ccbig

Thank you for the updates. I hope more tourneys will consider using trackwrestling in the future. Trackwrestling makes it very easy for friends and families not able to attend an event be able to follow the action online. Many of the nationals and other major tourneys are on trackwrestling. Using this kind of a system can really help get our Indiana wrestlers some attention nationwide. When at national events like Fargo for freestyle and greco we were often able to have the next bracket pairings faster then they were posted on the walls. Very handy for helping the wrestlers to be in the right color uniform and be prepared for their match.

Some of us are very experienced with trackwrestling. The service they provide is a terrific tool. It is however, only as good as the information provided to it. For those of us who counted on it's accuracy, it didn't work well this time, at this event.

119 - Tyler Chapple - Penn .... is a junior not a freshman

Matches started at 145 lbs. By the time it had worked back around to 135 only 6 points separated the 2 teams.... Very close team match IMO. Certainly not the blow out win for MHS predicted by many. Quality wrestling from both teams. What a fun night for wrestling!

Thanks for the info. I didn't know what the format was for this tourney. I had thought this was a team tourney.

Mid week rankings updates are interesting but how does a wrestler fall out of the rankings if their team hadn't even wrestled so far in that week? Not a criticism just trying to understand the ranking system.

During the spring of my 10th grade year I was 235. With a very tough work out schedule and STRICT dieting I was at 145 by the start of 11th grade wrestling season. I would encourage this coach to have this kid work out as hard as possible, give him a healthy diet to follow and have him work with the heavyweights on mostly standing upper body stuff for now. A bigger man can actually lose a fair amount of weight fairly quickly with the right combination of exercise and diet. He will need lots of encouragement. This could be a life changing event for him. I wish him the best of luck, I know he can do it.

Projected Lineups for each school?

You Know You're a Wrestler When.... Cauliflower isn't a vegetable. You can't wait for Christmas...because you'll get 2 pounds. Shoving cotton in your nose seems normal. You wonder how much hair weighs. The coach asks you to do 50 pushups and you think "that's it?" You see someone bend over and you imagine how easy it would be to put them in a cradle. You won't even take a nap on your back. You won't lock your hands when hugging your boyfriend or girlfriend Your coach tells you "cut him" and a knife doesn't cross your mind. You see someone lying on their back and you feel the urge to slap the ground beside them. Gyms look weird without mats on the floor. You'll know exactly how much weight you will lose when you take off your shoes. You have a black eye but don't remember how it might have happened. Asics, Cliff keen, and Brute are more familiar to you than nike or reebok. You tape your shoe laces before the Prom. You have to go to the bathroom before weigh-ins, and the rest of the team high-fives you because of it. Everytime you go to shake hands with someone, you have to fight off the urge to arm drag them. When you put clothes ON before bed instead of taking them OFF

Based on the stats I posted about cadets & juniors I would say Wisconsin & Minnesota both should be on the top 10 list.

Here are how the top 10 state's cadets & juniors placed in greco & freestlye at Fargo this season. Since cadets & juniors are high school age I thought this might be be something to add to the discussion. Cadet Greco Team Places by State 1. Wisconsin - 61.00 2. Minnesota - 58.00 3. Illinois - 57.00 4. California - 35.00 5. Michigan - 31.00 6. Pennsylvania - 31.00 7. Iowa - 26.00 8. Virginia - 25.00 9. New Jersey - 21.00 10. Colorado - 18.00 Junior Greco Team Places by State 1. Illinois - 71.00 2. Florida - 48.00 3. Minnesota - 41.00 4. California - 37.00 5. Arizona - 36.00 6. Pennsylvania - 25.00 7. Wisconsin - 22.00 8. Oregon - 21.00 9. Washington - 20.00 10. Utah - 19.00 Cadet Freestyle Team Places by State 1. Illinois - 85.00 2. Pennsylvania - 69.00 3. Ohio - 58.00 4. Iowa - 53.00 5. Minnesota - 48.00 6. Michigan - 39.00 7. California - 30.00 8. Missouri - 27.00 9. New Jersey - 26.00 10. Wisconsin - 22.00 Junior Freestyle Team Places by State 1. Pennsylvania - 71.00 2. Minnesota - 48.00 3. Illinois - 39.00 4. California - 29.00 5. Missouri - 28.00 6. New Jersey - 28.00 7. Iowa - 27.00 8. Washington - 24.00 9. Wisconsin - 23.00 10. Ohio - 21.00

99% of freshmen can't compete with seniors in technique. I hope nobody is crazy enough to say any given freshman can hold their own with an average upperclassmen. 99%? *laughs* any given freshman? : Years of experience on the mat make the largest difference IMO not what year a wrestler is in H.S. Underclassmen who have been wrestling since kindergarden are going to be leaps & bounds ahead in skills development then a 4 years of experience senior. While I hear many grumbles about a underclassman earning a varsity letter I hear very few grumbles from those same people about the upperclassman who has little to no experience earning a letter. (Which often happens at the upper weights)

So, even removing the 103 & 112 weight classes there are still nearly 20% of the wrestlers making state as underclassmen. Not to bad for kids who should be being overwhelmed completely from what seems to be bantered around by some about how much better older wrestlers are said to be in wrestling. I don't know how it could be measured but I would like to know how many wrestlers as upperclassmen are starters with less then 4 years of wrestling experience and what weights they wrestle. My guess would be that overwhelmingly the top 2 weight classes are overwhelmingly filled with wrestlers with a very limited amount of wrestling experience. Instead of age as a measuring stick I would rather see us looking at ways to increase the number of opportunities for experienced & long term dedicated wrestlers. Stats I have seen at a national level suggest the the upper 2 weight classes have roughly the same number of forfeits as the lower 2 weight classes. I don't support getting rid of those upper classes either. I will never understand the logic of how wrestling is helped by decreasing the possible number of participants. I want to grow wrestling participation, not limit it. I want to see wrestling continue to be the one sport that a true athlete no matter what size big or small can compete. Increasing the skill of the wrestlers should be the goal not limiting participation.

If age does not matter why at state are most state qualifiers seniors then juniors then sophomores and finally freshmen? What I was trying to point out is that because a wrestler is a junior or senior does not mean that they necessarily have more years of wrestling experience then a freshman or a sophomore. Wrestling skills and abilities should be the emphasis not age. How is a senior with 2 or 4 years of experience more deserving of a varsity spot then a wrestler who had wrestled for 10 years? Are they more deserving simply by age? If age is the qualifier and not wrestling skills I think that says something bad about where our sport is going IMO. To answer your question more directly the weight classes are set up on what is basically a bell curve based on average sizes. Because it is a bell curve a larger majority of older wrestlers will fit into the most weight categories vs. fewer younger wrestlers. The problem with the new weight classes IMO is that the age groups chosen as a baseline are older then what they should be. I believe these new weight groups are based on size averages for wrestlers ages 15-19. I think the average age of a freshman is 14 and the average age of a senior is 18. Males tend to continue growing into their early 20's By choosing a year older in size the weights become skewed to larger/older kids while at the same time discriminating against the smaller sized wrestlers who as I stated before are often the kids who have wrestled the longest and thus often have the more years of wrestling experience and skills. Further, what about the future? If we start cutting out the opportunities for the smaller wrestlers at the high school level where do those lightweights come from to participate at the college and olympic levels of wrestling?

My 3 son's vary hugely in size. My oldest wrestled at 215 and my younger sons wrestle in the lightest weights. I take great offense to any statement that the lighter weights are "easier". In my opinion the highest weights are often the weakest and here is why... Age does not equal experience or skill level, nor does size/weight. I have seen over and over again in multiple programs very inexperienced wrestlers (with only a few years in wrestling) being starters on teams at the heavier weights. It has also been my experience that most of the lightest wrestlers (even the youngest) had more years of wrestling experience when compared to the experience of most heavyweights. Because of how most heavyweights wrestle mostly on their feet looking for headlocks etc. simply being strong may be good enough for some heavies to win many matches during a season. That simply does not happen at the lightest weights. Lightweight wrestlers that have success are skilled WRESTLERS. Heavier/larger wrestlers have a multitude of sports they can compete in. Very few large kids ever devote themselves solely to wrestling as their main sport. Lighter weight kids have less opportunity to play other sports because of their size. The ones that become wrestlers do so because it is one of the few sports they can participate in without being at a disadvantage for being smaller. A small wrestler is much more likely to have wrestling be their main sport. If we want wrestling to be about truly having wrestling skills then I think that elimination of the lightest weights is a gross error.

Our family is moving from Minnesota to Indiana this season. Minnesota has had very successful freestyle and greco teams at schoolboy, cadet & junior levels for many years. Because I am not familiar with Indiana wrestling please forgive me if in Indiana you do any of these things already. 1) Have regional training sites for freestyle and greco that are open to all cadets and juniors with a USA card. For example, in Minnesota, Augsburg college was a training site that hosted 3 nights a week of training. 2 nights were for cadets and juniors (with 1 night each for freestyle & greco) and 1 night for schoolboy/schoolgirl (freestyle & greco same night) The cadet & junior training nights were always Mondays & Wednesdays. This let the individual clubs schedule their practices on other nights of the week to allow for maximum opportunity of training days open to wrestlers. The cadet & junior training site at Augsburg had former olympians coaching each style along with the some of the best high school and local Minnesota USA coaches in the state. All those coaches were volunteers (unpaid) for the training sites. Many wrestlers traveled over and hour or more 1 way to get to these regional sites on these training nights because of the quality of coaching and the quality of training partners. 2) Encourage wrestlers to wrestle at regional qualifiers. Wrestlers who finish in the top at regions are considered "freebies" for nationals. This lets a state bring extra wrestlers to nationals. 3) Host a camp for those interested in going to the nationals in Fargo. Minnesota has 1 week long camps for each style (freestyle & greco)(for cadets & juniors). These camps are timed so that wrestlers get on a bus at the end of camp and go straight with their coaches to Fargo. Attending these camps should be mandatory for any wrestlers hoping on going to Fargo because this let's the team coaches see each wrestler right before the tourney and pick the best wrestlers for the teams. 4) Indiana USA wrestling should fund as much as possible the costs of the camp and costs of nationals for all the wrestlers on teams going to Fargo. The cheaper costs are for camp and going to nationals the more wrestlers will be able to afford to attend camp and the more wrestlers who will try to earn a spot on the team. 5) Minnesota has it's USA tourney for cadets and lower ages for freestyle and greco on the same 3/4 day weekend. It is a huge tourney. Junior state freestyle and greco is wrestled on a different weekend. This allowed cadets to wrestle "up" a age group at the junior tourney if they choose.