WaltHarris

I am not a proponent of NUWAY, although I appreciate the manner in which they run their events. This efficient event model has been adopted by a majority of wrestling organizations well beyond nuway. Saying I am a pitch-man for nuway lacks nuance of the matter. It is also the exactly xenophobic(suffering from xenophobia; having abnormal fear or hatred of the strange or foreign.) attitude that placed Indiana into its current set of issues. Long ago, catholics were told not to read the bible. The only reason they were told so was because catholic church leaders did not want to be like the protestants who consistently read the bible. There was no real reason. They just had to be different. Sometimes our xenophobia in Indiana wrestling is not really based on anything legitimate, simply a desire to be different. And it has comeback to bite us; particularly in the area of local tourney depletion and lack of adopting modern pairing/tournament scheduling techniques. I do not believe folkstyle is evil. I like folkstyle. From a historical perspective, I simply believe the data shows the introduction of iswa folkstyle unintentionally decimated fs/gr. In the US, most people just naturally will flock to folkstyle over fs/gr when give the choice. Now that only folkstyle is left as a reasonable option, people are fleeing the state to find better competition. I don't like it. But I can acknowledge it.

The following dates might be off by a year or so. I offer anyone’s input to corrections. These are just my opinions. 1983: ISWA starts offering freestyle(fs)/greco(gr) tourneys. Attendance low. ISWA viewed as outsider. 1990s: Significant attendance growth in fs/gr. A preponderance of Indiana wrestling community start to see the benefit of fs/gr. The fs/gr tournaments start the week after IHSAA State through May. 1994: ISWA reaches a zenith with fs/gr during the mid to late 90s. Fs/gr attendance is astronomical. Fs/gr tourneys still starting the week after IHSAA state. 1995: ISWA starts offering a few folkstyle tourneys. 1997: USA Wrestling pressures ISWA to offer complete folkstyle season. This pushes fs/gr season back a month to start after St. Patrick’s Day. Also shortens fs/gr by a month. Immediately there was decrease in local fs/gr because imop some wrestlers just stopped after IHSAA State and lost their season ending motivation; they did not want to sit around for a month for fs/gr to start. ISWA folkstyle was something for only for elementary/middle school kids back then. 2000: Fs/gr tournaments had been taking forever. Some mistakenly view keeping a 7-14 year old boy staying at a local tourney until 10 p.m. a badge of courage. Attendance in fs/gr starts decreasing more. 2002: USAW tells many state organizations promote folksytle over fs/gr (see shooting yourself in the foot) because local folkstyle tourneys clearly bring in much more money than fs/gr. And some of that money flowed directly to USAW. 2007: NUWAY folkstyle enters. States surrounding Indiana begin offering short and cheap tournaments. Usually a kid gets 3-4 matches under 2 hours and goes home for a cost of $5-$10. 2009: Some USAW wrestling organizations refuse to use the NUWAY model for pairing/running tournaments. Long waits still seen incorrectly as badge of courage. More kids/parents give up the sport. Present: Local tournaments in fs/gr are nearly gone because folkstyle was overpromoted by state organizations at the behest of USAW. And local folkstyle tournaments are beginning to decrease in attendance or possess poor competition because one can go to other states for faster run folkstyle tournaments, sometimes at cheaper prices, with better completion. Guys, wrestling is being destroyed from the inside. And all of us either knowingly or unknowingly have played a role in it. Video killed the radio star. And offering local folkstyle killed freestyle/greco and will soon decimate local folkstyle in favor of all national tourneys.

Question about the pairings. If it is three or less wrestlers will it be a round-robin? If it is four or more wrestlers will it be a line bracket?

I really hope we do a true-2nd match for ALL weights and age divisions. Someone said there will only be true-2nd for Schoolboy because of the national team spots going to the top 2. However, with our very low registration numbers and usage of line bracketing, I think a true-2nd match is all the more important. As it stands right now, a lot of children will go all the way to Indy for this tournament and will only get maybe 2 matches because there are only 3 or 4 kids in their weight class. We certainly have the time to do a true-2nd match with our low numbers. And it will give our kids a better chance of getting at least one more match. I really hope our pairings folk consider going with a true-2nd this weekend.

This will have ZERO material impact on stalling in folkstyle. We all know it. Kids who are taught to stall by their coach will continue to plant their heels on the line and sit there for 6 minutes. If the NFHS would grow up, they would adopt the FILA rules which are proven to combat fleeing the mat, constant going out of bounds and stalling. Alas, the NFHS continues in their cowardly ways because heaven forbid they take a good idea from international wrestling and apply it folkstyle.

I saw that. One of Schlatter's coaches was yelling at the mat chair and you clearly hear him from a floor mic during the tv broadcast saying, "You guys are a total joke! Go home." I was cracking up. If it wasn't so sad to see such awful vid review in the OTT, it would be more funny. Actually though, you can't really blame the official, judge or chair. It was the group doing the video review. I do not know if they are other officials or USAW personnel or what. Translate that situation to the NFL. Bears score a TD and the official raises his arms to signal TD. Then the Colts' coach challenges it and instant replay results in a call of no TD with the ball placed on the one yard line. Then, without another play being run, the Bears' coach tosses the red challenge flag out. Then another video review results in the official call it a TD. Now aside from the problem with this scenario is the unlikely event that the Bears would ever score a TD, could you imagine how besserk the fans would go over such a crazy call?

Reasonable people can disagree about this. But I would suggest that FS/GR participation has dropped not because of the rule changes, but more because of there are so many FK tournaments available from ISWA/NUWAY/AAU outside the high school season. Water will always drain to the lowest point... most young people only know what they were taught in middle school and that is FK, so they stick to FK outside the season. There are many options. So many it would be challenging to list here. But in theory, back when I was coaching we had the 16 point system for your regular season dual/tournament scheudle. You could make it so that certain amount of points must be utilized on FK (maybe 6), a certain amount on FS (maybe 6), and an AD/coach would have a few points they could use on either FK or FS (maybe 4). Great statement! I am so glad you said this. My statement would this: How about Indiana becomes the trend setter in wrestling for once! How about we take a measured risk! Look at how many Indiana young people will wrestle at the Olympic Team Trials in Iowa this weekend. We could improve on that and many other things if we do this.

AJ, I would be fine with two disciplines of FK & FS. That would be a significant improvement. I also believes it helps alleviate some the "no classes in individual sports" pressure many feel at the present time. Adding freestyle as a discipline to our present IHSAA sponsored folkstyle would provide more opportunities for 1st place without anyone complaining, validly or invalidly, that the talent pool was watered down by a class structure.

I would like to suggest that just as a young person is allowed to earn 1st place in 100 Backstroke & 100 Breaststroke in swimming, or earn 1st place in Balance Beam & Floor Exercise in gymnastics, that a young person participating in IHSAA wrestling should also be allowed to earn 1st place in FK and FS and GR.

I would disagree. The 100 dash is quite a different discipline from the High Jump. The One Meter Diving and 100 Yard Butterfly disciplines are drastically different. A kid wrestling 106 and a kid wrestling 152 are performing the exact same discipline.

Trent McCormick has a nice article in Unite about the struggles of getting kids to wrestle FS/GR. He also lays out a real nice series of reasons regarding the benefits of FS/GR. It was really quite well written and logical. There are many good men in the IHSWCA who are passionate about FS/GR. I would suggest that it is time for the IHSWCA to approach the IHSAA and request we have 3 disciplines of FK/FS/GR in Indiana High School wrestling. The majority of our peer category ?Individual? sports do. In fact, 3 disciplines would be fewer than any of them above.

Wrestling is one of the few IHSAA sports classified in the 'INDIVIDUAL' category without multiple disciplines. Boys/Girls Swimming has 12 disciplines over 2 groups (men/women) for a total of 24 disciplines. They are: 200 Yard Medley Relay, 200 Yard Freestyle, 200 Yard Individual Medley, 50 Yard Freestyle, One Meter Diving, 100 Yard Butterfly, 100 Yard Freestyle, 500 Yard Freestyle, 200 Yard Freestyle Relay, 100 Yard Backstroke, 100 Yard Breaststroke, 400 Yard Freestyle Relay. Boys/Girls Tennis has 5 disciplines over 2 groups for a total of 10 disciplines. They are: #1 Singles, #2 Singles, #3 Singles, #1 Doubles, #2 Doubles. They also have a both a Team State tournament where all 5 disciplines compete and an Individual State for just singles and doubles. Boys/Girls Track has 16 disciplines over 2 groups for a total of 32 disciplines. They are: Pole Vault, Long Jump, Discus, High Jump, Shot Put, 3200 Relay, 100 Dash, 110 High Hurdle, 200 Dash, 1600 Run, 400 Relay, 400 Dash, 300 Int. Hurdles, 800 Run, 3200 Run, 1600 Relay. Girls Gymnastics has 5 disciplines. They are: All-Around, Vault, Uneven Bars, Balance Beam, Floor Exercise. Golf and Cross Country would seem to be the only other individual sports with a single discipline.

Thank god someone besides mE saying this stuff. You want to know why we have this problem? Then ask the Iswa leader who dragged a slew of Indiana kids to a folk tourney Tennessee this weekend. Ask the Nuway ignoranmous. Ask USA Wrestling why the schedule 100 folk tourneys for every FS tourney. Hell, USa Westling is oddly our own worst enemy because they love them folk $$$$$ even over building FS for the future.

The IHSAA wants to classify us as an individual sport then fine, we should be able to have individual events. Just like track has events in the 100 yard dash or the pole vault and swimming has events like the 100 backstroke and 3 meter diving, then high school wrestling as a classified individual sport by the IHSAA should be allowed to have events and champions in folkstyle, freestyle and greco-roman. And if the IHSAA says 'no' then the IHSWCA sues the IHSAA based on a reverse discrimination Title IX claim. We had freestyle at many high schools until the 1950s btw. Get freestyle and greco-roman events as part of the high school season and watch how many kids turn out for spring & summer events.

A little confused by this one particular statement: So, does that mean all the other other age divisions will NOT have wrestlebacks? Just one and done if you lose?

I am fine with that, as long as we wrestle for true second. wrestling for true second at ISWA FS & GR state should be no problem at all given how few kids show up nowadays.

I would definitely classify Kentucky as 'other worldly.'

.... And only 3 kids per weight class.

Back around 1991, a group of four of us coaches met quietly with the IHSAA. Merrillville was going to be remodeling their gym and it was questionable if the Semi-State could be at Merrillville that year. We saw it as an opportunity to finally get our kids out of that fire marshal's nightmare. We proposed three possible venues: Mackey-Purdue, Joyce-Notre Dame, Michigan City Rogers High. The IHSAA reps spent less than 20 minutes with us. They said a lady in the Merrillville Athletic Dept. (??-I can't recall her exact name, sorry) wanted the northwest wrestling Semi-State to stay at Merrillville and they would not take it from her. When we asked why, the IHSAA reps said they were comfortable with the 'fit' of wrestlers, coaches, fans within Merrillville's gym. When we asked if it was reasonable to keep thousands of people unhappy, so that one person could be happy, the reps simply responded again that they were comfortable with the fit.

That's too bad. HYWAY State is a nice up and coming event.

Hutt- Yes, this year they are requiring wrestlers to be HYWAY members to wrestle at state.\ Greg- I am sorry, but "the database is not ready" seems like an odd remark. The software application is already up and running. We use it all the time in Michigan and Ohio. The only data to 'load' would be clubs and tournaments.

Dang it! I would love to take the kids from our club to HYWAY State. I thought HYWAY State went very well last year! Alas, it won't happen. March 24th is the first date for freestyle tournaments and our club has already committed to attend a peer tournament. Last year, HYWAY State was intentionally schedule on a Sunday to avoid such conflicts. It is too bad they didn't think of that this year. It may hurt attendance. Oh well.

I notice that for HYWAY state and the HYWAY event at Mishawaka, folks are required to register on trackwrestling. Trackwrestling is certainly better than doing it all on paper. My question is this: Why don't we register for the tournament via NUWAY's online system utilized in nearly every other state? That system can be found here: http://myway.nuwaywrestlingleague.com/ Whenever my grandson wrestles in Michigan or Ohio, I have to register via this NUWAY system. The pro of the NUWAY system is that we don't have to give any funds to trackwrestling as company. The con of this NUWAY system is that one cannot collect money nor doing pairings within the system. Anyway, I just wondered that?

No info on how to register is available on HYWAY web site.

Exactly the response expected.... it is someone else fault. The problems at Indy Nationals are no different then problems we saw last year at ISWA state. And they are no different than the problems many will see at a host of local ISWA tournaments this weekend. This is the part where you step back in and say your piece about, "the ISWA only approves local tournaments, we don't tell clubs how to run them // get more involved." At some point the ISWA needs to actually send a delegation to Illinois, Ohio or Michigan and learn how tournaments can actually run far more efficiently.