!  I am very protective of the small guys.  I am still really upset they moved it to 106.  Leave the little ones alone.  This sport is the one sport a 100 pound freshman can compete at.  It used be a 95 pound freshman but they changed that.