kfcfanatic

A smart person once told me that the world wasn't fair, and the sooner that I accepted that, the better my life would be. We are talking about a small percentage of kids who are effected by the bump to 106. We truthfully can't make our rules for the minority. 103 is the most forfeited weight class. 83 teams showed up to sectionals this year without a 103. We shouldn't be worrying about a bump up to 106. It's not the end of the world. Kids deal with adversity all the time. Do you feel it's unfair for the kid who weighs 235 that has to wrestle heavyweight and may wrestle someone who weighs 285? How many kids can we go out there and say their weight hindered them at 103? Brooks? Ok, so it kept him from the state tournament 1 year! He had a tough draw at Semi-State and lost to an upper classman. That happens a lot to great freshman (I.E. Cody LeCount this year, just a tough weight at that semi-state and a rough draw). If we are going to focus on the "minority" of 98 pound kids out there, I can focus on the "minority" of kids who have excelled in that situation. Stevan Micic this year took 3rd at 103. He just started weighing over 100 lbs. around semi-state. He didn't cut any weight this year and ended up beating a senior who wrestled 112 the year before and gave Boston all he wanted! How about Daniel Meyers of Bellmont? He wrestles heavyweight and in all reality could be a 189 lbs. wrestler. He was giving up a little more than the 11% of weight you are saying is impossible to overcome. It's hard for me to only focus on the minority. Moving the weight up to 106 will positively effect more kids than it hinders. Thus it needed to happen.

Bring on the Boo's. I have no problem with celebrations. Look at every kid jumping into his coaches arms. Jumping up and down and being excited. I think what most people have a problem with (like me) is that it is a planned celebration. Lets be honest, if some kid won an IHSAA title, pulled off his ankle bands and started shooting them out of the air, people would have a huge problem with that. Look at all the people that boo'd McMurray for just putting up 3 fingers in the air the last five seconds of a match (which I didn't even care about). Be excited, just don't be a showman. This isn't the NFL. Be honest with yourselves when you are defending this. Wait till you see Johnny 10 year old win a little kid state title and do that. It's a little outlandish.

In my perfect world..... 108 117 125 133 141 149 157 165 174 184 197 230 285 13 weights... no need for crazy tie breaker criteria any more... closer to the college weights.

Click Here for an explanation of why you aren't getting the brackets How To Rick Roll Somebody

I was bored today so I went through and put together what I think may be the top 8 seeds in each bracket. Really kind of pointless, but enjoy! http://tinyurl.com/alsmithbracket

Your Man Mitch is to blame.... If he didn't cut $300 million from teaching in our state, then they don't have to make that decision. Typical of someone who probably doesn't support a public education. Look at how many teachers are now walking the streets who have little chance of getting a job again? In example our very own Jamie Wingler. 15 years he gave to his school and his community. Now he has been let go, who is going to hire him? 15 years experience? Teaching is the only profession where the more experience you have the less chance you have of being hired. Especially in the economy today. Let's see, do I hire a teacher with 15 years experience and have to pay him $55,000 or a teacher with no experience and pay him $32,000. What do you think the administrator is going to pick? So many schools are operating with bare bones the way it is. Get ready for a massive change in everyone's world because when they cut another $300 million in December, small schools will shut down, other schools will see class sizes skyrocket to 50 plus. There will be no music, physical education, art, tech ed, family and consumer science classes. All of this points to two things. 1. Your man mitch wants to go to private education strictly. Not the basis of a solid public education that our country was founded on. 2. The belief that everyone must go to college. While I agree a majority of our country needs higher education, we need ditch diggers, we need janitors, we need mechanics, we need construction workers, and we need trash men. Without the non-core classes in school, these students will not have the fundamental skills to do these jobs. If something doesn't happen soon, we are going to be in bigger trouble than we are right now. And I'm not talking about us as teachers, I'm talking about us as a state, and as a country.

No Love for Angel? pierson is picking morningstar even though he has a torn mcl? crazyness

Out of season training at RTC's and Academies is very important and I believe is a big reason in the rise of talent in our state. My question is how do these help you during the season? Yes you can have private sessions 1 on 1 with the academies, but that still doesn't fix the things that put you behind the 8-ball from 3:30-5:30. It also makes some people have to drive 2 hours both ways. Let's see how great we would be at our sport if we told everyone to be great you have to travel during season in a car four hours every day. You do what you have to do to be great, but how is it fair that you have to do that while the kids at Mishawaka or Perry don't have to do that? To answer your question why I believe class basketball saved the tournament, I will ask you this AJ. Do you honestly believe that a 1A or 2A school that isn't private can compete consistently with a 4A top 10 team? Recruiting wise it doesn't look like class basketball has hurt Indiana. If you combine both Purdue and IU's basketball squads, 61% of them are from Indiana, while if you do the same for wrestling, only 42% of them are from Indiana.

I hate the argument that class basketball killed the Indiana basketball tournament. Do you really think that Milan High School can win every year? How many 1a and 2a programs that are not private can compete with the 4a champion? Class Basketball saved Basketball. If they had one class in basketball still, they would be having the same arguments for basketball right now that we are having for wrestling. And by saved it, I mean for the athletes. I know as fans we are being screwed over by a bunch of excitement. But for the athletes, at least they have a shot. If it was always about being the best of the best of the best of the best then we would have no division II, III, NAIA, or JUCO programs, everyone would have to be DI or not go at all.

Here go my cool points! LOL First off I want to start by saying I am a proponent of class wrestling. I think most people can agree that they would like to see a classed team tournament. Based on the argument from five years ago to now, I would imagine that the percentage of people for a class team tournament has increased dramatically. It only makes sense. The only thing holding people back on the individual side of the card is the fact that we have the coolest state tournament out of any sport. I've been to just about every sports state finals, and I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that the pageantry and excitement of our state finals is matched by none of the other tournaments. People just don't want to lose this. The fact of the matter is that going to a class individual tournament will most likely increase participation due to the higher amounts of success programs will have, which in turn will result in better wrestling depth overall. I am also on the side of class wrestling because I came from a small school and I have been involved with small sized schools, medium sized schools, and large schools. Advantages of large schools- More practice partners, normally better quality of coaching, and more opportunities to specialize. Why would great coaches want to stay at a small school knowing that they could have more athletes that they got to see more as the year went on? Why would great coaches stay at a small school when they could make more than twice as much money at a large school. I know first hand that in one sectional there is a school where the head coach makes $2000 and has no paid assistants positions while at another school the head coach makes $6000, and has two paid positions that make $4000 and $2500. That's a difference of $10,500 in salary money between the two schools. Which one is most likely to get a better overall staff from top to bottom? We all know how important having a great head coach is, but look back to your days in high school, how many of you had a great assistant head coach that spent a lot of individual time with you? Being able to have more of these people on board is a huge help. There are just so many more advantages at a big school than at a small school. The whole argument with staying with a single class system is like saying the following in academics to the small schools: We are going to give you the same test as we are going to give the large schools, but we are going to give you far less resources. Your teachers do not have to be licensed in the area they are teaching and are going to be paid 1/2 as much as the large school teachers, you are only going to get half of the book, and you must take three of the tests and be successful at all of them while the large school kids only have to take one or two of the tests and be successful in one. Do you think if we treated education in small schools the way that we treat athletics in small schools people wouldn't be calling for a change?

LaPorte Regional 103- Petrov 2nd 119- Bradley 2nd 119- Hawkins 5th 125- Petrov 6th 130- Tsirtsis Champ 135- Acuna Qualifier 140- Brady 3rd 140- Flamme Qualifier 145- Roach Champ 152- Schultz Qualifier 160- McMurray Champ 160- Quiroz Qualifier 215- Cleveland Champ 13 Qualifiers 9 Placers 6 Finalists 4 Champs

I have huge issues with people booing kids at the state tournament. On the other hand I don't have huge issues booing duck and run! ;D

I took each Semi-State and added up all of their place finishes. If a wrestler placed at state, they earned their placement value, if they did not placed, then I gave them a 9. Here is how it came out. Merrillville- 6.11 New Castle- 6.64 Evansville- 7 Fort Wayne- 7.27

CP could swap Shurg and T-Shirts if they listed Shurg at 130 on the sectional roster.

What can fix this whole situation for everyone? The answer is quite simple.... Wrestlebacks! We have a flawed tournament. Year in and year out, the best four wrestlers from semi-state do not make it out because of the draw. If we had wrestlebacks at the regional and semi-state level, coaches would not be trying to find out their draw. Lets look at it this way. Let's say that 3 of the four best wrestlers in your semi-state are in your regional. The other wrestler that is in your semi-state is Andrew Howe. You are one one of those three kids in your regional. You lose your semi-final match and are now wrestling for 3rd and 4th. You somehow find out that if you get third, you will have to wrestle Andrew Howe in the round to go to state, but if you get fourth, you will have to wrestle a kid you've beat three times the first round and another kid you have beat in the round to go. What would you do? There have been several instances where this happens. I bet if Justin Mora would have known that he had Danny Williams Friday night at state because he won semi-state, he would have thought twice about winning that match (Although it did create the best Friday night match I've ever seen). This situation is just another reason why we need wrestlebacks.