Filling WI Weight Classes: The Data

[Handles II]

Tournaments are what all my numbers are from all year Doc, we never averaged even 11 wrestlers per team in any weekend of the year. People are up in arms about Regional tournaments.

Duals look even worse in many cases. 6-10 forfeits per dual seems to be all too common.

Having two sets of weight classes for kids to remember and coaches to keep track of would add to the already too-long list of "stuff" for what should be a pretty simple and straightforward sport.

Create the number of weight classes that best fits the overwhelming majority of teams. I'm not sure why that doesn't make sense?

Anyway, it sounds like people from the NFHS are getting on board the 12 weight train, hopefully they can make some changes and help save teams and give upstart teams (especially in traditionally non-wrestling states) an easier goal to attain.

[Handles II]

Went to a Section dual last night. Great teams, great coaching, great wrestling, congrats to both teams on your efforts last night. Each team had 42 kids on their roster. Up through the late 1980's that wasn't quite the number for an average team in this state.
 
Kind of hard to imagine that now only a few elite programs have the numbers of what was average then. 

Kids had jobs, chores, girlfriends, music, cars and other sports to play then as now. And dare I say there was probably as much or more alcohol, tobacco and drug use then?

So what actually changed in our sport? The kids are pretty much the same when you get down to it. If we all had cell phones and computers we would have used them too, so it isn't that much about their "stuff".

What is turning kids off about it, rather than turning them on?

A coach last weekend mentioned "No cheerleaders". Maybe in part? A whole generation of moms didn't grow up cheering for wrestlers, so to have their boys wrestle is foreign to them?

[ChargerDad]

Went to a Section dual last night. Great teams, great coaching, great wrestling, congrats to both teams on your efforts last night. Each team had 42 kids on their roster. Up through the late 1980's that wasn't quite the number for an average team in this state.
 
Kind of hard to imagine that now only a few elite programs have the numbers of what was average then. 

Kids had jobs, chores, girlfriends, music, cars and other sports to play then as now. And dare I say there was probably as much or more alcohol, tobacco and drug use then?

So what actually changed in our sport? The kids are pretty much the same when you get down to it. If we all had cell phones and computers we would have used them too, so it isn't that much about their "stuff".

What is turning kids off about it, rather than turning them on?

A coach last weekend mentioned "No cheerleaders". Maybe in part? A whole generation of moms didn't grow up cheering for wrestlers, so to have their boys wrestle is foreign to them?

This is one of the reasons that girls wrestling can save wrestling..     A mom that wrestles will encourage her sons and her daughters to wrestle rather than be the parent that you have to win over or constantly fight when she tries to get her kid not to wrestle for various reasons..

As for the number of forfeits, do we have data on forfeits by weight class and school?? If we combined that data with fat test data per school and actually see how many fewer forfeits we would see if we had different combinations of new weight classes, either of the same number or fewer weight classes..  Without that data people are just seeing say an average of 12 wrestlers and saying 12 weight classes would be better..  That's just not something you can say without looking at the data.  in many cases you will be eliminating weight classes where there actually would have been 2 wrestlers in a particular dual and leaving the ones where there were forfeits, leaving the only possibility of eliminating a forfeit having a number of kids bump up in weight class.  Some teams won't have a 285 or a 120, some won't have a 106 or a 220, some won't have a 132 or a 182..  How are you going to come up with new weight classes that fix all that???  And if you do, at what cost??  How many opportunities are you going to take away from kids to avoid a few forfeits..  Myself, I am not bothered by a few forfeits..  We only had 2 duals I believe this year that I recall where the number of forfeits was out of control, and that was against teams with 4 and 6 wrestlers..  reducing weight classes isn't going to help that much..

[Ghetto]

Went to a Section dual last night. Great teams, great coaching, great wrestling, congrats to both teams on your efforts last night. Each team had 42 kids on their roster. Up through the late 1980's that wasn't quite the number for an average team in this state.
 
Kind of hard to imagine that now only a few elite programs have the numbers of what was average then. 

Kids had jobs, chores, girlfriends, music, cars and other sports to play then as now. And dare I say there was probably as much or more alcohol, tobacco and drug use then?

So what actually changed in our sport? The kids are pretty much the same when you get down to it. If we all had cell phones and computers we would have used them too, so it isn't that much about their "stuff".

What is turning kids off about it, rather than turning them on?

A coach last weekend mentioned "No cheerleaders". Maybe in part? A whole generation of moms didn't grow up cheering for wrestlers, so to have their boys wrestle is foreign to them?

This is one of the reasons that girls wrestling can save wrestling..     A mom that wrestles will encourage her sons and her daughters to wrestle rather than be the parent that you have to win over or constantly fight when she tries to get her kid not to wrestle for various reasons..

As for the number of forfeits, do we have data on forfeits by weight class and school?? If we combined that data with fat test data per school and actually see how many fewer forfeits we would see if we had different combinations of new weight classes, either of the same number or fewer weight classes..  Without that data people are just seeing say an average of 12 wrestlers and saying 12 weight classes would be better..  That's just not something you can say without looking at the data.  in many cases you will be eliminating weight classes where there actually would have been 2 wrestlers in a particular dual and leaving the ones where there were forfeits, leaving the only possibility of eliminating a forfeit having a number of kids bump up in weight class.  Some teams won't have a 285 or a 120, some won't have a 106 or a 220, some won't have a 132 or a 182..  How are you going to come up with new weight classes that fix all that???  And if you do, at what cost??  How many opportunities are you going to take away from kids to avoid a few forfeits..  Myself, I am not bothered by a few forfeits..  We only had 2 duals I believe this year that I recall where the number of forfeits was out of control, and that was against teams with 4 and 6 wrestlers..  reducing weight classes isn't going to help that much..

I do have the bodyfat data from the past five years. Not by team. Just overall for the state. I'll send some stuff to you.

[Handles II]

My data is broken down by weight class. It's pretty easy to see that in the 113 and 195/220 weights there are simply fewer wrestlers, and those weights could be somehow absorbed or blended in, yet even at 145 and 152, we aren't even close to filling the spots. It doesn't matter D1,D2,D3. As a state, we can't. As a sport, we can't. Looking at other states, they can't. Yes, some individual teams can, but again, they are in the minority.

I understand your frustration that in some cases, on some teams, there will still be open slots. I agree. There are teams out there without a 152 bler. That wouldn't matter if it was 10 weights or 20 weights. That's just the nature of a team, and a team is always changing. We need to look at the sport as a whole, state-wide and beyond.

[gablesgrip1]

At our school, we have a consistent level two football team the last 20 years, a basketball team that wins 1 or 2 games sometimes 3 in the post season, a wrestling team that has been regional champs or 2nd in the last 7 years, a baseball team that is in the top half of the conference the last 10 years, and an average track team.  We have an enrollment between 180 and 225 in those years. I would say we are above average for athletes and I would be willing to bet that our best athletes are between 160 and 210 pounds and plenty of them could wrestle if they chose to and they choose to play basketball or do nothing. We did not have a 195 or 220 lber the last two years.

Not sure if that means anything or not, but it seems to me there are plenty of bigger athletes out there.  I know this year there were at least 8 guys on the basketball team at that weight and 4 of them had wrestled in youth and qualified for youth state at least once and some a couple of times.

[ChargerDad]

My data is broken down by weight class. It's pretty easy to see that in the 113 and 195/220 weights there are simply fewer wrestlers, and those weights could be somehow absorbed or blended in, yet even at 145 and 152, we aren't even close to filling the spots. It doesn't matter D1,D2,D3. As a state, we can't. As a sport, we can't. Looking at other states, they can't. Yes, some individual teams can, but again, they are in the minority.

I understand your frustration that in some cases, on some teams, there will still be open slots. I agree. There are teams out there without a 152 bler. That wouldn't matter if it was 10 weights or 20 weights. That's just the nature of a team, and a team is always changing. We need to look at the sport as a whole, state-wide and beyond.

I would argue that preserving 14 weight classes, and changing them to better match the normal distribution of weights of wrestlers would help that too..

[MNbadger]

I agree Charger.  I have posted the CDC weight charts on here before but no one seemed interested.

[padre]

Not going to read all the pages as Ive seen it every year.....however take this into consideration.

This year I had 32 kids come out in junior high....30 have stuck with it.

This week...which would be regionals week for high school we attended two meets.   I had 16 and 13 kids...grades, injuries, illness all contributed.  Same goes on at the high school level.  Just saying...you can look at numbers any way you want to benefit your argument.   I could say "WOW...I had 32 kids go out!!!" and the nay sayers can say "WOW...you only had 13 kids at the last meet!!!"

[whatever]

I believe they have compiled the numbers for every single tournament....not just the end of the year. 

If you don't want to use the data available, what should be used?  Emotion?  Gut instinct ?

[padre]

I believe they have compiled the numbers for every single tournament....not just the end of the year.  

If you don't want to use the data available, what should be used?  Emotion?  Gut instinct ?

No one can argue the numbers are less...but theres many reasons why numbers are less in wrestling, especially at the end of the year.   No one can really make the argument dropping weight classes really fixes anything either.  This is probably why this argument goes on every year but nothing really changes.

[whatever]

You may be right .

My only thought is that smaller schools who face bigger challenges with numbers are more likely to get dropped completely.

I think programs getting cut is much worse than some kids having to face stiffer competition to earn a spot on varsity.

[DocWrestling]

Padre,  all the things you describe happen in every sport and yet they still have reserves to fill in and complete a lineup.

My point is that having 14 kids on your team perfectly spaced to fill all weight classes still is not enough.

We need a system that allows for teams to have TWO kids at every weight class as possible lineup.

This kind of why I am more for a drastic change and going all the way to 10 weight classes.  Teams would not only be filling weight classes but having back-ups/JV's to fill in when all those things you described happen.

Dropping one or 2 weight classes is really not going to change much.

[padre]

Padre,  all the things you describe happen in every sport and yet they still have reserves to fill in and complete a lineup.

My point is that having 14 kids on your team perfectly spaced to fill all weight classes still is not enough.

We need a system that allows for teams to have TWO kids at every weight class as possible lineup.

This kind of why I am more for a drastic change and going all the way to 10 weight classes.  Teams would not only be filling weight classes but having back-ups/JV's to fill in when all those things you described happen.

Dropping one or 2 weight classes is really not going to change much.

In some ways I agree but when we get to good sized tournaments I see great wrestling at the end in all weight classes....I get the duals have forfeits and hate that also but when everything weeds itself out we get a bunch of real good kids at 14 weight classes.  I'd hate to see these opportunities missed by these excellent kids because some teams cant fill their weight class more than others.  Not going to change any minds on this as I respect Doc, Ghetto and others on the other side of the fence but we've been arguing this 15 years and it remains the same so we try to deal with what we have.

[Handles II]

The main difference now Padre is we have annual and weekly data now, we didn't 15 years ago. Everyone just formulated their opinion based on what they knew, saw, or liked/disliked.

I was one that was very much for 14 weights. Why? I had 50 kids in the room and every weight covered twice or more. I knew my opponents wouldn't. Advantage my team. I wasn't looking out for the sport though. Some of those teams are now just memories. They simply couldn't make it work with 14 weights, though at 12, many would have been quite competitive. Good schools with good wrestling histories are now just that, history. Do you want that to continue?  Again, see the numbers. NFHS, tournaments, conference, regionals, duals. D1-3. They are all showing lack of numbers OR as you bring up, lack of depth.

With 12 weights(?), some of these teams and co-ops might be able to separate and stand on their own feet again. Increase programs and the sport will start to grow again. Our emerging wrestling states could build teams and programs quicker. This all leads to more wrestling, more popularity, good for all of us, not just good for a few.