The forum is a bit boring so...

[Ghetto]

Yep, it's me again. Annual dive into the 12 weight argument.

First, there are some who will make this about me. Say I'm this or that. It's cool. You don't know me, so it is easy to look at the team I used to be the head coach of and say that it's about that. For me, it isn't. This is about saving wrestling. It's a possible start to the solution. I don't believe that it is the only solution. I believe that recruiting is key, like everyone else.

Things I think we can agree upon:

Forfeits are bad for the sport. Long Saturdays are bad for the sport. Having less and less kids every year body fat test is bad for the sport.

A few things that will also come up:

1. The great teams will get even stronger if we cut weights. To that, I say great. They've earned it.
2. Kids will quit because they are squeezed out of the varsity lineup. It's possible.
3. Teams like Fennimore, Random Lake and Coleman can do it. Why can't a school with 2000 do it? Good question. If their coaches are on here, please feel free to tell us how you do it so everyone can replicate it.
4. There will be less opportunities for kids. Varsity opportunities, yes. It will effect approximately 100 kids out of the 8000ish that body fat test.
5. State qualifiers will come up. Someone will ask which qualifiers didn't deserve to go. The answer is that every kid who qualified should have been there.
6. I am not arguing that we cut this weight or that. Weights should be distributed according to what kids weigh. I have that data, but that's a different argument. It's part two of this argument, really.

Here goes...

I think there should be 12 weights. There used to be 12 back in the day. It's hard to argue that there are more kids now than there were then. In 1988 there were much less in the way of competition for winter sports. Today there is skiing, bowling and hockey, where that wasn't the case then. Our competition is larger. Our pool of kids is smaller.

2005 was the first year Trackwrestling started hosting WIAA regionals on their site, so the data starts there.

In 2005, 46.4% of Division 1 schools had 12 or less kids on their regional roster. In 2019, that number is now 57%.
In 2005, 56.9% of Division 2 schools had 12 or less kids on their regional roster. In 2019, that number is now 60.9%
In 2005, 66.7% of Division 3 schools had 12 or less kids on their regional roster. In 2019, that number is now 76.5%

In 2005, there were 347 wrestling teams. In 2019 there are 332.
Seven Division 1 teams who had 13 or more kids on their regional roster this year were co-ops.

If you remove what I would call a "non-varsity" wrestler (a wrestler who entered with a .200 winning percentage or worse) which I believe are kids that are just filling a weight, the numbers get worse.

In Division 1 the number of 12 or less "varsity" kids: 65.3%
In Division 2: 71.4%
In Division 3: 83.6%

Body fat tests by year:
2011-12: 8946
2012-13: 8985
2013-14: 8797
2014-15: 8357
2015-16: 8007
2016-17: 7737
2017-18: 7698
2018-19: 7543


Congratulations to the teams in the West Allis Central regional. only 1 of the 8 teams had 12 or less in D1. In D2, the winner was the Denmark regional. The D3 regional with the most full teams was Clear Lake.

Fire away.

[Numbers]

With the trend of losing about 2% of wrestlers per year, maybe in 5 years when Wisconsin is down to 6,500 wrestlers, the conversation can be A) reduce number of weight classes or drop wrestling in Wisconsin.

Sounds similar to what happened a few years back with Olympic wrestling.  Leadership is so anti change that they will not change until the sport is on life support.

[MNbadger]

Olympic Wrestling did not cut weights because of a shortage of numbers.......

[ramjet]

It's kind of like the argument for seeding.

We do not know what we do not know.

Can cutting weights re-energize the sport?

My argument is that the only way is to emphasize JV and have 8th grade inclusion in JV. Opportunity to develop as a wrestler is important and will that attract more participants?

Making it tougher to get to State will the sense of entitlement actually work in reverse?

I hate going to dual meets that you drive for an hour and have 2 matches I think it kills our sport.

Will cutting weights make dual meets better more competitive?

Not sure it will or won't.

I am on the fence I think more fundamental changes can be made some were covered in the discussion about seeding. I actually changed my mind on seeding when the other things are thrown in too make wrestling over all more attractive. But least we quibble about things we have zero control over? Probably not.....

[JQ6151]

@ramjet
"My argument is that the only way is to emphasize JV and have 8th grade inclusion in JV. Opportunity to develop as a wrestler is important and will that attract more participants?"

-I couldn't agree more with this!! Yes, I feel that emphasizing JV wrestling and the development of wrestling in the feeder programs would attract more participants. I guess that this is easier said than done, but this starts with the coaches being involved at all levels and programs hiring knowledgable coaches.

[Handles II]

I'm in. So are most coaches in many states who are looking at the actual numbers. Just think, in the early 80's we had over 15,000 H.S. wrestlers in our state, we now are 1/2 of that.  It's great that some teams can routinely fill 14 weights, unfortunately that's only about 10% of teams on average over the past 10 years.  Our sport shouldn't be set up for 10%. Get it to a number of weight classes that at least 50% of teams can routinely fill, and we will see overall better competition due to fewer forfeits, which often will generate crowd enthusiasm, which may in turn help increase numbers.  Why not at least attempt it. Do something rather than nothing.

Do JHI inclusion - Honestly, how could it actually hurt our participation levels? Do something rather than nothing.

We need to somehow change our youth wrestling, or at least youth competition minimum age to around 10 y.o.  Ben Askren made yet another video post about it early this week.  Olympian, RTC and youth coach saying we must stop this to save the sport (as are many others) but if anything we have added more and larger competitions. What has that accomplished for our numbers of these kids wrestling in HS? Do something rather than nothing.

[Ghetto]

I'm in for 8th graders wrestilng JV. Might be the way to ease into JHI. "Forcing" them to wrestle JV only would make less waves with worrying about taking spots of high schoolers while also helping retain kids because they are comfortable in the room.

[imnofish]

Watching the quality of matches at the State Individual Championships this year, I was impressed.  There were good kids in every weight class.  Which of those kids would we willingly exclude?  What is each coach doing to promote the sport?  How active is each coach in recruiting any kid, regardless of experience?  How welcoming and supportive is each coach, when newcomers arrive and how do you make them an important part of your wrestling family?  Isn't the idea of school athletics to get kids involved in healthy activities, where they can learn important life lessons?  Cutting weight classes is cutting opportunities for kids.  Yes, more weight classes present different challenges for coaches, but they also invite a greater range of participants and lessen the parental concerns about weight loss.  Embrace the opportunities and help kids make the most of them, rather than trying to lessen your own burden.

[Jimmy]

Talked to a coach from Oregon, at NCAA tourney. He said in their state you can enter two wrestlers per weight at regionals. While I am not advocating that to that level I do believe you could let the jv regional placers enter varsity regionals. It will help to fill up,the brackets and allow some of the wrestlers that get pinched out of a varsity spot due to weight class reductions a shot in the state tourney series. It also adds more meaning to jv and the development process it offers.

[Ghetto]

Watching the quality of matches at the State Individual Championships this year, I was impressed.  There were good kids in every weight class.  Which of those kids would we willingly exclude?  What is each coach doing to promote the sport?  How active is each coach in recruiting any kid, regardless of experience?  How welcoming and supportive is each coach, when newcomers arrive and how do you make them an important part of your wrestling family?  Isn't the idea of school athletics to get kids involved in healthy activities, where they can learn important life lessons?  Cutting weight classes is cutting opportunities for kids.  Yes, more weight classes present different challenges for coaches, but they also invite a greater range of participants and lessen the parental concerns about weight loss.  Embrace the opportunities and help kids make the most of them, rather than trying to lessen your own burden.

Excluding kids at state. Already addressed. All of those kids belonged. Some of them would not make it to state. That is possible.

What is each individual coach doing? Not sure. That's a rhetorical question, right?

Cutting weight classes is cutting VARSITY opportunities. Yes. If the range of weights is within what kids actually weigh, then the range of participants stays intact.

If body fat testing is done correctly, there should not be excessive weight cutting.

Embracing opportunities for kids and lessening the burden can be done together.

[imnofish]

Watching the quality of matches at the State Individual Championships this year, I was impressed.  There were good kids in every weight class.  Which of those kids would we willingly exclude?  What is each coach doing to promote the sport?  How active is each coach in recruiting any kid, regardless of experience?  How welcoming and supportive is each coach, when newcomers arrive and how do you make them an important part of your wrestling family?  Isn't the idea of school athletics to get kids involved in healthy activities, where they can learn important life lessons?  Cutting weight classes is cutting opportunities for kids.  Yes, more weight classes present different challenges for coaches, but they also invite a greater range of participants and lessen the parental concerns about weight loss.  Embrace the opportunities and help kids make the most of them, rather than trying to lessen your own burden.

Excluding kids at state. Already addressed. All of those kids belonged. Some of them would not make it to state. That is possible.

What is each individual coach doing? Not sure. That's a rhetorical question, right?

Cutting weight classes is cutting VARSITY opportunities. Yes. If the range of weights is within what kids actually weigh, then the range of participants stays intact.

If body fat testing is done correctly, there should not be excessive weight cutting.

Embracing opportunities for kids and lessening the burden can be done together.

Yes, all questions I posted were intended to be rhetorical.  No harm in all of us reflecting on our own actions, on occasion.  My concern is not that excessive weight cutting would occur, but that many parents (especially those new to the sport) are concerned that it could happen.  Having weight classes that are closer to their kids' natural weights can help with that worry.  Eliminating weight classes means fewer participants at State, due to fewer slots to fill.  I really doubt that fewer weight classes would translate into increased numbers.  Yes, it is frustrating to see so many forfeits by some programs; however, I do see improvement among several teams.  Someone is doing something right and making the current system work more effectively.  I'm guessing a lot of that is occurring off the mat, but then being supported on the mat.  Getting the kids in your practice room is the first step.  It doesn't matter how competitive they are, initially.  I think the trick is to make a spot in your program for every kid that shows up.  If they feel valued, they will work hard to improve and be proud of any contribution they can make. 

[Handles II]

The trick is getting kids into and staying in a program prior to high school if at all possible, this is where JHI can be very helpful.
Having first-year wrestlers put in a varsity spot to fill a weight also isn't helping numbers.
Making more varsity weights has a correlation, and perhaps causation for fewer wrestlers as a whole. Look at the history of our state. Each time we added another varsity spot startin in the 80's, within a couple years the participation numbers dropped.

[MNbadger]

Since we are open to all ideas, maybe the whole body-fat testing and weight loss bureaucracy is turning kids and families off.........

[Handles II]

Since we are open to all ideas, maybe the whole body-fat testing and weight loss bureaucracy is turning kids and families off.........

Maybe on the outside, once in the program and seeing the new (ie very restrictive) rules about weight loss, I don't see/hear any of our new families having a problem with it. Most are actually impressed at how in-shape their wrestlers got over the course of the season vs other sports they have participated in. Nothing wrong with promotion of fitness and good health in our society.

[MNbadger]

Promoting health and fitness is not dependent at all on the body fat regulation program.  You can promote and achieve fitness and health easily without it.