The rule book and the state go in to great detail as to the weigh-in process, and yesterday's fiasco will only cause greater complication. As I recall, "Official" weigh-in is when all wrestlers are called to the secured weigh-in area, and when an official is standing at the scale to validate the weight at that moment in time for that weight class. Kid makes weight he wrestles. It is not official when kids come in and check weight prior to and other wrestlers and/or coaches are looking over their shoulders. Prior to the "official" weigh-in how many more kids have checked their weight- step on, step off, step on, step off, etc? I am told the scales were moved in the weigh-in area to make it more organized for the "official" weigh in. Now. How many times have wrestlers//coaches seen .2-.5 fluctuations both +/- from when a kid checked weight? I know I've seen it, because the repeated checks, and even when a scale is moved it can change a bit. And if this is considered "tampering", I'm not buying it. It happens like this every Saturday. Here's my question? Why would a wrestler want to be spot on? When my son wrestled, he and I wanted him .3 at least under at our school to make sure he accounted for any fluctuations, and yes scales do fluctuate. He wanted to leave no doubt because of these flucutations we all experience. As to the future, I guess the IHSAA will have to provide the scales and they must be secured at all times, just like at State, or hey we weigh-in our kids and fax them in on Friday and everyone trust they are legit. If there was no question as to the integrity of our coaches or sport then we wouuld allow this, instead we have(or did have) "official" weigh-ins to remove that challange of integrity. At least for the rest of the year or until more rules are sent down from the state " the someone tampered with scale " excuse is in play because precedence has been set. Nutsdad hey I know you want to speek your peace on here, but you need to bite your tongue when these issues so close to your son come about. Let hhis wrestling do the talking. Someone accused my son of being one of the dirtiest wrestlers he'd ever seen, and I bit my tongue when he was still wrestling.
Ken Zuber
Memorial Bus Driver