Spladdelbait

I am guessing WATCHING College Wrestling is as close as you have ever gotten. There are many fine wrestlers in the state of Indiana, and trust me, college coaches have a vision of what they want and seek out those who they feel can help them and their programs reach the goals they have set. If that baffles you, please make an appointment to speak to the Purdue Wrestling Coaching Staff and ask them. But do yourself a favor and work on the grammar a bit.

No Boo from me! You have hit the nail squarely sir. One personal observation from someone who knows all to well what a College Recruiter looks for I can tell you this much. The good recruiters will look at the character of the individual AND the family first. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen kids who were Terror Toys on the mat, but had no idea what they wanted to do with their lives. That indicates that the young man is not focused on what is really important, and more often than not the parents are not encouraging their kids in the right ways. As I said just a personal observation.

I see that we can't even offer congratulations to a fine team on a fine performance in one of the toughest events in the young men's lives to this point without people using it for their own purposes. Rather embarrassing to say the least.

I can only speak to what I saw last weekend. I do know that there have been teams that have been present in virtually every Team State Tourney since it was started in Indiana. A great accomplishment for the teams of course, but over all it is not all that great for the sport as a whole. No one is saying these teams have anything to apologize for. They should be commended for their ability to maintain the excellence they have achieved. If I am reading the program from Saturday correctly there were 4 teams who made their first appearance in this event. That is incredible! I would have to say that the issue of parity is clearly a good thing. The more teams that see the opportunity to compete for the Team Title the more kids that take the chance to wrestle. Honestly if one or two teams win year in and year out then interest wanes and participation drops. There will always be dominant programs and teams that are potential champions, but the beauty of Wrestling is that nothing is etched in stone. In 40 plus years around the sport I have seen dominant teams in many states. The one thing that seems to always occur is parity returns and the sport is stronger for it. Other teams become the dominant forces until parity is returned. Just another way Wrestling is Life.

A fine effort from a team that I think is losing 6 seniors total. I think Delphi will be doing just fine in 2010 also!

This has to be the most closely contested Team State Final I have ever seen. 5 Duals decided by 8 or less points. 2 of them decided by 1 point each. Are you kidding me! Outstanding!!!!

I am a fan of the individual tourney myself. It was great watching kids battle through the brackets from Sectionals to the State Finals for not only personal glory, but to bring home the team title also.

no need to worry. Castle has been focusin all week on Delphi. They haven't looked one match past Looking forward to the brawl!!!! The Castle - Delphi dual will be a good one that is for sure! Much respect to both programs!

I don't really have a dog in this fight,. I have had the pleasure of watching most of the teams represented this weekend over this season. The talent level of these 8 teams is much closer than I think many people want to admit. As for the comment Bluebolt made about "letting them wrestle it out" I agree. The bashing of individuals and teams is not what this is all about. It's about celebrating the states best teams and crowning the Champion. One man's opinion of course.

It seems Indiana has 8 very deserving teams meeting this Saturday. As always some teams will get all the love and others will be totally ignored. Ever heard that it's the quiet ones you need to keep an eye on the most?

You said it my friend.

They never have had much of a sense of humor have they?

http://www.cifstate.org/sports/state/wrestling/pdf/Wrestling%20Handbook2009.pdf See page 9. I think Dave and John are going to the NCAAs too. Should be a great time. Give me a call and let me know what your plans are and we will all get together and go.

Exactly Keep in mind that each of these districts are broken down further in to sub districts that all feed into those final allotments. It's been a few years since I was in California, but the non-city specific districts covered a huge area and often were the home to cities far larger than the larger population cities in Indiana. Think about it like this: You have to be one of the top 9 in your weight class in an area larger than Indiana just to qualify for the state tourney. As for the poster that was complaining about the "gym" I suggest you take a look at the document linked to this thread and you will see this "gym". It's actually a great facility given the insane number of competitors it allows. Like I said, it's just my opinion, but I think when you look at the differences in population I would put the quality of Indiana wrestling right there with California wrestling!

thats a good question id like to see the answer to that I will do my best to answer this. You need to keep in mind that CIF handles things completely differently than most anywhere in the country. If you look at Section 4.3 of the handbook linked to this thread, you will notice immediately that they don't break down their state into a Sectional, Regional, Semi State and State format. Read that brief rule and then answer this one question: Is the current format in Indiana that bad? If you say yes, move to California, get a coaching a job, and come talk to us in a few years. Indiana's system is actually very friendly to all the teams and individuals. As for the atmosphere in Bakersfield. Well it is CRAZY. 10 Mats running match after match. Honestly it is a bit of sensory overload. I have to add here, I am not a huge fan of Class Wrestling. It has it's pluses in some situations but also has it's drawbacks. I have read over the endless arguments here and I am not really in favor of Indiana moving that way.