base

It's great to see so many Indiana HS names among IU starting lineup!

Now, the question will be whether or not they can have success in the Big10 with this lineup

Penn State seems to have the OTC that a lot of the US elite are training at, so I'm going with them.  They have tons of talent in the room - so Jesse will be able to sharpen his skills daily

No Washington in the IU wrestling lineup??

- On Monument Circle in downtown Indianapolis

- An abandoned steel mill in Gary

- You want a loud crowd - how about in one of the state penitentiaries.  Disclaimer: This may be a horrible idea, but hey if Johnny Cash could perform at Folsom...

- School-related, but not High School:  IU or Purdue wrestling facility, or maybe Assembly Hall / Mackey Arena / Hinkle Fieldhouse

- Halftime of Colts game

- On the lawn of the Governor's Mansion

- Undercard of a big boxing or MMA event

I was waiting for the class wrestling debate to break out   Good interview Joe!

Congratulations on your signing

Congratulations and go Purdue!!

It's great to see IU and Purdue keeping some of Indiana's talent in-state

Congratulations! Air Force Academy is a beautiful location

"No Pain, No Gain" has some additional meaning now for those grinding out long practices

This is a great addition for IU - I am so happy to see both them and Purdue on the rise!

i thought he already sat out a year of wrestling due to being blocked by Penn last season?  You mean he has to miss *ANOTHER* season of HS Wrestling??

15 hours ago, indypharmd said:

When you look at the population heat map of the state, it does beg the question about redistributing the indianapolis metro area to the four corners of the state. The better question would be which programs would go where...  

 

That population heat map shown on the link seems like it must be based on density, not necessarily county population.  Randolph and Union counties along the Ohio border are dark red, while Vanderburgh count (Evansville), Allen county (Fort Wayne) and Delaware county (Muncie) are orange?

Any insight as to what Indiana will choose to use?  Will we (hopefully) stick with 14?

My first impression is that once you drop a weight, it is likely that it will never be added back - but I hope I am wrong on that

Nothing says he has to be a starter - and comfort level could make him blossom into a better wrestler. Either way, just come home and represent the home state!

Just now, wrestlenewbie said:

Peacock has the morning session today

Says I have to have Peacock Premium @ $4.99 a month??

Just now, wrestlenewbie said:

They also offer a one week free trial

Thx, I will try it

Just now, wrestlenewbie said:

Peacock has the morning session today

Says I have to have Peacock Premium @ $4.99 a month??

Is anyone streaming this where you don't have to pay?

Would love to see him come on home to Purdue

Coach Hughes - I think they are all interesting proposals.  Ultimately, however it is not about what the fans like me think - your audience has to be the coaches to gain a unified proposal and then the IHSAA.

Maybe Y2 could create a coach's-only forum on here where real open discussion can take place, maybe even setup a Zoom meeting for coaches statewide to go over one or two proposals.  Another recommendation I would put out there is to see if Y2 or Maligned or some other braniac would take this year's wrestlers, calculate an index based on sectional/regional performance or rankings - and then show the coaches what the brackets in a semistate/state tournament might look like with your proposal(s).  Seeing the names of wrestlers they are familiar with will either bolster your support, or take it away

One issue that really can't be resolved is that due to budgets, school responsibilities and potential bad weather around the time of sectionals - they *HAVE TO* be grouped geographically.

Whether there is one class or 4 classes, this can lead to imbalance.  There are hot spots where multiple strong teams are located - anyone else in that area is going to have a difficult time progressing in the tournament.

So, the goal cannot be to make it completely balanced.  One additional thing that could be proposed is that each sectional could shift a few teams each year with neighboring sectionals, to smooth out the impact of having a couple of hammers in your backyard every year.

I think this proposal is a great compromise for both sides of the class debate that has been ongoing for years.

I would like to see either randomization of matchups in the Week 3 tournament so the same Sections do not always wrestle, or potentially even use a seeding formula at that time

I am very happy to have a concrete proposal that could possibly receive wide spread support and be moved forward through the ADs and IHSAA.

21 hours ago, ghughes1974 said:

 

Attached is more about one such option that a growing number of small school coaches are supporting.  The idea is to keep the individual tournament, but change the way wrestlers get there.  

 

I look forward to hearing everyone's thoughts. 

 

Coach Hughes

Indianapolis Lutheran

 

ImprovingWrestlingforSmallSchools.pdf 750.69 kB · 36 downloads

I believe this proposal deserves its own thread - it is well thought out and strikes a balance between traditionalists and small school class proponents

2 minutes ago, Y2CJ41 said:

I showed you three programs that did not participate in sectional this year that were around at least the past couple years. As I stated before not everyone is going to do it at once, but it will happen slowly. No one really cares about Blue River Valley, I'm sure most couldn't even name what semi-state they are in. When a school shuts their program down there isn't going to be a big press release like they do in college. They quietly don't schedule events and everyone forgets it existed.

 

We had 500 less wrestlers at sectional than in 2011, that is roughly 35 FULL teams we have lost in VARSITY participation alone. Maybe I'm chicken little, but that indicates a really big problem. Even if you take out the fun COVID year, we were down 400 wrestlers at sectional from 2011-2019 or just over 28 FULL VARSITY line-ups. Again we have lost the equivalent of almost 30 full teams in 8 years. That is not a good trend, if you cannot agree with that then we are in different solar systems.

 

That goes along with losing 25% of the athletes in the sport from 2004-2019. Again, if you don't think that's an issue then we are in different solar systems.

 

No one has ever claimed class wrestling is a magic bullet. We had 6600 athletes in 2019, if you double the amount of placements we would go from 1.6% of the athletes being state placers to 3.2%. Boy that is really handing out participation trophies. 

 

False, it will help those bigger schools also. Small schools would see an increase of 79% of their state qualifiers and big schools would see 21% more state qualifiers. Those ones that struggle will send more kids deeper into the state tournament. 

 

If more kids wrestle, the better off we are. I'm not sure how hard that is to understand.

Overall the classed team event has helped about 15-20 programs in each class. Classed individual state will affect every team.

 

Youth programs are not the only magic bullet either. Most schools have some form of a youth program, just look at the ISWA list.

I looked up Blue River Valley - their AD is the former wrestling coach. Are we sure they have permanently cut the program?

I completely agree that participation increase is a benefit - I don't think classing individual HS tournament is the magic bullet

I also don't think youth is the only magic bullet - but I do think it is one that is in our current control, where HS class wrestling is likely not.  I favor focusing on something where action can be taken NOW

1 minute ago, Galagore said:

 

What an individual classed tournament gives small schools is a foothold to sell all of that hard work. At our school, we have had two state champions. One was a guy who was 275 pounds and still athlete enough to run the 200m dash on our track team. The other was literally the best athlete in the history of our school. My point is, not people I can walk up to the average kid walking the hallway and say, "hey, just do what he did!" The class wrestling foothold gives us a chance to have more wrestlers of reasonable athletic ability who have put in the work show success, thus making the work more of a selling point. This in turn leads to more success, etc.

I get what you're saying and I think your heart is definitely for the kids.  My point is that the focus on recruiting these kids to wrestle should be at the youth level. Show me a program that has a strong youth program and weak HS program - probably not many.  And the inverse of that is also true (I think)