Filling WI Weight Classes: The Data

[MNbadger]

Ramjet, How do you see anything to do with "liberal" (whatever your definition of this is....) anything here?
And no one suggested "regulating" anything.
And to be clear, I lean the same direction as you in regard to competition though I do think we have too much too soon in most sports.

[DocWrestling]

We just have to remember that the people that are posting on this forum are crazy wrestling junkies.  The sport will always have these. What the sport needs to be worried about are the kids that participate but are not wrestling junkies.  The overwhelmingly majority of HS wrestlers don't know about this site, don't look at the rankings, etc.  They just show up.

I am not against youth tournaments but I do believe not even half of the kids should actually be there as they are not ready physically or in maturity. Some are but parents of those that are ready should not be dragging others to these tournaments and those that do not go to the tournaments should not discourage those that may be ready.  My experience is that maybe 3 out of 10 kids at youth tournaments 4th grade and younger should actually be there.  We have to be honest about what kids are ready for as parents and as coaches.

[Big Steve]

This is a parental decision and the child's/family decision ........period end of story. Liberal mind set and thinking to regulate common sense and good parenting.....gheeesh.

Huh??? You are right, it is a parent/child's decision but the thread is about filling weight classes and it was one's opinion that starting too early is one of the reasons that teams aren't filling all the weight classes.
Maybe, we should just go to 50 matches a year for our 4 year old's. Drop the age groups for the three state series, that way I can run around and boast how proud i am that my kid was state champ. I can wear his medal to the high school meets and explain why he doesn't wrestle anymore but he was a 4 year old state champ.
You are right, every parent will always do the right thing for the overall success of sport....there i go with that darn liberal mind set...

On a serious note, i would like to know what Pat Kilty thinks will continue the overall growth of Womens Wrestling? Would you be in favor of a WIAA high school women's only series? Obviously, not all are going to be as successful with the boys as your daughter(i assume your daughter). I agree this is where growth needs to continue. If the BIG TEN would get a couple of teams on board i think it could really explode.

[Ghetto]

what age kids should start at is a great debate but deserves a different thread.
From the many conversations I have had on this topic(cutting weight classes), today I learned a major factor in why we have 14 weight classes.
The WIAA isn't as nearly concerned with FF as they are with specialization. If you cut weight classes you make it  more difficult to make it too or place at state. This would lead to more wrestlers quitting other sports to focus more on wrestling which could have a dramatic affect on other sports.
The WIAA cares about each sport equally.
Let's be honest cutting weight classes has several negative possibilities so it will never happen.

The number one reason why we have 14 weights is because the NFHS has 14 weights. The WIAA has no desire to deviate from that. If we went to 12 weights nationally, they WIAA would fall in line without any argument.

[Ghetto]

I am ready for more data Handles. Are you going to work through the holiday tournaments? Maybe you did and I missed it.

[jeast]

MNBadger, in our small towns of SW Wisconsin (largest community is Platteville with 10,000, most towns of 2000 or less) each and every community that has a youth wrestling program has 40-60 kids involved. I see your point with contradiction in statements but it amazes me that my community can have nearly 60 kids from two towns involved in youth wrestling but struggles to fill half the wts. at the high school level.
I coached one half of our co-op before they co-oped and had 40 kids out for High School wrestling every year that I was involved (11 years total). The youth program was a great feeder program for the high school, but as the years went on, fewer and fewer stuck with it. That was nearly 30 years ago.
My sons wrestled for little bitty Belmont and had full teams under then Head Coach Scott Tolzman even into the late 90's and early 00's.

What has happened in the last 10-15 years that kids are not out? Phones? Computers? Games? Even Basketball is struggling filling out teams of 15. What's happened?

I don't think it has much to do with too many weight classes, nor is it the singlet.

Personally, I blame it on LIBERALS!  Right RAM!???  

[DocWrestling]

You are right that it it is a multisport problem.  Football has reacted and has created 8-man football.  Many basketball programs have gotten rid of freshman teams or even at our high school we used to have two freshman teams and now we had to ask the manager to play to get to 10 guys for a freshman team in a school of 2000.  Many freshman baseball programs are being scrapped.

Teams are dropping fast in all sports, just not varsity programs other than some football programs that dropped to JV only.

Honestly we may have to get rid of the conference model and group teams based on success and talent in each sport because it is not the same across the board.

[ramjet]

MNBadger, in our small towns of SW Wisconsin (largest community is Platteville with 10,000, most towns of 2000 or less) each and every community that has a youth wrestling program has 40-60 kids involved. I see your point with contradiction in statements but it amazes me that my community can have nearly 60 kids from two towns involved in youth wrestling but struggles to fill half the wts. at the high school level.
I coached one half of our co-op before they co-oped and had 40 kids out for High School wrestling every year that I was involved (11 years total). The youth program was a great feeder program for the high school, but as the years went on, fewer and fewer stuck with it. That was nearly 30 years ago.
My sons wrestled for little bitty Belmont and had full teams under then Head Coach Scott Tolzman even into the late 90's and early 00's.

What has happened in the last 10-15 years that kids are not out? Phones? Computers? Games? Even Basketball is struggling filling out teams of 15. What's happened?

I don't think it has much to do with too many weight classes, nor is it the singlet.

Personally, I blame it on LIBERALS!  Right RAM!???  

Yea the idea that someone can legislate or regulate the youth involvement is ridiculous. I laugh at this entire thread not much of looking in the mirror. The only person who can increase the numbers in wrestling is the guy or gal looking in the mirror. Society is so tuned into "flip a switch" fixes they've lost the resolve for long term fixes. Fixes that take time and laser focus. But heck the people on this thread cannot even agree on the problem.  🤔 So yea liberalism in ur society contributes greatly to the mindset that try's lead us down this road.

[MNbadger]

Ram This is likely going to kill his thread but as they say... "you started it".  How a person can make the leaps you make, you have to be really angry....

"Society is so tuned into "flip a switch" fixes they've lost the resolve for long term fixes. Fixes that take time and laser focus. But heck the people on this thread cannot even agree on the problem.  🤔 So yea liberalism in ur society contributes greatly to the mindset that try's lead us down this road."

How does liberalism (or any "ism" for that matter ) have ANYTHING to do with your statement?  Please explain.  I think it is due to conservatism.

[padre]

15 years ago it was same argument and actually then added a weight class.  Not saying numbers aren't going down but those in charge must not be hearing it enough from coaches as I participated in this argument for many years and it becomes the same old thing year after year.  I don't think the powers that create change are interested at all in dropping weight classes so we need to focus on our own schools and most likely deal with it.

My stance has never changed...you cannot take away the 106 weight class...if you watch any tournament of decent size you see how great of kids are there no matter if they are freshman or not...tons of talent.  Also...when recruiting this is one of our main focuses as we search the halls telling those little guys there is a sport for them to excel in.  While our school numbers have dropped some mainly due to enrollment size we may have 4-5 106 pounders next year as thats how they were recruited.

I think we can all agree the argument that we would see more football players wrestle by adding the higher weight classes really hasn't panned out. 

Sports in general have less kids that commit all the way through high school for many reasons that have been talked about to death.  While data shows there are less kids out I'm not really sure what problem cutting weight classes does.  Actually I like it where its at due to the competitiveness at tournaments and state and agree taking opportunities away in no way will get more kids out. Do I hate 20 minute duals?  Yes....more than you can know.  But those duals would have been 20 minutes with or without subtracting weight classes. 

As far as kids not wrestling young?  Why not?  If you have sons at home what do they do whether out for the sport or not?  Wrestle.  You can make it fun for the real young kids and they are doing what their internal instincts tell them to do....wrestle.  I have to laugh when some say no one should wrestle competitively until junior high.  Why would we hold down kids that want to do this sport?  If a kid loves hunting or fishing we don't say you can only go hunt or fish a couple times a year so you love it when you're older.  For some kids...and there are plenty of them this is their outlet.

As far as elite clubs it has become a major battle as more and more pop up for who can get kids to their academies.  While I think there is too much with kids associating with the clubs instead of their home schools I also want these clubs to succeed.  These club coaches have most likely spent much of their lives with the sport and its great to see some people able to make a living from it.  We whine how the top wrestlers in the nation don't get paid like the top basketball or baseball players and then I hear whining that these clubs aren't good for much and we are taking money from the hands of many of those that were/are great wrestlers and can make some sort of living off of the sport they've given so much to. 

Team duals are the best thing Ive coached in.  Unfortunately few teams can fill most of the weight classes so they don't get involved.  I do wish more of the top caliber kids/parents would try to get their schools into it instead of jumping on elite club teams.  More school duals I think would lead us in the right direction over the elite dual tournaments all around the nation as these are really just for the top 1 percent.  I'm really not sure how many of the parents can afford it as its a hefty cost and many times you could just get almost the same competition in state if we could get this to work.  Price per match just doesn't sit well with me.

Anyway,  all we can do is continue to recruit kids.  Run middle school meets making sure experience is heavily used in match-ups and praise kids for committing to the sport.

[dforsythe]

Padre...I agree with most of your post except the comparison to being competitive at a young age and hunting/fishing. The first "rule" of getting your kid to love fishing is to make sure you have plenty of beverages and snacks in the boat and keep it short (or make sure they are catching lots of fish). If you take a young child out fishing for 8 hours and they are catching nothing they are going to get bored silly and never want to go again. Same with wrestling. We take them to these tournaments where 20 people are kneeling at the edge of the mat screaming at them and they are stuck there for most of the day. It doesn't take very many bad experiences (1 tight headlock can do it) and a kid never wants to wrestle again. Keep it simple and keep it fun. I don't want to build 1 or 2 champs. I want to field a full team. That means in a small district, I can't afford to lose kids forever at a young age. We can fill our line-up for the first time in my career this year and we have 11 freshman on the team. Our numbers didn't improve until we started really focusing on getting kids out in 7-8th grade. They are more mature and can have more success. Yes they are very raw as freshman, but they are out and they are competing. A drastic change from the days I only had 5 on my team.

[Ghetto]

I promise this is the last time I will try to add to any of the discussion (until I put out the numbers at regionals, probably around May when this forum starts to go to sleep a bit).

The national federation, just like our WIAA, goes along with what coaches say. So at the end of the day it lies on coaches.

Sports are changing. We as a wrestling community just place blame on people and say that because school X can do it, everyone should be able to. We hear words like "liberal" and "socialism" and all kinds of opinions on the matter. That's fine. We all have our opinions. But look at the facts. Less kids are wrestling. Less kids are doing all sports. There are a million reasons why. I believe in building grass roots and getting community support, and doing all the things that have been spoken about on this forum ad nauseum. I get that our debating it back and forth really does nothing, unless my friends in the coaches association are reading the numbers and debates we are having.

If there is a guy on the MN forum talking about not filling weights when they have JHI, doesn't that beg the question that there are too many weights? It's a national problem. Not just a Wisconsin one.

Here's an example of the state tournament in Delaware. 132 pounds.

3.   Archangelo, Chase   Smyrna   11   24-7
4.   Barnhart, Nick   Caravel   9   32-6
10.   Black, Vincent   Concord   11   23-12
15.   Brainard, Cody   Conrad   8   14-12
1.   Chilson, Niko   Sanford   9   32-5   
9.   Deneumoustier, Noah   Polytech   11   25-8
2.   Fisher, Anthony   Dover   11   23-4
11.   Flemming, Seth   Lake Forest   9   17-15
8.   Garcia, John   Wilmington Charter   11   20-10
12.   Harasika, Luke   Salesianum   10   14-12
5.   Juarez-Robertson, Ryan   William Penn   11   27-3
14.   Markland, Douglas   Delcastle   9   14-20
7.   Mayo, Kyle   Mt Pleasant   10   25-4   
6.   Morris, Drew   Sussex Central   10   26-11
13.   Palmer, Dominic   Middletown   12   19-21
16.   Wright, Justin   Cape Henlopen   11   25-20

Vermont state tournament. 16 man bracket. 13 kids. 132 pounds. (120 only had 6 kids at state)

8.   Allen, Gabe   Essex H. S.   10   20-20
2.   Bliss, Daniel   Mt. Mansfield Union H.S.   11   40-9
13.   Clark, Alan   Harwood Union H.S.   9   2-11
4.   Davio, Dustin   Middlebury Union H.S.   10   25-10
9.   Genier, Nicole   Mill River Union H.S   10   5-21
3.   Goodell, Kyle   St. Johnsbury Academy   12   26-16
1.   Legg, Jarett   Champlain Valley Union H.S.   11   47-14
12.   Little, Christian   Mt. Abraham Union H.S.   10   16-30
6.   McLaughlin, Gage   Mt. Anthony Union H.S.   9   39-22
7.   Peters, Dakota   Rutland H.S.   9   33-11
5.   Reardon, Eathan   Vergennes Union H.S.   12   18-13
11.   Smith, Bryce   Bellows Falls   11   4-2
10.   Stettner, Moira   Springfield H.S.   11   3-2


South Dakota state tournament. 132 pounds. Class A. Not sure if that is small schools or big schools.

6.   Beach, Riley   Vermillion   10   21-18
10.   Bien, Alec   Milbank Area   9   24-19
16.   Bollinger, Brady   Watertown   11   30-21
9.   Brengle, Bailey   Sturgis Brown   10   42-4
1.   Huber, Spencer   Yankton   12   42-3
13.   Keyes, Jebben   Pierre Tf Riggs   12   35-0
11.   Kortan, Kobe   Sioux Falls Roosevelt   11   36-15
15.   Kumlien, Michael   Harrisburg   10   32-22
2.   Lehman, Sam   Brookings   9   12-21
4.   Ludens, Slayton   Spearfish   12   38-12
5.   Mennis, Bailey   Madison   11   30-6
3.   Moore, Josh   Aberdeen Central   12   29-13
14.   Moser, Casey   Rapid City Stevens   11   29-19
8.   Shillingstad, Chipper   Huron   9   25-16
7.   Skaare, Tanner   Rapid City Central   9   24-12
12.   Toenah, Max   Tea Area   11   20-20

Wyoming state tournament. Class 4A. 132 pounds

13.   Benabise, Paulo   Natrona County   10   34-11
3.   Cochrane, Kaycee   Green River   11   28-15
6.   Eldridge, Trenton   Cheyenne East   12   37-19
11.   Flores, John   Cheyenne South   9   15-11
10.   Frentheway, Daniel   Cheyenne Central   11   11-19
7.   Gasperetti, Jonathan   Natrona County   11   28-15
4.   Goss, Tucker   Sheridan   12   34-9
8.   Hardee, Kyle   Cheyenne Central   10   22-12
9.   Isonock, Ash   Kelly Walsh   10   7-11
2.   Jeffries, Taylor   Campbell County   12   31-5
1.   Leland, Tucker   Evanston   12   22-7
15.   Merrill, Nate   Laramie   9   22-22
16.   Munoz, Gabe   Cheyenne South   9   14-20
12.   Smith, Kaelob   Riverton   10   3-12
14.   Wagstaff, Carsen   Evanston   11   29-11
5.   Walker, Joe   Rock Springs   12   26-22

My point of showing those is that the national federation is looking out for all states, not just the states where wrestling is doing well. If kids with 3 wins are making it to state, doesn't that say something? The national federation must not know what's out there.

[Handles II]

Busy week and LOTS of tournaments last weekend, Cheesehead plus many smaller ones created more math.  
the Challenge series might have pulled some Var guys out, but there was the Cheesehead bringing in stacked out of state teams, and some scrambles were using perhaps their entire teams, JV, exhibition, everyone, or close to it, to fill out the brackets. And, as seems to be the case each weekend, it evens out to almost the same percentages.
We had 218 teams wrestling in tournaments with 3052 varsity spots. We were able to fill 2307 of them for a 75% full average or 10.5 wrestlers per team. Our best weight class was 138 at 86% filled. IF we could get all weights to that level, we would be averaging 12.0 varsity wrestlers per team. Food for thought.

By weight, 218 teams.

106  138  63%
113  145  66%
120  154  70%
126  162  74%
132  177  81%
138  189  86%
145  184  84%
152  170  78%
160  182  83%
170  181  83%
184  174  79%
195  147  67%
220  151  69%
285  153  70%

[Handles II]

Weekend 1/14/2017:
Trends continue to be similar each week which is starting to solidify the data. There are more tournaments going to scramble-type brackets and inviting JV to fill those out (recognisable by having 14 weight classes and some teams bringing 20+ individuals and/or a 13 team tournament and brackets more than 13 per weight) I'm not indicating this is in anyway bad, but it does artificially bring up the average numbers of "varsity" wrestlers. But as we also know there are other reasons why a team might not have a varsity wrestler in the line-up, it evens things out.

We continue to see that 113 and 195/220 are the lowest weights percentage wise. I'm not sure what to think about 113 other than it might be a weight that doesn't fit into growth patterns very well? We could easily shift or combine these weights in some way to help create a weight class system that would be easier for teams to fill, decrease forfeits and open spots, and improve overall competitiveness.

But as with anything, communication within the coaches, WWCA, and AD's  WIAA/NFHS is the only way any type of change will ever come, which, by looking at these numbers each week, at least for our state and the health of the sport as a whole, it should. Most of any in-team competition related to going to 12 weights would equate to an increased number of JV wrestlers and then hopefully, more JV events.

We had 207 teams wrestling in 16 indy tournaments with 2898 spots open for varsity wrestlers. We were able to fill 2060 of them at 71% at an average of 9.9 varsity wrestlers per team. Our highest participation weight class was 145 at only 83% filled. IF we could get all teams/weights to that level we would be at 11.6 wrestlers per team.

Weight class - number (207 possible) Percent

106 - 133 - 64%
113 - 123 - 59%
120 - 137 - 66%
132 - 156 - 75%
138 - 170 - 82%
145 - 172 - 83%
152 - 171 - 82%
160 - 154 - 74%
170 - 158 - 76%
182 - 143 - 69%
195 - 128 - 61%
220 - 135 - 65%
285 - 145 - 70%

[TeamJ]

Amazes me that this just keeps going and going, so in reply---I will try to remember to post weekly ways to GROW the sport, mostly gleaned from conversations with coaches/kids.

I'm  2 weeks behind so:

1)  Local 8th grade Rec youth football coach (loosely affiliated to the local HS) told his kids they should go out for wrestling next year as off-season training.  5 kids did--4 never wrestled. Prompted solely because he wanted his kid to wrestle also, no other reason.

2)  One parent told me they got their less then 106# kid to go out as a freshman because he could letter and it will help with college scholarships/acceptance.  He is now Junior, 120#, JV (has lettered at least once), and loves the sport even though he is JV.

Also--for those justifying cutting the lighter weights due to it being freshman loaded (which should make no difference)---33 of 102 ranked/HM 106/113 pounders were freshman...meaning 68% were upperclassman.