Ok, my friends. Here is my annual plea for 12 weights. The data, as always, confirms that our state does not have the numbers to fill 14 weights, as it has done every year that I have been able to compile data. Trackwrestling goes back to 2005 covering regionals, so that is as far as we can get real data. I have in the past sent this information to the WWCA, and will do so again this year.
This argument always brings up what the weights, if we were to cut, should be. I won't get into that discussion. I think it was Nat Pope who said that we'd be best suited to name the weights. I'm all for that. It takes the emotion out of saying we should cut 106, etc. It's my opinion that we have enough body fat data from Trackwrestling to really get hard data on where kids lie, and spread from a small weight (flyweight, let's say) to heavyweight. I did ask track wrestling for that data a few years ago, and they referred me to the WIAA, citing confidentiality, which frankly is bogus. I can look at every kid's weight class right now.
Anyway...
Background: Years ago, I looked at straight numbers. Who could simply fill weights with a body. I also considered what I thought was a varsity wrestler, and at that time if you had a 0-0 record, or less than a .200 winning percentage, then I listed that wrestler as a non-varsity wrestler. Really, IMO, that winning percentage should be higher, considering the scramble tournaments where 5-20 kids will wrestle other 5-20 kids, but I left it the same for the sake of keeping the data relatively simple.
Sorry about the formatting in some spots...
This season, teams at regionals with 12 or less wrestlers in their lineups:
Division 1: 56% (56.7% last year)
Division 2: 67.89% (64.7% last year)
Division 3: 80.05% (83.5% last year)
This season, teams at regionals with 12 or less varsity wrestlers in their lineups:
Division 1: 67.97% (69.9% last year)
Division 2: 72.04% (77.5% last year)
Division 3: 87.49% (92.2% last year)
Past numbers: (12 or less bodies)
D1 D2 D3 Avg Teams
2005 46.4 56.9 66.7 56.7 347
2006 38.6 55.0 69.4 54.3 344
2007 48.4 57.8 69.2 58.5 344
2008 45.7 61.5 70.4 59.2 344
2009 50.8 57.0 72.9 60.2 342
2010 50.7 54.3 64.4 56.5 337
2011 53.9 64.4 63.9 60.7 336
2012 49.2 61.2 67.6 59.3 333
2013 56.7 61.9 76.9 65.2 336
2014 54.1 61.5 74.3 63.3 334
2015 56.7 64.7 83.5 68.3 332
2016 56.0 67.9 80.0 68.0 333
(http://wiwrestling.info/Users/dloebel/Desktop/ScreenShot2016-03-11at8.52.21PM.png)
I tried to add a chart, but idk know how. Sorry. If you'd like the spreadsheet I'd happily send it to you.
PM me with your email address if you want that document.
Nationally, around 1980, an average team had 33 wrestlers to cover 12 weights, an average of 2.75 wrestlers per weight. Around 2012, an average team had 25 wrestlers for 14 weights - less than 2 per weight.
In Wisconsin, probably less than 50 teams in the state could fill every varsity and jv weight. Based on participation, there could be an argument for 10 weights.
That being said, I attended the team wrestling last Saturday. The final round in each division was unbelievably exciting. If more teams had full rosters, wrestling would be a much better spectator sport.
So we have lost 14 teams since 2005? That is the most disheartening thing. Not being able to fill weight classes sucks, but losing whole teams is the worst. The chances of those teams ever coming back are close to zero.
There are, most likely, less than 20 teams (all three divisions combined) who have 14 weight classes filled who actually can reach team state.
Sixteen of those were at team state this year... so is your team one with 14 weights filled and the ability to fill one of those 16 team state spots?
So here is our yearly lets give up and start reducing arguement. Sorry won't buy it. Random Lake, Stratford and Coleman prove small schools can recruit and do recruit to get the numbers. No excuse for big schools to just throw in the towel. No excuse for wrestling to give AD's and school boards the idea its a dying sport. It takes work, its takes the right people in the right places, it takes many to grow programs. Pretty sure I read just a couple of weeks ago that wrestling is on the rise in popularity and numbers. Don't be so quick to give up and give in....that is not what this sport is about.
Quote from: aarons23 on March 12, 2016, 05:12:47 PM
So here is our yearly lets give up and start reducing arguement. Sorry won't buy it. Random Lake, Stratford and Coleman prove small schools can recruit and do recruit to get the numbers. No excuse for big schools to just throw in the towel. No excuse for wrestling to give AD's and school boards the idea its a dying sport. It takes work, its takes the right people in the right places, it takes many to grow programs. Pretty sure I read just a couple of weeks ago that wrestling is on the rise in popularity and numbers. Don't be so quick to give up and give in....that is not what this sport is about.
Recruit from where? Another school?
I get it to recruit from with in your district 100%. But the ugly thing is that school are recruiting from other districts. While that is helping one team get better it is also slowly eliminating the competition from other schools. Sure 1 school gets better but the schools that are losing wrestlers get worse.
I am not saying giving in but this is a honest look at numbers. If we continue to think it is alright to FF multi weights than lets go forward.
Having school give up 2-4 weights a meet will open the AD eyes alot more than a reduction of weight classes.
Not sure where to go with this either.
I agree 14 weights is just too many. I like to think about it this way. Every major sport requires less athletes to fill a Varsity lineup, and yet we insist on needing 14 weights. Football needs 11, and smaller schools have even shifted to 8 man. Baseball 9, basketball 5 and so on and so forth. Having less weights would create more team competition and allow wrestlers to develop on JV. With less weights JV duals may be possible as well.
I was against going to 14 when it happened. I think 12 is good, and I'm fine with going back to 13. I don't buy the argument that eliminating weight classes reduces opportunities. That's why there is JV. Having 12 or 13 weights I think increases the level of competition and may allow coaches to stop throwing kids that aren't ready into the varsity line up in order to avoid giving up a forfeit. A lot of people against this on here say it's the coaches fault for not recruiting, not knowing what they are doing, etc. I disagree. I think that's a very small percentage of coaches. I think most coaches would love to have full line ups and do their best to try and get kids out. We're all wrestlers, we know what our sport is about. We understand we need to recruit. We need to be proactive getting kids. But what if the kids just aren't there?
Quote from: CoachC on March 12, 2016, 07:07:34 PM
I agree 14 weights is just too many. I like to think about it this way. Every major sport requires less athletes to fill a Varsity lineup, and yet we insist on needing 14 weights. Football needs 11, and smaller schools have even shifted to 8 man. Baseball 9, basketball 5 and so on and so forth. Having less weights would create more team competition and allow wrestlers to develop on JV. With less weights JV duals may be possible as well.
Having less weights will not create more team competition...it will make the good teams better and very well could make the team that struggling worse...cutting two weights guarantees nothing but cutting kids out of a line up from schools that are making it work. You don't punish everyone else for those who aren't making it work. The sport is growing....why would you take a step backwords?
Quote from: crossface21 on March 12, 2016, 07:28:02 PM
I was against going to 14 when it happened. I think 12 is good, and I'm fine with going back to 13. I don't buy the argument that eliminating weight classes reduces opportunities. That's why there is JV. Having 12 or 13 weights I think increases the level of competition and may allow coaches to stop throwing kids that aren't ready into the varsity line up in order to avoid giving up a forfeit. A lot of people against this on here say it's the coaches fault for not recruiting, not knowing what they are doing, etc. I disagree. I think that's a very small percentage of coaches. I think most coaches would love to have full line ups and do their best to try and get kids out. We're all wrestlers, we know what our sport is about. We understand we need to recruit. We need to be proactive getting kids. But what if the kids just aren't there?
so which two weight classes didn't deserve to be at the state meet this year?
More math.
22 teams in D1 had 14 "varsity" kids. (see above for definition)
18 teams in D1 had 13
We've lost 14 teams since 2005. That is 196 lost opportunities.
In 2005, 56.7% of all teams had 12 or less kids on their regional roster.
In 2016, 68.0% of all teams had 12 or less kids on their regional roster.
Less teams now.
Less kids on the regional roster now.
More math.
11 teams in D2 had 14 "varsity" kids. (see above for definition)
16 teams in D2 had 13
7 teams in D3 had 14 "varsity" kids. (see above for definition)
6 teams in D3 had 13
Quote from: Ghetto on March 12, 2016, 08:59:24 PM
More math.
22 teams in D1 had 14 "varsity" kids. (see above for definition)
18 teams in D1 had 13
We've lost 14 teams since 2005. That is 196 lost opportunities.
In 2005, 56.7% of all teams had 12 or less kids on their regional roster.
In 2016, 68.0% of all teams had 12 or less kids on their regional roster.
Less teams now.
Less kids on the regional roster now.
UMMMM so now you get to choose what a varsity wrestler is to try to make your argument look more legit?
there are several basketball, football, cross country teams ect....that doesn't win a single game all season should we make them play JV? I know a wrestler that was 6- 32 last year...this year he was 32-7... yeah he should have been on JV last year...lol. Also with your more math tell us which weights don't deserve to be varsity and then re run your numbers and see how they associate with those weights.
I actually would like to see 13 weight classes.
Reason, then duals dont have to go to the 8th critiea to decide a winner. Easy to pick out winners in matches wrestled.
I would combine the 95 and 220 class and then stretch out the 60, 70, 82 alittle and there we go.
The simple math shows that wrestling cannt support the 14 weight classes on the average plain and simple. If it is truely about the kids then I say go with it but the WIAA has proven over time it is not so then I will argue for less weight classes.
I have said before have 2 divisions in wrestling 1 with 14 classes and 1 with less like 12. I think that is a fair assessment of the situation. It doesnt matter school size if you have enough to support 14 weights than go for it.
Lessening weight classes wouldnt go far with the AD types out there. Most AD are not wrestling people and usually turn to the coaches or wrestling fan for questions about wrestling.
I think what gets most AD is when they go to a meet and see that 1 school or both only have 10 matches wrestled and 4 classes with no wrestlers they wonder why they cannt field a team. basketball wouldnt think of starting a game with only 4 players. I have heard of school FF baseball and softball games because they only have 7 or less players in school that day because of illness or other things.
Wrestling is the only sport which the school will pay for transportation and refs if you only have 1 wrestler.
In the past year I have heard about a few dual that were cancelled because of no wrestlers matching up. Example one school had a 06, 13 pounder and the other had a 45 and 60 pounder. So it would have been FF all the way down the list. That alone will raise the eyebrows of AD and administration.
I know of more than 1 AD that has talked about having less weight classes because it doesnt look good to have all these FF.
So the reduction in weight classes will not raise the eyebrows like people thing of the AD and administration.
Quote from: littleguy301 on March 12, 2016, 05:24:30 PM
Quote from: aarons23 on March 12, 2016, 05:12:47 PM
So here is our yearly lets give up and start reducing arguement. Sorry won't buy it. Random Lake, Stratford and Coleman prove small schools can recruit and do recruit to get the numbers. No excuse for big schools to just throw in the towel. No excuse for wrestling to give AD's and school boards the idea its a dying sport. It takes work, its takes the right people in the right places, it takes many to grow programs. Pretty sure I read just a couple of weeks ago that wrestling is on the rise in popularity and numbers. Don't be so quick to give up and give in....that is not what this sport is about.
Recruit from where? Another school?
I get it to recruit from with in your district 100%. But the ugly thing is that school are recruiting from other districts. While that is helping one team get better it is also slowly eliminating the competition from other schools. Sure 1 school gets better but the schools that are losing wrestlers get worse.
I am not saying giving in but this is a honest look at numbers. If we continue to think it is alright to FF multi weights than lets go forward.
Having school give up 2-4 weights a meet will open the AD eyes alot more than a reduction of weight classes.
Not sure where to go with this either.
First off Coleman and RL are the exception in D3. Although Stratford has things going the right way now they have had their struggles in the past before. You have to also look at the fact that Stratford and Random lake are two of the largest schools by enrollment in D3. Cut their enrollment in half and then see if they have the same continuity.
LG is right, certain teams are recruiting from others and the problem is going to be some of those schools are going to lose their programs.
Colfax is trying to go on their own and start their own wrestling program which is very commendable and is very good for our sport. Rumor is that two of Colfax's top 8th grade wrestlers have jumped ship and are heading to Boyceville to join the other 5-6 "open enrolled" kids they have on their team. I assume this will make Colfax's attempt to start a program of their own a lot more difficult. Parents and wrestlers have every right to do what's best for themselves but it definitely isn't whats best for our sport.
Not easy to build programs like Coleman, Random Lake, and Stratford. Hats off to those schools and many others that have built a culture for wrestling in their communities but it's not that easy in other places no matter who is in charge. Our school is in the low 200's for enrollment and declining every year, 10 years ago we were over 300. Our school co-ops with another community in hockey (which hurts), and then of course there is basketball, which seems to run its program for 6 months. Then on top of that the majority of our wrestlers over the past 20-25 years have left the area after graduation (no reason to come back it there aren't jobs in the area) and you have the perfect storm that hurts you when trying to build a competitive program year in and year out. Sure there are years where you might have a decent team but it's hard to sustain with other sports trying to recruit the same kids. Don't mean to whine, but having 14 weight classes to fill in small communities with declining enrollment is hard to do and then on top of that try justifying that to people in charge that don't have a clue about wrestling on why you should be able to have a wrestling team in your district. Just take hockey for instance, how many of the top division 2 and 3 schools offer hockey with basketball and wrestling. I'm sure there are some that do, just wondering how successful they are on getting kids out for wrestling with an enrollment under 300 and trying to build a wrestling team?
I'm going to say if you win 2 out of every 10 matches or less, you aren't a varsity kid.
Was in the coaches meeting at the Mineral Point division 3 sectional. The one and only topic brought up was the number of weight classes. Coach steldt mentioned that he would like it to be 11. I would be on board with that, but being realistic, start with 13. Coach Schmitz commented that it is the larger states that want to keep it at 14, California, Illinios, etc. One other thing i would like to point out is look at alot of the division 1 schools that are co-ops.
Quote from: guillotine on March 13, 2016, 09:16:04 AM
Quote from: littleguy301 on March 12, 2016, 05:24:30 PM
Quote from: aarons23 on March 12, 2016, 05:12:47 PM
So here is our yearly lets give up and start reducing arguement. Sorry won't buy it. Random Lake, Stratford and Coleman prove small schools can recruit and do recruit to get the numbers. No excuse for big schools to just throw in the towel. No excuse for wrestling to give AD's and school boards the idea its a dying sport. It takes work, its takes the right people in the right places, it takes many to grow programs. Pretty sure I read just a couple of weeks ago that wrestling is on the rise in popularity and numbers. Don't be so quick to give up and give in....that is not what this sport is about.
Recruit from where? Another school?
I get it to recruit from with in your district 100%. But the ugly thing is that school are recruiting from other districts. While that is helping one team get better it is also slowly eliminating the competition from other schools. Sure 1 school gets better but the schools that are losing wrestlers get worse.
I am not saying giving in but this is a honest look at numbers. If we continue to think it is alright to FF multi weights than lets go forward.
Having school give up 2-4 weights a meet will open the AD eyes alot more than a reduction of weight classes.
Not sure where to go with this either.
First off Coleman and RL are the exception in D3. Although Stratford has things going the right way now they have had their struggles in the past before. You have to also look at the fact that Stratford and Random lake are two of the largest schools by enrollment in D3. Cut their enrollment in half and then see if they have the same continuity.
LG is right, certain teams are recruiting from others and the problem is going to be some of those schools are going to lose their programs.
Colfax is trying to go on their own and start their own wrestling program which is very commendable and is very good for our sport. Rumor is that two of Colfax's top 8th grade wrestlers have jumped ship and are heading to Boyceville to join the other 5-6 "open enrolled" kids they have on their team. I assume this will make Colfax's attempt to start a program of their own a lot more difficult. Parents and wrestlers have every right to do what's best for themselves but it definitely isn't whats best for our sport.
That's part of the problem too, some of these smaller schools with the tradition aren't just recruiting their own hallways. It also seems attitudes are a tad different these days. There appears to be more of a "if we can't beat them, let's join them" attitude. So a smaller school which has lower numbers and then their best wrestler decides to open enroll. It can be tough. I've witnessed it first hand.
As far as weight classes, why are there 10 in college and 14 in HS? I don't watch basketball but last time I did, it was 5 starters in college and 5 starters in HS. 9 and 9 for baseball, 11 and 11 for football. Yes, I realize they have created 8 man football. Just asking why we have to have more starters? Maybe basketball in HS should have 7 starters so there is more opportunities for those kids. What the heck, let's put 12 out there on the diamond.
I think wrestling would absolutely be awesome and improved if we went to 10 or 11 weight classes
Quote from: CoachZ on March 13, 2016, 03:20:53 PM
Quote from: guillotine on March 13, 2016, 09:16:04 AM
Quote from: littleguy301 on March 12, 2016, 05:24:30 PM
Quote from: aarons23 on March 12, 2016, 05:12:47 PM
So here is our yearly lets give up and start reducing arguement. Sorry won't buy it. Random Lake, Stratford and Coleman prove small schools can recruit and do recruit to get the numbers. No excuse for big schools to just throw in the towel. No excuse for wrestling to give AD's and school boards the idea its a dying sport. It takes work, its takes the right people in the right places, it takes many to grow programs. Pretty sure I read just a couple of weeks ago that wrestling is on the rise in popularity and numbers. Don't be so quick to give up and give in....that is not what this sport is about.
Recruit from where? Another school?
I get it to recruit from with in your district 100%. But the ugly thing is that school are recruiting from other districts. While that is helping one team get better it is also slowly eliminating the competition from other schools. Sure 1 school gets better but the schools that are losing wrestlers get worse.
I am not saying giving in but this is a honest look at numbers. If we continue to think it is alright to FF multi weights than lets go forward.
Having school give up 2-4 weights a meet will open the AD eyes alot more than a reduction of weight classes.
Not sure where to go with this either.
First off Coleman and RL are the exception in D3. Although Stratford has things going the right way now they have had their struggles in the past before. You have to also look at the fact that Stratford and Random lake are two of the largest schools by enrollment in D3. Cut their enrollment in half and then see if they have the same continuity.
LG is right, certain teams are recruiting from others and the problem is going to be some of those schools are going to lose their programs.
Colfax is trying to go on their own and start their own wrestling program which is very commendable and is very good for our sport. Rumor is that two of Colfax's top 8th grade wrestlers have jumped ship and are heading to Boyceville to join the other 5-6 "open enrolled" kids they have on their team. I assume this will make Colfax's attempt to start a program of their own a lot more difficult. Parents and wrestlers have every right to do what's best for themselves but it definitely isn't whats best for our sport.
That's part of the problem too, some of these smaller schools with the tradition aren't just recruiting their own hallways. It also seems attitudes are a tad different these days. There appears to be more of a "if we can't beat them, let's join them" attitude. So a smaller school which has lower numbers and then their best wrestler decides to open enroll. It can be tough. I've witnessed it first hand.
As far as weight classes, why are there 10 in college and 14 in HS? I don't watch basketball but last time I did, it was 5 starters in college and 5 starters in HS. 9 and 9 for baseball, 11 and 11 for football. Yes, I realize they have created 8 man football. Just asking why we have to have more starters? Maybe basketball in HS should have 7 starters so there is more opportunities for those kids. What the heck, let's put 12 out there on the diamond.
Tradition is what we should be trying to build....not give up because other schools already have it. The comparison to other sports isnt valid....wrestling isnt any other sport. Its the one sport anyone can compete it....not just the big tall athletic kids.....
I understand the delema with numbers in d3 and am not opposed to fewer weights for duals in d3....the point with Stratford, Coleman and Random Lake is with d3 numbers they make it work....no excuse for 2and 1.
Yes make it like college. The only thing I would do would add 117 and 109 because I like having a place for the smaller guys. Although 11 would be ideal IMHO and again you could add 117. The reality is that the NFHS is not going to change the weight classes and the WIAA is not going to go against the NFHS (unless it has to do with wristbands ::) )
Chuck
If you want 14 weight classes, how about two divisions and a few more co-ops. Consider this:
I've gone to a few matches down here in the Chicago area and been impressed. Many of the teams appear to have 40 or more kids on the team. There are very few forfeits. Most varsity wrestlers look like good varsity wrestlers. (Disclaimer: For as long as I've been off the mat, most wrestlers look like good wrestlers these days ;D)
So I looked up a few statistics on number of schools, number of wrestling teams, total participation and some enrollment data for a sample of top teams in each division between Wisconsin and Illinois. Both states have three divisions for wrestling. Illinois does allow smaller schools to wrestle in a higher division based on past success.
As of the 2014/2015 school year there were 334 teams and 7,074 participants in Wisconsin (21.17/team). In Illinois there were 15,036 participants on 434 teams (34.64/team). Basically you have 1.5 wrestlers/weight on the median Wisconsin team and just short of 2.5/weight in Illinois.
Illinois has the 5th most number of high schools and the 5th most number of high school students. Wisconsin has the 12th most schools and 19th most students. Wisconsin apparently has a lot of small schools.
The 100th largest high school in Illinois (Normal Community High School) has 1,945 students. The 100th largest in Wisconsin (Wauwatosa West) has 1,031.
Comparing enrollments at some of the top wrestling schools by division:
Illinois 1A (smallest)
Coal City (2016 runner up) - 646
Dakota (2016 champs) - 405
Wisconsin Division 3
Stratford - 282
Fennimore - 320
Illinois 2A
Marian (Runner up) - 1125
Washington - 1533
Wisconsin Division 2
Wisconsin Lutheran - 758
Ellsworth - 510
Illinois 3A
Marmion Academy (runner-up) - 513 (all boys)
Oak Park-River Forest - 3225
Wisconsin Division 1
Stoughton - 1056
Kaukauna - 1110
I don't know that there's a perfect answer, but when only a small percentage of your pool of teams (mostly in Division 2 and 3) is truly in the running for the state championship, something should probably be done. Forfeits aren't beneficial to any wrestler either.
Quote from: aarons23 on March 12, 2016, 05:12:47 PM
So here is our yearly lets give up and start reducing arguement. Sorry won't buy it. Random Lake, Stratford and Coleman prove small schools can recruit and do recruit to get the numbers. No excuse for big schools to just throw in the towel. No excuse for wrestling to give AD's and school boards the idea its a dying sport. It takes work, its takes the right people in the right places, it takes many to grow programs. Pretty sure I read just a couple of weeks ago that wrestling is on the rise in popularity and numbers. Don't be so quick to give up and give in....that is not what this sport is about.
Poor argument because you name 3 Schools. That is a minority. Even Coleman is having numbers issues and are not as deep and they open enroll kids.
It's time to drop to 10 weights in D3. 12 if that is all that is sellable.
Quote from: aarons23 on March 13, 2016, 05:19:40 PM
Quote from: CoachZ on March 13, 2016, 03:20:53 PM
Quote from: guillotine on March 13, 2016, 09:16:04 AM
Quote from: littleguy301 on March 12, 2016, 05:24:30 PM
Quote from: aarons23 on March 12, 2016, 05:12:47 PM
So here is our yearly lets give up and start reducing arguement. Sorry won't buy it. Random Lake, Stratford and Coleman prove small schools can recruit and do recruit to get the numbers. No excuse for big schools to just throw in the towel. No excuse for wrestling to give AD's and school boards the idea its a dying sport. It takes work, its takes the right people in the right places, it takes many to grow programs. Pretty sure I read just a couple of weeks ago that wrestling is on the rise in popularity and numbers. Don't be so quick to give up and give in....that is not what this sport is about.
Recruit from where? Another school?
I get it to recruit from with in your district 100%. But the ugly thing is that school are recruiting from other districts. While that is helping one team get better it is also slowly eliminating the competition from other schools. Sure 1 school gets better but the schools that are losing wrestlers get worse.
I am not saying giving in but this is a honest look at numbers. If we continue to think it is alright to FF multi weights than lets go forward.
Having school give up 2-4 weights a meet will open the AD eyes alot more than a reduction of weight classes.
Not sure where to go with this either.
First off Coleman and RL are the exception in D3. Although Stratford has things going the right way now they have had their struggles in the past before. You have to also look at the fact that Stratford and Random lake are two of the largest schools by enrollment in D3. Cut their enrollment in half and then see if they have the same continuity.
LG is right, certain teams are recruiting from others and the problem is going to be some of those schools are going to lose their programs.
Colfax is trying to go on their own and start their own wrestling program which is very commendable and is very good for our sport. Rumor is that two of Colfax's top 8th grade wrestlers have jumped ship and are heading to Boyceville to join the other 5-6 "open enrolled" kids they have on their team. I assume this will make Colfax's attempt to start a program of their own a lot more difficult. Parents and wrestlers have every right to do what's best for themselves but it definitely isn't whats best for our sport.
That's part of the problem too, some of these smaller schools with the tradition aren't just recruiting their own hallways. It also seems attitudes are a tad different these days. There appears to be more of a "if we can't beat them, let's join them" attitude. So a smaller school which has lower numbers and then their best wrestler decides to open enroll. It can be tough. I've witnessed it first hand.
As far as weight classes, why are there 10 in college and 14 in HS? I don't watch basketball but last time I did, it was 5 starters in college and 5 starters in HS. 9 and 9 for baseball, 11 and 11 for football. Yes, I realize they have created 8 man football. Just asking why we have to have more starters? Maybe basketball in HS should have 7 starters so there is more opportunities for those kids. What the heck, let's put 12 out there on the diamond.
Tradition is what we should be trying to build....not give up because other schools already have it. The comparison to other sports isnt valid....wrestling isnt any other sport. Its the one sport anyone can compete it....not just the big tall athletic kids.....
I understand the delema with numbers in d3 and am not opposed to fewer weights for duals in d3....the point with Stratford, Coleman and Random Lake is with d3 numbers they make it work....no excuse for 2and 1.
Schools will cut the programs before you can do this Aaron. Budgets are tight participation is down. Wake up.
I'm sure I'll get the Captain Obvious from some of you who know the process, but this needs to be approved by the WWCA. Then it needs to go through the WIAA advisory committee and then to the WIAA annual meeting. The same process was used in basketball to create two halves instead of four quarters. Start talking to your WWCA reps. As far as conforming to NFHS, Michigan still uses the 13 weight classes. Do you know your rep. in both the WIAA and WWCA. If you don't check with your coach and athletic director. Your area WIAA rep. is voted by the member schools representative.
Quote from: ramjet on March 14, 2016, 08:20:56 AM
Quote from: aarons23 on March 12, 2016, 05:12:47 PM
So here is our yearly lets give up and start reducing arguement. Sorry won't buy it. Random Lake, Stratford and Coleman prove small schools can recruit and do recruit to get the numbers. No excuse for big schools to just throw in the towel. No excuse for wrestling to give AD's and school boards the idea its a dying sport. It takes work, its takes the right people in the right places, it takes many to grow programs. Pretty sure I read just a couple of weeks ago that wrestling is on the rise in popularity and numbers. Don't be so quick to give up and give in....that is not what this sport is about.
Poor argument because you name 3 Schools. That is a minority. Even Coleman is having numbers issues and are not as deep and they open enroll kids.
It's time to drop to 10 weights in D3. 12 if that is all that is sellable.
+1 ramjet. My proposal would be 105, 115....then college weight classes. 14 weight classes is really hurting our sport. It's actually encouraging co-ops which I would think is not a good thing. WWCA really needs to step up on this.
The problem is what weights do you remove? You cant take 106 away, there are so many unreal small kids that deserve the chance so show their skills on the varsity level! I do not want to drop any weights but if you had to it would be in the middle. The problem is the forfeits come all throughout the line up not in one specific spot.
I think it would be a travesty if we dropped weight classes! Ghetto, I like and agree with you on most everything but taking weight classes away is not one I can get behind. Sorry!
Using the college weights plus a 115 would greatly improve the sport in my mind. The best interest of the sport overall has to be put above any individual wrestlers. I agree that some of our lightest wrestlers might be affected and it will not be perfect for everyone.
I would have no growth allowance.
I would have a rule that you have to wrestle 75% of your matches on the season at the weight you wish to compete at for the state tournament series. If you want to cut then you cut all year long!
I would have every weight class reduced by 10 lbs for different JV weight classes.
I believe that 99% of wrestlers would be at a weight to compete in by the time they are junior and seniors. Some of our smallest kids might be too small as freshman but that does not mean they cannot wrestle. Very few freshman can compete at 157 on a varsity level so it is not a travesty in my mind if some freshman are too small to compete at 115 as a freshman. Look at what some of the 106 lbers competed at this weekend at the Dells.
I know we have some small kids that will be affected by not having a weight class under 110 lbs but the positives for the sport have to outweigh those interests. The new weight classes (college) will also make it difficult for some of those 215 lbers that will now have to wrestle 285 lbers.
Compromise- make the dual season 11 weight classes and keep the individual state tournament the same to allow more kids to compete. Helps the individuals plus the teams.
JZ,
Can I call you JZ? ;D
You know I don't want to eliminate the little guys! I am (ok, was) a little guy. I also don't want to eliminate the 285 either. I think it is important to have both.
I think it just takes a change in mindset. If we look at eliminating a specific weight, then it becomes an emotional argument, because we all "belonged" to one weight when we wrestled. Really what we want to do is disburse weights to where they fit the bodies of kids we get. I understand that one conference might have no kids at 138 (that happened this year) and a ton of kids at 106. If we used actual data from what kids bodyfatted to, we could determine what the weights are.
That data exists. We've got years of bodyfat data sitting on trackwrestling servers right now. I'd say that 7 years of data is plenty to determine where kids fall.
Kids would have to find a different weight. That's all. They wouldn't be eliminated. Maybe that weight would be a little above or below what it was before, but it would be there.
Quote from: DocWrestling on March 14, 2016, 09:35:38 AM
Using the college weights plus a 115 would greatly improve the sport in my mind. The best interest of the sport overall has to be put above any individual wrestlers. I agree that some of our lightest wrestlers might be affected and it will not be perfect for everyone.
I would have no growth allowance.
I would have a rule that you have to wrestle 75% of your matches on the season at the weight you wish to compete at for the state tournament series. If you want to cut then you cut all year long!
I would have every weight class reduced by 10 lbs for different JV weight classes.
I believe that 99% of wrestlers would be at a weight to compete in by the time they are junior and seniors. Some of our smallest kids might be too small as freshman but that does not mean they cannot wrestle. Very few freshman can compete at 157 on a varsity level so it is not a travesty in my mind if some freshman are too small to compete at 115 as a freshman. Look at what some of the 106 lbers competed at this weekend at the Dells.
I know we have some small kids that will be affected by not having a weight class under 110 lbs but the positives for the sport have to outweigh those interests. The new weight classes (college) will also make it difficult for some of those 215 lbers that will now have to wrestle 285 lbers.
Compromise- make the dual season 11 weight classes and keep the individual state tournament the same to allow more kids to compete. Helps the individuals plus the teams.
All you have to do is looks t at this years state tournament & know that it is inane to consider starting at 115. The 106lb weight class was loaded with Jrs & A few seniors. I would also challenge anybody to tell me that the quality of wrestling at the higher weights is equal to the lower weights. If you are going to reduce, eliminate 220 & 195. It seems as though every school, even the large schools are scrambling to fill the higher weights. Every single kid in both the 113lb & 106lb bracket in D-1 were very experienced wrestlers that have dedicated themselves to this sport. Can you say the same thing about 195 through 285?
Quote from: DocWrestling on March 14, 2016, 09:35:38 AM
Using the college weights plus a 115 would greatly improve the sport in my mind. The best interest of the sport overall has to be put above any individual wrestlers. I agree that some of our lightest wrestlers might be affected and it will not be perfect for everyone.
I would have no growth allowance.
I would have a rule that you have to wrestle 75% of your matches on the season at the weight you wish to compete at for the state tournament series. If you want to cut then you cut all year long!
I would have every weight class reduced by 10 lbs for different JV weight classes.
I believe that 99% of wrestlers would be at a weight to compete in by the time they are junior and seniors. Some of our smallest kids might be too small as freshman but that does not mean they cannot wrestle. Very few freshman can compete at 157 on a varsity level so it is not a travesty in my mind if some freshman are too small to compete at 115 as a freshman. Look at what some of the 106 lbers competed at this weekend at the Dells.
I know we have some small kids that will be affected by not having a weight class under 110 lbs but the positives for the sport have to outweigh those interests. The new weight classes (college) will also make it difficult for some of those 215 lbers that will now have to wrestle 285 lbers.
Compromise- make the dual season 11 weight classes and keep the individual state tournament the same to allow more kids to compete. Helps the individuals plus the teams.
I'm right there with you Doc except I like the little guys. I really think if we went 105, 115, college weights we would be good. Correct me if I'm wrong but "back in the day" when we had 12 weight classes we didn't seem to have quite the issues in filling line-ups, correct?
Quote from: Ghetto on March 14, 2016, 09:43:23 AM
JZ,
Can I call you JZ? ;D
You know I don't want to eliminate the little guys! I am (ok, was) a little guy. I also don't want to eliminate the 285 either. I think it is important to have both.
I think it just takes a change in mindset. If we look at eliminating a specific weight, then it becomes an emotional argument, because we all "belonged" to one weight when we wrestled. Really what we want to do is disburse weights to where they fit the bodies of kids we get. I understand that one conference might have no kids at 138 (that happened this year) and a ton of kids at 106. If we used actual data from what kids bodyfatted to, we could determine what the weights are.
That data exists. We've got years of bodyfat data sitting on trackwrestling servers right now. I'd say that 7 years of data is plenty to determine where kids fall.
Kids would have to find a different weight. That's all. They wouldn't be eliminated. Maybe that weight would be a little above or below what it was before, but it would be there.
You know you can! ;D
The problem is anytime weights are taken away it usually is at the bottom or the top. You can this by some of the ideas proposed on here, like starting at 115? That is insane! The only way I can get behind removing any weights would be to go back to 13 weights and spread the middle more, 140, 145, 152, and adjust the others by 1 or 2 pounds to evenly distribute the weight differences. We do NOT need to go to 10 weights! We would be missing out on some awesome wrestling if we go down to 10 or 12 weights. JMO
at 25 wrestlers average, it is actually impossible to field a varsity and a JV team. The great majority of that national growth in wrestling is outside of the Midwest.
What other sport has averages that do not support even having a JV team.
You want to pay coaches more which I can certainly get behind but many programs have cut the number of paid coaches. Why? Because you don't even need a JV coach as there are not enough kids to even have a JV team.
At the very least I think you will find very few programs with more than 2 paid coaches by the district. Others are supported by the booster clubs.
That is mostly due to budget cuts and not even necessarily numbers.
I would just rather see full varsity rosters, full JV rosters so JV actually looked like varsity with duals and weight classes at tournaments, and then actually have freshman teams (maybe include at least 8th graders if not 7th graders). Shouldn't D1 teams be able to at least field a varsity, jv, and freshman team? That likelihood goes way up if we only had 10 or 11 weights.
With reduced weights you have more teams which means more need for paid coaches.
The problem with the lighter weight classes is we cannot wrestle down to fill the spots but we can wrestle up.
I really do think that if you said that next year we would have 2 divisions, one with 11 weight classes and one with 14 weight classes and coaches get to decide which one they want to compete in that the overwhelming majority of coaches would choose the 11 weight class division when put on the spot.
The WWCA should poll every coach and publish those results.
Quote from: getyourpoints on March 14, 2016, 10:13:48 AM
Ghetto,
Once again a very well crafted and thought out post, just like every year at this time. But once again I 100% disagree with you on cutting kids out of wrestling just so we don't have a FF. (who cares)
What does 14 weight classes get us?
1. Different kids opportunity's in the sport (more sizes and shapes)
2. Less weight cutting
3. Bigger wrestling rooms
4. Support from other coaches (football)
5. Small kids that might not excel in other sports can excel in wrestling
I can tell you as a father of a future 195 or 220 pounder I don't want to see either cut, and as a friend of a bunch of kids that may wrestle around 105 I Don't want to see that cut either. Two weeks ago would any of us wanted to see a state championship night with out the Koontz twins or Raschka or Stokke? With out 220 weight class Stokke who most consider one of the top 5 pound for pound kids in the state is home getting ready to play football for the Badgers instead of inspiring a ton of future athletic big kids to wrestle.
So I did a fact check to add to this bad debate topic.
Year #of high school wrestlers # of schools with wrestling
1970 226,681 6870
1984 248,328 8273
1990 233,856 8416
1995 216,453 8677
2000 239,845 9046
2005 243,009 9562
2010 272,890 10,362
2014 284,114 10,688 this is the last year of the most updated data
From 1980 - 2000 we averaged 26.5 wrestlers per team, and now with the addition of 2500 more teams we have averaged 25 wrestlers per team for the past 15 years. "Not Bad"
We need to pay coaches (in all sports) way better then we currently do in this state and hold them accountable to getting more kids out for sports. We are loosing kids to Xbox and childhood obesity so recruiting is vital.
I have a great idea bonus or cut bonuses on the WIAA leaders and have them create plans to get more kids out, the WIAA executive team ALONE is being paid 13%. I can tell you that's unheard of in business, as an owner of a mid to large company I run my entire executive team and back office support at 6-7% just like most well ran company's. Lets give some back to the guys and gal's in the field coaching our kids, inspired coaches create inspired kids.
Are these early season or end of season numbers?
"Are these early season or end of season numbers?"
LOL! That does matter in wrestling doesn't it. I got a chuckle last week from a couple freshman football players that were recruited to go out for wrestling for the first time this year. I asked them how they enjoyed the season. They enjoyed the season and one of their main comments was they could not believe how many kids quit over the course of the season? That did not happen on the football team. I am guessing hese guys were used to the hard work of football and understood being committed to the team so that was nothing new to them. Not all the other first year wrestlers as well as some experienced wrestlers made it to the end.
1st time caller, long-time listener, great topic, love the show!
I was pondering this over the weekend while on a long drive. I hadn't seen Ghetto's annual report yet, but was thinking of discussion topics for my upcoming banquet. Looking at our varsity numbers (14) vs other sports like football/basketball. One very interesting and important concepts to understand about wrestling is that your best wrestlers are capped at 6 points maximum for the team (in a dual). If they obtain 6 points, they must sit on the bench and another wrestler is put out to try to gain points.
Can you imagine if in basketball players were capped at say 8 points, then they are out of the game and a new kid has to come in? Wow, that would drastically change how the game would be played, as well as how soon guys were moved up to the varsity level, or left down to improve their skills at the JV level.
On my young but improving squad, we suffered 4 season-ending injuries to my (using Ghetto's terms) "varsity" guys. Since my "studs" (using that term loosely) can only be used once, and I have 14 weights to "fill" the question is who do I fill that with, or do I at all? Forfeits look bad (and they must be documented in my annual report to the School Board, as this will be yet another year with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cuts, that looks bad in comparison to basketball or hockey that only need 5 or 6 players on the court/ice).
In our make-believe basketball setting, I would imagine that increasing the number of player-positions on the floor to 6, or 7, would actually be harmful for the sport. Most high school BB teams only have 1 or 2 "studs". If those guys were capped at 8 points and then had to come off the floor it would mean putting more guys who aren't ready to contribute at that level out there. While some (as in wrestling) may rise to the challenge, others would most certainly wilt and end their career.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that because our "studs" can only do so much to help the team effort, is having more weights helping or hurting our wrestlers, wrestling, and the perception of the sport to those who control the money?
Great point Doc about the changes in numbers coming nationally. It's great that the sport is growing in areas where it was almost non-existent previously (texas, arkansas, etc) but do we know if those numbers mean solid teams across their states that are able to fill all weights + JV?
I have never wanted to cut kids out of wrestling.
I agree that this is a sport for all shapes and sizes. I would never have walked into the wrestling room as a 90 pound freshman if there wouldn't have been the 98 pound weight class. I do not want to raise the lower limit from 106.
I do not see the weight cutting that was done in the past, so I'm not sure that the majority of kids will cut. Some will, yes. But with the 7% in place, some simply could not do it. Cheating the bodyfat test is an issue that needs to be addressed, if kids are cutting to dangerous weights. And I believe it is happening, but that's another thread.
14 weight classes does not insure larger teams. In fact the opposite is true according to the data. I don't think they directly correlate, but you could go there if you were uninformed. I'd say a lot of administrators are, and if they are looking at straight data, they'd only see dropping numbers.
I would bet if we polled the football coaches from this state, a large majority would have no idea how many weights there are. You do bring up a great point though. Why not have the WWCA poll the football coaches and ask them what they think about wrestling? Why aren't their kids wrestling? What could we do to make it more appealing to them as coaches?
Again, "cutting" a weight class is not going to cut kids. Do we really think that Raschka and Stokke wouldn't have been at state, no matter what?
Yes we have higher participation nation wide. I think that is great. You have to remember though that entire states didn't have wrestling until recently. I'm glad they now do.
But I look at this state, and I see what I see. I see smaller teams. I see less teams.
I have met very few coaches who don't work hard to get their numbers up.
I think it's a good debate, BTW. ;D
Dual meet FF hurt the sport and it takes away from the team aspect of the sport. It makes our sort loom pathetic giving points for doing NOTHING hurts our sport.
Close the gap for dual meets by making them a 11 man/team events.
Increase the matches if you need by wrestling JV matches or exhibition.
The 14 weight classes can be maintained for tournaments even the State tournaments.
But for those week day conference dual meets it makes sense to reduce the numbers.
The dual meets will become more competitive by eliminating the potential points via FF.
This will draw larger crowds and increase the following and competition.
It will make the team aspect more important and the Indivdual aspect more meaningful during those teams duals.
Let's face it the majority of the teams in this State are FF matches during dual meets. You cannot deny it.
Tell me what other sport awards points for showing up?
Get this sport back make it more exciting and competitive.
FF also should NOT be counted on any record ever.
College has 10 weight classes starting at 125 and goes to 285. There is no 106, 113, 120 or 220. There's 4 weight classes right there that account for 14 vs 10. However, in high school there are numbers in the 106, 113, 120 and 220 weights that are extremely competitive. Not a lot of 195 pounders can handle the strength/size difference up to 285 so I'd leave the 220 in there. I wouldn't touch the light weights either.
I base this entirely on statistics and fact ;D but my biggest beef isn't that we have forfeits with the small schools. It's the reward to the team that fields the wrestler. An unearned 6 pt team victory is ridiculous. I don't have a solution but this is where I see the problem more so than how many weight classes we have. Wrestle what we have, take away the big bonus points for forfeits and maybe we don't have a problem.
Taking away bonus points for FF greatly changes the coaching strategies that are in place. I'd much prefer that all teams could fill all weights, but I still think there is a legitimate argument for keeping FF points no matter how many my team gives up.
But looking at the numbers, if only 60% of teams can fill 12 weights or more, then # of weights needs to be looked at. Even the reduction of one, back to 13 could be quite helpful for many teams. College weights plus 105 ish, 115 ish, 215 ish. Consistancy with our college weights would be imo a positive.
The problem as I see it is not necessarily that teams are having trouble filling all 14 weight classes. Instead I view the problem as there are fewer and fewer kids willing to work hard and wrestle. As part of a youth program that feeds into a very respectable program here in south central Wisconsin I can tell you that the program numbers for k-2 are high, they dip a little for the 3-5, and then fall exponentially for 6-8. The actual numbers of kids that matriculate to the high school program pales in comparison to the number from the same class that started when they were k-2. Why is that?
A simple answer is that wrestling is hard and parents these days won't make their little snowflakes do anything that is uncomfortable for them.
So many here think that eliminating weight classes will help solve this problem. Doesn't that simply equate to the solution provided by helicopter mommies and daddies that don't want little Johnny to work hard or lose and cry? What we need is a change in the culture. Embrace the fact that this is a hard sport. Celebrate it. Get moms and dads on board. Keep them on board. Destroy all video gaming systems...(sorry I was on a roll). Selling parents really falls on youth programs and the people involved therewith.
I must confess that I want this opportunity for all kids. The more the merrier. I want kids to work hard again in this country. I want kids to respect what hard work gives them in return. But those kids won't come if we aren't looking for them and why would we look for them if we don't need them because now we can fill our roster because we only need 12, 11, or even 10?
Bottom line is that this is a problem with our culture not our numbers! Let's change the culture.
BDBacker,
You may or may not recall that many youth programs in the past didn't even start until 4th grade or later. Many schools didn't even have them. Youth wrestling would last 1 month rather than 7. There were 1 or 2 tournaments around, no "state" series, etc. So perhaps kids didn't quit as often because they were older and more mentally/physically ready for it? And there were certainly fewer other options for kids in yesteryear. If youth wrestling was the same animal then as now, would we have similar levels of retention?
Things to ponder.
I don't disagree at all but I think that ship has sailed and will be gone for decades and then maybe return.
I do think that many coaches focus on the matches and wins and losses too much at the younger levels. We should just be building all the kids egos that they are studs for working so hard and getting through that practice. All wrestlers need to feel the pride of being a wrestler and putting in the hard work and then they will want to be a wrestler no matter if they win or lose. Now many win early and are focused on regionals and state, etc and then when things get much tougher in middle school and high school, they bail. We also give them awards for every match through youth wrestling and then in middle school wrestling they get nothing and then in high school they get nothing. It is the coaches and the programs that have put the emphasis on awards and matches.
Us coaches are a big part of the problem because in all sports it is now about more competitions and less practice. The focus is on the best wrestlers and not numbers.
I believe we would have much higher numbers in high school if there was no youth wrestling until 6th grade. Now the top wrestlers may not be as good but your top athletes would still get darn close to as good as starting earlier
Quote from: Oldtimer on March 14, 2016, 12:37:00 PM
College has 10 weight classes starting at 125 and goes to 285. There is no 106, 113, 120 or 220. There's 4 weight classes right there that account for 14 vs 10. However, in high school there are numbers in the 106, 113, 120 and 220 weights that are extremely competitive. Not a lot of 195 pounders can handle the strength/size difference up to 285 so I'd leave the 220 in there. I wouldn't touch the light weights either.
I base this entirely on statistics and fact ;D but my biggest beef isn't that we have forfeits with the small schools. It's the reward to the team that fields the wrestler. An unearned 6 pt team victory is ridiculous. I don't have a solution but this is where I see the problem more so than how many weight classes we have. Wrestle what we have, take away the big bonus points for forfeits and maybe we don't have a problem.
So in this situation I bring my two studs to each dual meet, leave the rest of the team home win those two matches every week. 10 minute dual. Sounds like a great way to build our sport.
It made me have a provocative thought!!!! OH! OH!
In basketball a stud could score 20 points.
What if we allowed a wrestler to wrestle more than once in a dual? Would we be against a wrestler wrestling at 126, then at 132, and then at 138 if the coach wanted it? Coach would have to decide on fatigue? Maybe he wrestles 126, takes a match off, and wrestles 138? Maybe we allow a stud to wrestle only 2 matches rather than 3 in a dual?
Do we allow the studs to try and earn more than 6 points?
Why can't a wrestler wrestle JV and varsity? Many other sports allow that.
Just thinking crazily outside of the box. I am not stuck on traditional models.
*11 weight classes. You cant cut the little guys out just like you can't cut out the big guys.
105, 115, 125, 135, 143, 151, 159, 170, 185, 210, 285
*No growth allowance ever not even back to back wrestling days. 143 the third day of the state tournament is still 143. That will make it impossible to cut excessive amounts of weight and drop a weight class after Christmas. If you body is growing you will simply grow into a larger weight class. You won't be able to cut 10-15% of your body weight and keep it off for 2-3 days and be at the top of your wrestling. Kids will try at first to do it and their wrestling will suffer and then they will go to where their body should be.
*Go to 4 equal divisions for wrestling. No more the largest 128 schools go D1. It perplexes me why D1 is 128 schools and D2&3 are 94 schools. I know they did it back in the day because the numbers for all 3 division were pretty equal but they aren't now with so many schools dropping or cooping wrestling. With 11 weight classes and 4 divisions you would still have 44 state champions, 2 more than we have currently. More opportunities to have your school represented at individual and team state. I also think that it might help with kids not open enrolling because teams would be more competitive. The great teams will still be great but I think it might deter a kid from open enrolling because their current school district is competitive and they might have to sit on j.v. for a year at the powerhouse team. Which is what I think wrestling needs, more competitive matches.
Quote from: Troy Grindle on March 14, 2016, 04:33:33 PM
*11 weight classes. You cant cut the little guys out just like you can't cut out the big guys.
105, 115, 125, 135, 143, 151, 159, 170, 185, 210, 285
*No growth allowance ever not even back to back wrestling days. 143 the third day of the state tournament is still 143. That will make it impossible to cut excessive amounts of weight and drop a weight class after Christmas. If you body is growing you will simply grow into a larger weight class. You won't be able to cut 10-15% of your body weight and keep it off for 2-3 days and be at the top of your wrestling. Kids will try at first to do it and their wrestling will suffer and then they will go to where their body should be.
*Go to 4 equal divisions for wrestling. No more the largest 128 schools go D1. It perplexes me why D1 is 128 schools and D2&3 are 94 schools. I know they did it back in the day because the numbers for all 3 division were pretty equal but they aren't now with so many schools dropping or cooping wrestling. With 11 weight classes and 4 divisions you would still have 44 state champions, 2 more than we have currently. More opportunities to have your school represented at individual and team state. I also think that it might help with kids not open enrolling because teams would be more competitive. The great teams will still be great but I think it might deter a kid from open enrolling because their current school district is competitive and they might have to sit on j.v. for a year at the powerhouse team. Which is what I think wrestling needs, more competitive matches.
+1 Great idea. 11 weight classes for duals, 4 divisions for team state but to get this passed maybe leave it at three divisions (with equal # of teams) and 14 weight classes for the individual state tournament. They do not need to be the same!
Troy I like that idea. Certainly worth thinking about. I'm not sure it will gain much traction, I think the 11 weight classes has a good chance. And I think they need to rethink div 1 and the rest. It doesn't make a lot of sense now. The numbers have changed from it's inception.
First I think weight cutting at the end of the season is terrible. This has to be one of the worst things we can allow our kids to do for their health. I don't believe that a kid at that age can go 3 months without growing some. If they are carrying that much much extra weight loose some before practice season starts and loose the rest in 2 or 3 weeks of practice. Then maybe some growth allowance. After a certain period of time no going down in weight, mid to late December. or 3 weeks after the earliest date wrestling can start. if you wrestle above that weight you must still weigh in at that weight or stay up the rest of the season. For example a wrestler weighs in all year for 145 and drops 7 pounds at the end of the season is ridiculous.
As for the number of weight classes, I think the big weights should stay, kids are getting bigger all the time, but keep the little guys also. Maybe cut down to 13 classes?
Quote from: guillotine on March 14, 2016, 03:29:18 PM
Quote from: Oldtimer on March 14, 2016, 12:37:00 PM
College has 10 weight classes starting at 125 and goes to 285. There is no 106, 113, 120 or 220. There's 4 weight classes right there that account for 14 vs 10. However, in high school there are numbers in the 106, 113, 120 and 220 weights that are extremely competitive. Not a lot of 195 pounders can handle the strength/size difference up to 285 so I'd leave the 220 in there. I wouldn't touch the light weights either.
I base this entirely on statistics and fact ;D but my biggest beef isn't that we have forfeits with the small schools. It's the reward to the team that fields the wrestler. An unearned 6 pt team victory is ridiculous. I don't have a solution but this is where I see the problem more so than how many weight classes we have. Wrestle what we have, take away the big bonus points for forfeits and maybe we don't have a problem.
So in this situation I bring my two studs to each dual meet, leave the rest of the team home win those two matches every week. 10 minute dual. Sounds like a great way to build our sport.
This happens already the worse part of it teams could wrestle up and take the FF points instead. I say dump FF points or diminish thier effect and you will have less.
So maybe thier is a way to do this without cutting the weight classes.
1.) FF are worth 2 points.
2.) FF do not count as win on anyone's record.
Dual meet two teams this may encourage the teams to put wrestlers in the mat instead of taking the FF points.
It seems we reward a team too much for a FF so why shouldn't they use them or take them for a team win?
Now you make the matches actually wrestled with far more and you encourage teams and coaches to wrestle the matches. After all we hate FF or do we actually hate the points it gives the opposing teams?
See a 2 point FF will have as profound an impact on the final score always keeping the match within reach if you win the matches actually wrestled especially if it is won by pin.
If Forfeits were worth 2 points wouldn't coaches forfeit more often when they think they will get pinned or majored? Heck even if they think they could lose they could forfeit to give up 2 points rather than give up 3 in a decision.
Am I misunderstanding you?
Making forfeits worth less than a pin would make the number of forfeits double... at least.
My idea: Like drawing for the starting weight class before weigh ins, coaches could draw 11 times, and only the 11 weight classes drawn would count toward the team score. You could wrestle straight-up or bump your guys around to the scoring weight classes (either to fill a hole or get your better kid in the scoring line up). I'd even be for increasing to 15 weight classes and counting 12 matches in duals, with the tie breaker being the team with the most wins in the three "non-scoring" matches (as a way to make those matches important, other than for individual stats). Obviously this would be for duals only and tournaments would still score all of the weights.
What's important in dual meet?
Winning
14 Weights
Team A has 9 weights covered without any movement.
Team B has the same 9 plus two more covered than team A
They double FF the two not covered or I guess they could move away from a wrestler but that move only gets them 2 points.
So Team B goes up under today's rules up 12 points.
Under my proposed rules they have only a 4 point lead.
Team A wins the flip they gotta chance. Yes it comes down to the flip. But more so the head to head matches not the FF points. Because with major you can make up for two FF. Or with Pin you get to make up three FF.
Better head to head matches.
Am I wrong?
Quote from: ramjet on March 14, 2016, 08:00:30 PM
Team A wins the flip they gotta chance. Yes it comes down to the flip. But more so the head to head matches not the FF points. Because with major you can make up for two FF. Or with Pin you get to make up three FF.
Better head to head matches.
Am I wrong?
You have a stud at 152... I have a crappy kid. Why would I put him out there to give you 6 points when I could just forfeit and give you 2? You could realistically win duals with only 4 wrestlers against a team with 14. Have four kids who can win by pin for 24 points, then forfeit the other 10 weights to give up only 20 points.
Quote from: Ty Clark on March 14, 2016, 08:32:53 PM
Quote from: ramjet on March 14, 2016, 08:00:30 PM
Team A wins the flip they gotta chance. Yes it comes down to the flip. But more so the head to head matches not the FF points. Because with major you can make up for two FF. Or with Pin you get to make up three FF.
Better head to head matches.
Am I wrong?
You have a stud at 152... I have a crappy kid. Why would I put him out there to give you 6 points when I could just forfeit and give you 2? You could realistically win duals with only 4 wrestlers against a team with 14. Have four kids who can win by pin for 24 points, then forfeit the other 10 weights to give up only 20 points.
Exactly so if you could win 1 of those head to head matches you got it ......right? I.e. competition and exciting.
or cut the number of weights and force the head to head matches.
This is a huge issue in DIII it needs to be addressed just bouncing ideas.
So how about NO movement wrestle the head to head and give three points for a FF. Turn in the lineup ahead of time no coin flip.
Say a team is up 33-30 going into the last match of the dual... would they a) wrestle the match or b) forfeit? Forfeits must be equal to the highest possible bonus points, otherwise it provides an incentive to forfeit matches when outmatched (or even not favored).
Forcing coaches to wrestle kids instead of forfeits is not a great solution.
Forfeits happen for two reasons
1) They do not have enough kids and have nobody at that weight
2) They have a wrestler but it is a beginner and never should be wrestling in a varsity match.
Reducing weight classes decreases the chances of not having a kid at a weight- It will not eliminate them but will decrease the percentages
reducing weight classes will create a JV system to develop depth for wrestlers to develop into varsity wrestlers and learn to score team points, make weight, etc. Not a system like know where it is the same as a 3rd grade tournament.
You cannot improve varsity until you improve JV. You cannot improve JV by sending so many freshman right to varsity. Sports with only varsity programs are destined to die. Heck they even lack legitimacy amongst other sports. Many mock our varsity wrestlers because they know you can be varsity simply by weight the right amount. A good freshman basketball player has to play a year of freshman ball, then a year of JV, then gets to varsity. He is not going to give respect to a freshman wrestler that is on varsity and letters because he weighed the right amount!
Wrestling cannot focus just on varsity so reducing weight classes is not about just changing varsity duals but is also about creating a JV division. If a team has 25 wrestlers there is good chance that they can wrestle scoring duals for both varsity and JV with 10 weight classes.
2 things I have to bring up.
First, you cannt make FF worth nothing for the guy getting them. The kid made weight and showed up and you cannt punish them for the other team not having a kid.
Second, Ty hit it on the head, making FF worth 2 points, well then you could move guys around alot and have some real interesting meets. Like he said, if your up by 3 on the last match and the other team sends out a kid and you can FF and still win by 1. That shouldnt fly at all.
basically it should come down to 2 divisions. One with 14 and the other with what ever is decided.
I like 2 divisions for individual and 4 for team. I think that would be a great fix!
I am just trying to find a way to make Dual meets for engaging and fun so many of them are just pathetic.
Quote from: guillotine on March 14, 2016, 03:29:18 PM
Quote from: Oldtimer on March 14, 2016, 12:37:00 PM
College has 10 weight classes starting at 125 and goes to 285. There is no 106, 113, 120 or 220. There's 4 weight classes right there that account for 14 vs 10. However, in high school there are numbers in the 106, 113, 120 and 220 weights that are extremely competitive. Not a lot of 195 pounders can handle the strength/size difference up to 285 so I'd leave the 220 in there. I wouldn't touch the light weights either.
I base this entirely on statistics and fact ;D but my biggest beef isn't that we have forfeits with the small schools. It's the reward to the team that fields the wrestler. An unearned 6 pt team victory is ridiculous. I don't have a solution but this is where I see the problem more so than how many weight classes we have. Wrestle what we have, take away the big bonus points for forfeits and maybe we don't have a problem.
So in this situation I bring my two studs to each dual meet, leave the rest of the team home win those two matches every week. 10 minute dual. Sounds like a great way to build our sport.
Do you really think it's in anyone's best interest to do this? Let's not get extreme.
I second the thought of prematch lineups set. If there is nobody weighing in at that weight for one team there is no match. Simple as that. No forfeit points. If a coach chooses to strategize by moving a wrestler he can't move the wrestler to the "no match" slot to take a forfeit win. If he vacates a prematch weight for strategy it is a scored forfeit but the kid that forfeits the match must wrestle at another weight.
Just some ideas
Quote from: Handles II on March 14, 2016, 02:48:58 PM
BDBacker,
You may or may not recall that many youth programs in the past didn't even start until 4th grade or later. Many schools didn't even have them. Youth wrestling would last 1 month rather than 7. There were 1 or 2 tournaments around, no "state" series, etc. So perhaps kids didn't quit as often because they were older and more mentally/physically ready for it? And there were certainly fewer other options for kids in yesteryear. If youth wrestling was the same animal then as now, would we have similar levels of retention?
Things to ponder.
Good point!
Ram, I think you came with that without thinking about it very much. If you look at all the ways it wouldn't work you can see how many ways there is to work around it. I Know that you know better that.
No I don't an answer.
Quote from: getyourpoints on March 15, 2016, 12:52:57 PM
FYI
A thought that I have heard from a few on the topic of dropping a weight class or two, is that the great teams will benefit from this more then anyone else. Every great team has a whole or two but by dropping a weight class they will only be more dominant.
This may be true, but it could certainly close the gap between the have's and the have not's. example Currently two fairly equal teams as far as wrestling ability goes but not as far as participation numbers meet in a dual the A team forfeits 4 weights and gives up 24 points. The stud team B beats them handily 44-33. Subtract 12 points for two eliminated weights and our dual (given all wins and losses end up the same) is now is 33-32 in favor of the A team.
Lets say these two teams are conference rivals. Team A has a student population of 250 fewer students than team B. Team B's coach was able to recruit fewer kids by school population % but still won the original dual. If we limit our number of starting varsity to a number that more than 60% of our teams can fill, we would have much closer, competitive duals as well as better JV situations. Win/win?
Quote from: Recon on March 13, 2016, 10:32:34 PM
If you want 14 weight classes, how about two divisions and a few more co-ops. Consider this:
I've gone to a few matches down here in the Chicago area and been impressed. Many of the teams appear to have 40 or more kids on the team. There are very few forfeits. Most varsity wrestlers look like good varsity wrestlers. (Disclaimer: For as long as I've been off the mat, most wrestlers look like good wrestlers these days ;D)
So I looked up a few statistics on number of schools, number of wrestling teams, total participation and some enrollment data for a sample of top teams in each division between Wisconsin and Illinois. Both states have three divisions for wrestling. Illinois does allow smaller schools to wrestle in a higher division based on past success.
As of the 2014/2015 school year there were 334 teams and 7,074 participants in Wisconsin (21.17/team). In Illinois there were 15,036 participants on 434 teams (34.64/team). Basically you have 1.5 wrestlers/weight on the median Wisconsin team and just short of 2.5/weight in Illinois.
Illinois has the 5th most number of high schools and the 5th most number of high school students. Wisconsin has the 12th most schools and 19th most students. Wisconsin apparently has a lot of small schools.
The 100th largest high school in Illinois (Normal Community High School) has 1,945 students. The 100th largest in Wisconsin (Wauwatosa West) has 1,031.
Comparing enrollments at some of the top wrestling schools by division:
Illinois 1A (smallest)
Coal City (2016 runner up) - 646
Dakota (2016 champs) - 405
Wisconsin Division 3
Stratford - 282
Fennimore - 320
Illinois 2A
Marian (Runner up) - 1125
Washington - 1533
Wisconsin Division 2
Wisconsin Lutheran - 758
Ellsworth - 510
Illinois 3A
Marmion Academy (runner-up) - 513 (all boys)
Oak Park-River Forest - 3225
Wisconsin Division 1
Stoughton - 1056
Kaukauna - 1110
I don't know that there's a perfect answer, but when only a small percentage of your pool of teams (mostly in Division 2 and 3) is truly in the running for the state championship, something should probably be done. Forfeits aren't beneficial to any wrestler either.
Recon,
You have any numbers from California. I just don't think wisconsin has enough political power to change to many wisconsin wrestling situations.
Quote from: thequad on March 15, 2016, 05:10:15 PM
Ram, I think you came with that without thinking about it very much. If you look at all the ways it wouldn't work you can see how many ways there is to work around it. I Know that you know better that.
No I don't an answer.
Trying to get to the answer via different ideas but maybe there is no good answer?
gablesgrip1
For California, which has a single division for wrestling:
For the 2014/15 school year there were 848 teams with 26,374 participants (31.1/team)
California has the most high school students and greatest number of high schools in the nation (4,495 according to the website http://high-schools.com)
California's 100th largest high school, Franklin High School, has 2,729 students
This year's runner up, Clovis High School has 2,973 students
This year's champion, Buchanan High School has 2,601
I could only find the results of the individual tournament, guessing they don't have a dual championship?
Maybe a better comparison would be a state like Indiana, which is also in the Midwest, has a decent tradition and a similar population to Wisconsin. Unfortunately I'm out of time and have to pick up the kids...
If the problem is too few weight classes filled, we could look at data for different states' corresponding "regional" tournaments and see what % of their teams' rosters were less than 12.
If you're in a rural district in Wisconsin and your student population has been shrinking over the past decade, I can see how it would be difficult to fill out 14 varsity spots.
Quote from: Recon on March 16, 2016, 04:55:42 PM
gablesgrip1
If you're in a rural district in Wisconsin and your student population has been shrinking over the past decade, I can see how it would be difficult to fill out 14 varsity spots.
I know this personally, In the 15 years I coached, our school fell from 425 to 225 in high school numbers. We lost our program, not from effort, but by numbers.
Quote from: woody53 on March 16, 2016, 05:08:21 PM
Quote from: Recon on March 16, 2016, 04:55:42 PM
gablesgrip1
If you're in a rural district in Wisconsin and your student population has been shrinking over the past decade, I can see how it would be difficult to fill out 14 varsity spots.
I know this personally, In the 15 years I coached, our school fell from 425 to 225 in high school numbers. We lost our program, not from effort, but by numbers.
Another great reason for JHI! A H.S. with 200 kids can use the 7th and 8th grades to supplement their program but it doesn't change their division, which is still based on H.S. enrollment. So in theory, that school with about 25 boys per grade, would get a pool of 50 more boys (25 7th, 25 8th) to recruit from. Time to get it going Wisconsin.
Quote from: getyourpoints on March 14, 2016, 10:13:48 AM
Ghetto,
Once again a very well crafted and thought out post, just like every year at this time. But once again I 100% disagree with you on cutting kids out of wrestling just so we don't have a FF. (who cares)
What does 14 weight classes get us?
1. Different kids opportunity's in the sport (more sizes and shapes)
2. Less weight cutting
3. Bigger wrestling rooms
4. Support from other coaches (football)
5. Small kids that might not excel in other sports can excel in wrestling
I can tell you as a father of a future 195 or 220 pounder I don't want to see either cut, and as a friend of a bunch of kids that may wrestle around 105 I Don't want to see that cut either. Two weeks ago would any of us wanted to see a state championship night with out the Koontz twins or Raschka or Stokke? With out 220 weight class Stokke who most consider one of the top 5 pound for pound kids in the state is home getting ready to play football for the Badgers instead of inspiring a ton of future athletic big kids to wrestle.
So I did a fact check to add to this bad debate topic.
Year #of high school wrestlers # of schools with wrestling
1970 226,681 6870
1984 248,328 8273
1990 233,856 8416
1995 216,453 8677
2000 239,845 9046
2005 243,009 9562
2010 272,890 10,362
2014 284,114 10,688 this is the last year of the most updated data
From 1980 - 2000 we averaged 26.5 wrestlers per team, and now with the addition of 2500 more teams we have averaged 25 wrestlers per team for the past 15 years. "Not Bad"
We need to pay coaches (in all sports) way better then we currently do in this state and hold them accountable to getting more kids out for sports. We are loosing kids to Xbox and childhood obesity so recruiting is vital.
I have a great idea bonus or cut bonuses on the WIAA leaders and have them create plans to get more kids out, the WIAA executive team ALONE is being paid 13%. I can tell you that's unheard of in business, as an owner of a mid to large company I run my entire executive team and back office support at 6-7% just like most well ran company's. Lets give some back to the guys and gal's in the field coaching our kids, inspired coaches create inspired kids.
Key Points
1984 only 12 weight classes but 30 kids per team. So let's go to 13 weights (numbers look to support that) These were the days of JV duals.
1990-27.8 kids to fill those 13 weights.
Wait-14 weights would provide "opportunity"
Now we have 26.6 kids nationally to fill 14 various weights. (Do we have Wisconsin only numbers?) This really starts taking the team aspect out of wrestling for many schools.
With the size of high school enrollments in Wisconsin vs. other states (and our participation numbers), looks like the argument should be is 12 or 13 weight classes appropriate for Wisconsin?
Michigan still uses the old weights. They still have 103
Quote from: getyourpoints on March 16, 2016, 10:28:28 PM
I am growing so board with this pointless topic. Can anyone tell me a sport that we do differently then the rest of the nation. Do we play baseball with 8 players? Do we count dunks in basketball 3 points because we are shorter in WI?
I could support dropping a weight if the entire nation does it, if not let's fix our local issues and find ways to be more competitive.
Having fewer than 65% of the teams able to fill 14 weights IS a local issue. But it certainly isn't a Wisconsin-only problem.
Iowa, Districts, 3A (big schools), 62 teams, number of wrestlers:
14 weights - 21 teams
13 weights- 16 teams
12 weights- 8 teams
11 weights- 7 teams
10 weights- 4 teams
9 weights-1 team
8 weights- 2 teams
7 weights- 1 team
6 weights - 1 team Total in Iowa 3A - 37 teams (59%) filled 14 or 13 weights, 25 teams (41%) did not
Iowa, Districts, 2a (middle), 103 teams
14 weights - 3 teams
13 weights - 9 teams
12 weights - 0 teams
10 weights - 6 teams
9 weights - 4 teams
8 weights - 5 teams
7 weights - 6 teams
6 weights - 8 teams
5 weights - 5 teams
4 weights - 12 teams
3 weights - 15 teams
2 weights - 9 teams
1 weight - 7 teams Teams that could filled 14 or 13 weight classes 12 teams (11%) teams that could fill 12 or fewer weights 91 (89%)
This is IOWA!! - The 2A schools had 11 or 12 teams per district (8 districts in the state) the majority of brackets to GO TO STATE were 4 man brackets with BYES!
1. Youth wrestling, the way we currently do it, the things we allow to continue even though they hurt the sport and we see kids quitting because of these thigs have to change.
2. It's apparent that even in IOWA 14 weight classes is far too many, and that the state of wrestling is hurting badly even in THE wrestling STATE.
Iowa 1a (small schools) Districts 129 schools
14 weights - 0 teams
13 weights - 0 teams
12 weights - 0 teams
11 weights - 2 teams
10 weights - 0 teams
9 weights - 3 teams
8 weights - 4 teams
7 weights -7 teams
6 weights- 10 teams
5 weights - 14 teams
4 weights -21 teams
3 weights -11 teams
2 weights - 19 teams
1 weight -17 teams Teams that filled 13 or 14 weights - ZERO!!!!
This is depressing!
Quote from: Handles II on March 17, 2016, 10:25:24 AM
Iowa 1a (small schools) Districts 129 schools
14 weights - 0 teams
13 weights - 0 teams
12 weights - 0 teams
11 weights - 2 teams
10 weights - 0 teams
9 weights - 3 teams
8 weights - 4 teams
7 weights -7 teams
6 weights- 10 teams
5 weights - 14 teams
4 weights -21 teams
3 weights -11 teams
2 weights - 19 teams
1 weight -17 teams Teams that filled 13 or 14 weights - ZERO!!!!
This is depressing!
Where did you find this information?
Trackwrestling. I took your idea. I'll do MN next. My lunch break is coming up.
MN Numbers:
AAA (Big Schools) - 70 teams
14 weights - 31 teams
13 weights - 10 teams
12 weights - 4 teams
11 weights - 8 teams
10 weights - 5 teams
9 weights - 5 teams
8 weights - 1 team
7 weights - 1 team
6 weights - 1 team
5 weights - 1 team Team that filled 13 or 14 weights - 41 teams (58%)
AA (Middle) 104 teams
14 weights - 28 teams
13 weights - 12 teams
12 weights - 18 teams
11 weights - 8 teams
10 weights - 4 teams
9 weights - 5 teams
8 weights - 4 team
7 weights - 2 team
6 weights - 4 team
5 weights - 2 team Teams that filled 13 or 14 weight classes - 40 (38%)
A (Small Schools) 84 teams
14 weights - 16 teams
13 weights - 13 teams
12 weights - 12 teams
11 weights - 7 teams
10 weights - 7 teams
9 weights - 5 teams
8 weights - 10 team
7 weights - 2 team
6 weights - 3 team
5 weights - 0 teams
4 weights - 1 team
3 weights - 2 teams
2 weights - 0 teams
1 weight - 1 team Teams that filled 13 or 14 weight classes - 29 (34.5%)
So... Three Midwest states, all with "strong" wrestling. None of the three states in ANY division can fill all 14 OR 13 weight classes at a level higher than 60% and in most cases it's well below 50% of the teams that can achieve the goal of filling all 14 weights.
Does anyone still think that 14 weights is needed?
Can somebody affiliated PLEASE take this information to the NFHS wrestling board?
Yes, we most certainly have work to do at a grassroots level to redefine and reinvent our sport, but probably the most important is to focus on RETENTION of youth wrestlers. However, if IA,MN,and WI combined have only 50% of schools able to fill 14 weights, then simply put, there are too many weights. I for one really didn't think this way until fairly recently, but now, looking at the actual numbers, to think anything different is just plain wrong.
In order for things to change, it has to come through the coaches to that state and then from there it goes to the NFHS. I think its too bad that it can't go straight to the NFHS but I understand why. Come on coaches, get it going. If Wisconsin starts it maybe it would go somewhere.
Chuck
Thanks for taking the time to do that. It makes a pretty big statement. It seems like only the huge high schools that Illinois has and California, etc are able to really fill 14.
And at the same time you have to tip your hat big time to the small successful D3 schools that are doing it with the numbers they have.
Quote from: chuckref on March 17, 2016, 12:13:56 PM
In order for things to change, it has to come through the coaches to that state and then from there it goes to the NFHS. I think its too bad that it can't go straight to the NFHS but I understand why. Come on coaches, get it going. If Wisconsin starts it maybe it would go somewhere.
Chuck
If Michigan is still using the old weights then I would think some great coaches association leadership with a consensus should be able to get the WIAA to listen and make changes without the NFHS!
Quote from: DocWrestling on March 17, 2016, 12:14:41 PM
Thanks for taking the time to do that. It makes a pretty big statement. It seems like only the huge high schools that Illinois has and California, etc are able to really fill 14.
And at the same time you have to tip your hat big time to the small successful D3 schools that are doing it with the numbers they have.
Thanks, but thank Ghetto because he's the guy that started all of this.I'm glad I did it with our neighbor states. I hope others are too. I believe we all needed to see some REAL numbers (I think some might not like to see the real numbers). I know that there were some injured kids, or kids with skin stuff that couldn't wrestle. We all should acknowledge that. However, it still wouldn't have brought the numbers of teams with 14 up to 50%. Still, that shows a need for fewer weight classes if even with injured and illness kids included, the strongest section in the state can't get everyone to at least 13 wrestlers. And IOWA??? Holy crap! Those numbers are wow, really bad. And they don't even have hockey to contend with!!!
I'm not part of the WWCA, so who of you out there are going to take this bull by the horns and get something done? I'm contacting my representatives ASAP.
What about other "hotbed" states like PA or NJ?
I'll maybe look into that. NJ has like 28 districts it appears (districts are like WI Regions, so the first step in qualifying) and I can't distinguish which are "big" or "small" schools ??? Not all of them are listed on track. It jumps from 1, 2, then up to 10-28 or something (I might be missing something there). EDIT - I figured it out... Will attempt to get it done on my lunch.
Interestingly looking on their state website, random drug testing for teams or individuals is in place for all sports, as is a 30 match limit for wrestling by the end of the regular season (1st weekend in Feb). They also don't start wrestling practice until after T-giving. Hmm...
Ready??? New Jersey, one of the top states in the nation, legendary programs, a population of 9 million people in less than 9,000 square miles (wisconsin has 5.7 mil in 65,000 sq mi)
297 teams broken down into 32 districts with 8-11 teams per district (one district had 7 teams) and a single-class State Tournament. Yes, doing this one sucked. But it's all for the love of the sport, right?
14 weights - 94 teams
13 weights - 56 teams
12 weights - 60 teams
11 weights - 24 teams
10 weights - 15 teams
9 weights - 20 teams
8 weights - 8 teams
7 weights - 6 teams
6 weights - 3 teams
5 weights - 1 teams
4 weights - 4 teams
3 weights - 1 team
2 weights - 2 teams
1 weight - 1 team Teams that filled 13 or 14 weights - 150 (50.5%) Teams that filled 12 or fewer weights 147 (49.5%)
Conclusion: We have too many weights. That is glaringly obvious. 12 seems about right but arguments for 11 or 10 could certainly be heard.
It was weird seeing teams like Don Bosco, Manwah, North Highlands, and Indian Hills, places that I've heard about and read about as "legendary" not having full brackets. Two districts did have every team filling all 14 weights, and another that was only 14 and 13 weights but nothing less. So those three districts are probably swaying the results a bit, but no doubt strong programs. Certainly NJ's population density and wrestling reputation aids them, yet again, only 50% statewide filled 13 or 14 weights. I'd say this information really does say more about the issue of 14 weights for a single high school team to fill than it does about the performance level of individual wrestlers. Try not to get those very different issues confused. 4 studs don't make a program, they don't appease the administration as a successful team.
Thank you for doing that research Handles. At least we know the problem isn't just here in Wisconsin.
" 4 studs don't make a program, they don't appease the administration as a successful team."
Then maybe the answer is to go AWAY from duals to appease the administration. Just wrestle individual tournaments.
That would further decrease our fan base and opportunities for non-wrestlers, youth wrestlers to see our guys in action. I get what you are saying, but our 9th grade girls basketball players won't be traveling an hour to watch us wrestle all day Saturday. They will come to an 1 1/2 hr home dual.
And, in talking with at least my wrestlers, many dislike the all-day Saturdays. Some coaches too. ;)
In addition, coaches still need to report their numbers etc to the district. 4 studs won't cut it. The team will be dropped. We need fewer forfeits and more competition. Two teams with 10 solid guys each would still have 8 forfeits. That doesn't look good even if it's a good dual.
The New Jersey data likely also holds secrets like the great majority of high schools are probably over 3,000 enrollments. I have no idea but I am guessing their high schools have huge enrollments compared to here in Wisconsin and thus have very few rural programs and thus no need for multiple divisions.
Again for a guy like me that comes from probably the 15th biggest high school in the state, it amazes me what some of these D3 programs can do.
I am willing to bet if the WIAA said they are going to 2 divisions, one with 14 weights and one with 11 and each school chooses each year, that 80%+ of schools would choose 11 weight classes when given an option. At 80% choosing 11 weight classes that would mean about 60 schools would choose 14. Do you think 60 schools would stay at 14 weight classes?
Making my point. Instead, at each meet, match up all the wrestlers as much as possible like we do in middle school. Save the scoring for the Saturday tournies.
getpoints, Not sure what you are asking??
I listed how many teams filled all weight classes (14) down to the number of teams only filling one weight class (1). In MN AAA and AAA every team had at least 5 wrestlers at Sections, so I didn't drop below 5 weights for them, you might notice that for A. I did drop down to 1 weight as 1 team only had 1 guy.
"That would further decrease our fan base and opportunities for non-wrestlers, youth wrestlers to see our guys in action. I get what you are saying, but our 9th grade girls basketball players won't be traveling an hour to watch us wrestle all day Saturday. They will come to an 1 1/2 hr home dual. "
You do know that the crowds are much bigger for the individual MN State Tournament than the team tournament, correct?
MNBadger; Yes, I know that. But do you know that the number of people from my school that attend our dual meets is much higher than those who attend individual or dual tournaments? In the eyes of those who control the purse strings, that's important.
getyourpoints - All the schools involved were set up to have 14 wrestlers at 14 weight classes. The numbers you see are the actual number of teams who filled that particular number of weight classes. Ie, if it says 9 weights - 2 teams, that means out of that section or region or whatever, 2 of the teams had 9 wrestlers in their state qualifying tournament.
Quote from: MNbadger on March 21, 2016, 08:24:37 AM
"That would further decrease our fan base and opportunities for non-wrestlers, youth wrestlers to see our guys in action. I get what you are saying, but our 9th grade girls basketball players won't be traveling an hour to watch us wrestle all day Saturday. They will come to an 1 1/2 hr home dual. "
You do know that the crowds are much bigger for the individual MN State Tournament than the team tournament, correct?
As a single event the individual state championship is certainly bigger than team state, but at individual state you don't have a bus of students coming from the school. Student bodies don't rally around the individual, but rather the idea of school spirit & rivalries. You will never have the atmosphere at an individual tournament that can be achieved when two good teams & conference rivals compete in a dual. I was at the Stoughton vs Milton dual this year & the atmosphere was electric.
Or perhaps be proactive in your own state? The numbers in IA,MN,NJ are almost identical to WI, so you already have the information you need to get started. If you can't look at those state's numbers and see that there is a commonality, then there's the first problem.
Look at the numbers and the research that Ghetto has put into it and then ask yourself if having fewer than 60% of teams able to fill the roster acceptable for this or any sport?
Arizona anyone? 185 teams
14 weights - 28 teams
13 weights - 25 teams
12 weights - 25 teams
11 weights - 16 teams
10 weights - 20 teams
9 weights - 8 teams
8 weights - 10 teams
7 weights - 15 teams
6 weights - 11 teams
5 weights - 6 teams
4 weights - 6 teams
3 weights - 5 team
2 weights - 2 teams
1 weight - 0 team Number of teams that filled 13 or 14 weights, 53 (28.6%)
Quote from: MNbadger on March 21, 2016, 08:24:37 AM
"That would further decrease our fan base and opportunities for non-wrestlers, youth wrestlers to see our guys in action. I get what you are saying, but our 9th grade girls basketball players won't be traveling an hour to watch us wrestle all day Saturday. They will come to an 1 1/2 hr home dual. "
You do know that the crowds are much bigger for the individual MN State Tournament than the team tournament, correct?
When I was coaching at the high school level there were way more people at our individual tournament than our duals.
Still having trouble with much of the thinking on here......
If we are having trouble filling 14 weights....
I think it is very likely we have the wrong weight divisions (too many up top).
The weights should be where most the kids are weight wise.
I will tell you this: In my years coaching I regularly kept track of tournament brackets in tournaments we competed in. I always compared 103 to 285 and 103/112/ to 215/285. There were ALWAYS fewer in the heavier brackets than the lighter brackets. This held true in WI as well where only 9-12 could compete (often here in MN the excuse is that the lighter weights are filled with 7-8th graders).
I will also tell you this: In the high school I am affiliated with (2000+ students 10-12), there are WAY more kids walking around that could make 103 than there are legitimate 215 or 285 pounders. Honestly, how many kids that weigh this much are truly healthy?
Quote from: MNbadger on March 21, 2016, 03:11:52 PM
Still having trouble with much of the thinking on here......
If we are having trouble filling 14 weights....
I think it is very likely we have the wrong weight divisions (too many up top).
The weights should be where most the kids are weight wise.
I will tell you this: In my years coaching I regularly kept track of tournament brackets in tournaments we competed in. I always compared 103 to 285 and 103/112/ to 215/285. There were ALWAYS fewer in the heavier brackets than the lighter brackets. This held true in WI as well where only 9-12 could compete (often here in MN the excuse is that the lighter weights are filled with 7-8th graders).
I will also tell you this: In the high school I am affiliated with (2000+ students 10-12), there are WAY more kids walking around that could make 103 than there are legitimate 215 or 285 pounders. Honestly, how many kids that weigh this much are truly healthy?
I couldn't agree more. It is the one sport that has always been there for the smaller athlete & for that reason little guys have filtered to the sport forever. Not only are their more kids at the lower weights, the quality of wrestling is much higher than at the heavier weights.
Going back to 12 weights does not eliminate kids.
I wonder if there would be a trickle down effect and kids would not open enroll and move if they didn't feel like they were guaranteed a spot. Would we see kids staying home and wrestling for the community they grew up in?
Quote from: getyourpoints on March 22, 2016, 07:15:42 AM
1Iota,
Did you go to state this year?? Do you realize that four years in a row that some of our most talented wrestlers came out of 220??? our 182-195-220 pounders are the most recruited wrestlers in the state this year. 195 at division 1 and 2 were loaded this year...
This is why cutting weight classes is guaranteed to cut talent, the good wrestlers are not cutting weight like they used to and they wont. They are not cutting weight in collage as dramatically as they used to. Obviously kids cut weight but the good wrestlers are training year round and putting on speed and mass. One of the most exciting NCAA final matches last weekend was heavy weight, wrestling is evolving every day and by eliminating kids from the sport we in WISCONSIN WILL BE THE ONLY TO LOSE OUT.
Why are some of you so blazes bent on cutting kids out? Lets not make kids pay the price because other community's struggle growing wrestling.
Who's suggesting cutting kids out?
Hello Ghetto, you and I have danced around this a time or two. I fully respect your passion for the kids and the sport, yet I disagree.
if a team can field 14, and we go to 12 weight classes, how do we not cut kids? Can we agree that 12-14+-2?
Dale, It's not cutting if a kid doesn't win a wrestle-off. It's wrestling.
The fact that fewer than 60% of our teams can fill 14 weights can't be ignored any longer. This 14 weight idea has been failing for 16 years. Ghetto has shown the numbers since 2005. It hasn't increased our number of wrestlers as designed. So since the number of wrestlers hasn't increased, and the number of forfeits has increased (and JV has become almost nothing) simply go back to what is more competitive and realistic for all teams.
Quote from: getyourpoints on March 22, 2016, 07:15:42 AM
1Iota,
Did you go to state this year?? Do you realize that four years in a row that some of our most talented wrestlers came out of 220??? our 182-195-220 pounders are the most recruited wrestlers in the state this year. 195 at division 1 and 2 were loaded this year...
This is why cutting weight classes is guaranteed to cut talent, the good wrestlers are not cutting weight like they used to and they wont. They are not cutting weight in collage as dramatically as they used to. Obviously kids cut weight but the good wrestlers are training year round and putting on speed and mass. One of the most exciting NCAA final matches last weekend was heavy weight, wrestling is evolving every day and by eliminating kids from the sport we in WISCONSIN WILL BE THE ONLY THAT LOSE OUT.
Why are some of you so blazes bent on cutting kids out? Lets not make kids pay the price because other community's struggle growing wrestling.
If college had a 220 weight class, that college championship match would not have happened. So thank the NCAA for not adding a 220 weight class for more opportunity. (I guess the NCAA must hate kids too.)
Quote from: getyourpoints on March 22, 2016, 07:15:42 AM
1Iota,
Did you go to state this year?? Do you realize that four years in a row that some of our most talented wrestlers came out of 220??? our 182-195-220 pounders are the most recruited wrestlers in the state this year. 195 at division 1 and 2 were loaded this year...
This is why cutting weight classes is guaranteed to cut talent, the good wrestlers are not cutting weight like they used to and they wont. They are not cutting weight in collage as dramatically as they used to. Obviously kids cut weight but the good wrestlers are training year round and putting on speed and mass. One of the most exciting NCAA final matches last weekend was heavy weight, wrestling is evolving every day and by eliminating kids from the sport we in WISCONSIN WILL BE THE ONLY THAT LOSE OUT.
Why are some of you so blazes bent on cutting kids out? Lets not make kids pay the price because other community's struggle growing wrestling.
I did attend state & you're correct that those weight classes both had a few of the top prospects in our state, with Raschka being elite. However if you look at the entire brackets I would offer the opinion that both 106 & 113 had more kids that have succeeded on the national level. My point is that it seems that whenever the issue of reducing weight classes comes up the first classes offered up for sacrifice are the lower weights, which makes no sense to me.
Quote from: Dale Einerson on March 22, 2016, 08:01:42 AM
Hello Ghetto, you and I have danced around this a time or two. I fully respect your passion for the kids and the sport, yet I disagree.
if a team can field 14, and we go to 12 weight classes, how do we not cut kids? Can we agree that 12-14+-2?
If it's simple math, and a team has 14 wrestlers, yes they will not have a varsity spot for regionals and therefore the state tournament series. Two less kids will wrestle varsity on that team. They are not "cut". Most of the stronger teams in this state wrestle their "reserve" team at varsity tournaments anyway. This whole cutting idea is complete nonsense. Rare is the day where a kid is a complete stud and has to wrestle JV. Heck, that kid from Kaukauna wrestled at both JV state AND varsity state.
I do not want to take this case by case, because of course there are teams who do fill the full 14 weights with 14 quality kids. I would say that of MOST 14 man rosters, there are two that are just filling a spot.
I have no delusions that my idea will ever go past this forum. I will send the data to the WWCA and let it go from there. I am aware that not everyone agrees with me, and that's fine. I'll just remind folks that we used to have 12 weights, and the sport was certainly not dying then. And next year, the data will show the same thing. Teams can't fill the weight classes. That trend will continue on forever, and somehow we won't think there is a problem. I too understand why we vote the way we do. We'd rather have things stay the same, because it's what we do, rather than take a chance.
Wrestling has become the sport of participation medals. Everyone gets a medal or trophy from an early age and has nothing to do with results.
This carries into varsity where everyone just expects that there should be a varsity weight class for everyone.
In most all other sports you have to earn your spot on varsity and it is a dang tough journey and a great accomplishment if you can earn playing time on varsity. Not in wrestling. Wrestlers don't even get the respect from their classmates because they simply know you lettered and are on varsity because of what you weigh.
Where along the path did wrestling on JV develop such a stigma like kids are too good to wrestle on JV.
If you want wrestling to be a healthy "team sport", you need middle school "teams", freshman "teams", JV "teams" and varsity "teams that can wrestle duals. D2 and D3 might not have freshman teams but D1 schools have freshman teams in just about every other sport.
Otherwise just get rid of duals and make everyone varsity and only do individual competitions.
The numbers on this thread have pushed me to think going drastic to 10 weight classes would be the best. An overwhelming majority of teams would have a full lineup or maybe one forfeit at the most. They would also have JV teams. The only negative to this whole system is that some kids would have to wrestle JV until they earned their spot. Oh the horror!! This already happens at the best programs with their depth so why would everyone else be scared of that?
You are not CUT from wrestling if you have to wrestle JV.
Quote from: Handles II on March 22, 2016, 08:42:24 AM
Dale, It's not cutting if a kid doesn't win a wrestle-off. It's wrestling.
The fact that fewer than 60% of our teams can fill 14 weights can't be ignored any longer. This 14 weight idea has been failing for 16 years. Ghetto has shown the numbers since 2005. It hasn't increased our number of wrestlers as designed. So since the number of wrestlers hasn't increased, and the number of forfeits has increased (and JV has become almost nothing) simply go back to what is more competitive and realistic for all teams.
I am not confused about how wrestle-offs work, and yes, I am aware it is wrestling.
Can we not agree that if 40% of the teams can field 14 weight classes then when a cut is made to 12 weight classes that 40% of the teams will lose 2 varsity wrestlers? Can we at least agree with the math? Try this, tell me what I have wrong about the math...
I am not saying that I think a reduction in weight classes is a bad idea, I am challenging those making points to reduce to 12 weight classes to do so using proper reasoning. The cruel, heartless and cold math says there will be less varsity wrestlers. So, that cannot be a reason to reduce to weight classes...
There will be fewer varsity positions, and there will be fewer varsity forfeits. From a fan and coaching standpoint, and perhaps more importantly from that as a former administrator, fewer forfeits and potentially more people on JV is not a bad thing.
Quote from: Dale Einerson on March 22, 2016, 09:23:14 AM
Quote from: Handles II on March 22, 2016, 08:42:24 AM
Dale, It's not cutting if a kid doesn't win a wrestle-off. It's wrestling.
The fact that fewer than 60% of our teams can fill 14 weights can't be ignored any longer. This 14 weight idea has been failing for 16 years. Ghetto has shown the numbers since 2005. It hasn't increased our number of wrestlers as designed. So since the number of wrestlers hasn't increased, and the number of forfeits has increased (and JV has become almost nothing) simply go back to what is more competitive and realistic for all teams.
I am not confused about how wrestle-offs work, and yes, I am aware it is wrestling.
Can we not agree that if 40% of the teams can field 14 weight classes then when a cut is made to 12 weight classes that 40% of the teams will lose 2 varsity wrestlers? Can we at least agree with the math? Try this, tell me what I have wrong about the math...
I am not saying that I think a reduction in weight classes is a bad idea, I am challenging those making points to reduce to 12 weight classes to do so using proper reasoning. The cruel, heartless and cold math says there will be less varsity wrestlers. So, that cannot be a reason to reduce to weight classes...
You would think that is basic enough math to understand and to agree upon........
Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas. Albert EinsteinFew hundred more varsity wrestlers bumped out, open enrollment goes up, then at least we can change to a new topic and have another forum thread/group lament about open enrollment.
40% of teams in D1 have 13 or 14. Not 14.
When you take out kids who have not wrestled varsity all season, or lose 80% of their matches, the number of teams really filling weights drops again.
Just trying to make sure we all understand why reducing weight classes will be good for wrestling; challenging the whole lot of you to come up with strong arguments...am I snarky? Yes. Do I feel like the arguments to go to 12 weight classes are generally weak and not well supported? Yes.
Quote from: Ghetto on March 22, 2016, 09:46:02 AM
40% of teams in D1 have 13 or 14. Not 14.
When you take out kids who have not wrestled varsity all season, or lose 80% of their matches, the number of teams really filling weights drops again.
So, lets see if I can summarize the reason proposed to go to 12 weight classes: We desire to go to 12 weight classes because a lot of the kids dropped to JV were losers.
Quote from: Handles II on March 22, 2016, 09:34:50 AM
There will be fewer varsity positions, and there will be fewer varsity forfeits. From a fan and coaching standpoint, and perhaps more importantly from that as a former administrator, fewer forfeits and potentially more people on JV is not a bad thing.
Lets see if I can summarize the reasoning to go to 12 weight classes accurately. Forfeits are bad. We don't want to see forfeits. Even if 40% of the teams don't forfeit, and we will put 1-2 kids from 40% of the teams on JV and pretend that is good, we will feel like we did the right thing by removing painful forfeits. Don't pollute our "feels" with any real math about how many forfeits would actually go away, just know what I know and ignore the cold, heartless, cruel math; demote 1-2 kids from 40% of the teams and that will be good for wrestling participation.
Quote from: Handles II on March 22, 2016, 09:34:50 AM
There will be fewer varsity positions, and there will be fewer varsity forfeits. From a fan and coaching standpoint, and perhaps more importantly from that as a former administrator, fewer forfeits and potentially more people on JV is not a bad thing.
Only one of your statements is guaranteed to be true. It is a guarantee that you will lose varsity spots. It is not a guarantee that you will reduce forfeits. If you cut weights there is also a high likelihood that you also force more weight cutting.
By your argument that reducing two weight classes will hurt wrestling participation, can we then extrapolate that you feel that having more weight classes would increase participation?
Here is the simple math I cannot get passed.
You have rules that say 14 weight classes is your "starting lineup" yet less than 1/3 of teams can even put a full "starting lineup" out for their competitions.
What kind of system is that? Should the system not have rules that allow 90% of team to put out a full starting lineup? Should their not be a system that makes it even possible to have back-ups available if a guy gets hurt, sick or is ineligible.
Why doesn't tennis have 7 singles matches and 6 doubles matches? Why doesn't wrestling have 20 weight classes?
Yes Dale, I understand you are being snarky, but the evidence is there, the real numbers are there. If you really think that math is the way to find the solution, it's simple. Look at the numbers. Look at the numbers from other states. 14 weights is more than the mean, median, or mode can fill. There was zero evidence or "math" to say that it would benefit wrestling, yet it happened anyway, so maybe math isn't always the answer. It was done so as an experiment to improve numbers, especially of 11th and 12th grade football players who have never participated in the sport. It hasn't worked. If something, a new idea, a new advertisement isn't working, hasn't worked, and won't work, and all the numbers reflect it, do you as a businessman keep pushing it to work? How about if it hasn't worked for 16 years? Are you going to push to keep it for 20?
Quote from: DocWrestling on March 22, 2016, 10:08:48 AM
By your argument that reducing two weight classes will hurt wrestling participation, can we then extrapolate that you feel that having more weight classes would increase participation?
Here is the simple math I cannot get passed.
You have rules that say 14 weight classes is your "starting lineup" yet less than 1/3 of teams can even put a full "starting lineup" out for their competitions.
What kind of system is that? Should the system not have rules that allow 90% of team to put out a full starting lineup? Should their not be a system that makes it even possible to have back-ups available if a guy gets hurt, sick or is ineligible.
Why doesn't tennis have 7 singles matches and 6 doubles matches? Why doesn't wrestling have 20 weight classes?
My argument is more than an argument, if you reduce from 14 to 12 weight classes, we will see 1-2 kids from 40% of the D1 programs demoted to JV, therefor precisely reducing varsity wrestling opportunities. That is a mathematical fact. I propose we all deal with this undeniable fact if we want to move forward on reducing weight classes. It is definitely in the "con" category.
I must add, that 40% is more than 1/3, so, again, math is a cruel master, deal with it.
The discussion on extrapolation and the question "why doesn't wrestling have 20 weight classes" are non-starters with me, I guess I am just not easily distracted by straw man arguments.
The comparison to tennis is a non-starter for me as well. I just had handles explaining this was wrestling, to me, apparently he needs to be talking to you.
What I am attempting to do is challenge those that want to go to 12 weight classes to use compelling arguments; as we can plainly see, many of the arguments are not well thought out, nor are they well articulated.
So let's keep 14 weights and shift the weights down. You then have more participation and less forfeits.
Quote from: Handles II on March 22, 2016, 10:20:26 AM
Yes Dale, I understand you are being snarky, but the evidence is there, the real numbers are there. If you really think that math is the way to find the solution, it's simple. Look at the numbers. Look at the numbers from other states. 14 weights is more than the mean, median, or mode can fill. There was zero evidence or "math" to say that it would benefit wrestling, yet it happened anyway, so maybe math isn't always the answer. It was done so as an experiment to improve numbers, especially of 11th and 12th grade football players who have never participated in the sport. It hasn't worked. If something, a new idea, a new advertisement isn't working, hasn't worked, and won't work, and all the numbers reflect it, do you as a businessman keep pushing it to work? How about if it hasn't worked for 16 years? Are you going to push to keep it for 20?
A lot of words about numbers and math; yet, devoid of actual numbers and math. As a business person; a true wrestling fan, I would ask you what numbers you are referring to and what are your sources, what the trends are, what do the trends predict, what does the standard bell curve say about weight classes for high school aged boys across the nation, what is happening to participation in all sports and extra-curricular activities, what are we trying to accomplish, what we recommend, and why we feel what we are recommending will accomplish our goal? I predict those are the questions that would require answering at any high level of decision-making.
And, as a business person, if you came to me waving your hands in the air and crying about painful forfeits and failed experiments and straw man arguments, with no actual numbers, it would be a short meeting until you ready yourself to discuss any recommendations. Or, I would do it or find somebody else to do it and then I wouldn't need you. You asked...
Quote from: getyourpoints on March 22, 2016, 10:37:03 AM
If the sport of wrestling feels the need to change I am all in, if the state of WI thinks its going to lead the way of this change I cant support it.
I think if we are going to change we do it all the way and embrace the collage format and its rules. I will be very disappointed with the fall out but if its for the "better good" then why not.
Sorry little guys, see you 220 pounders. I guess my kid will just play Football because I will not have him cut from 215 to 197.
What has changed over the past decades? Is it your mentality? The highest weight class used to be 185 and then heavyweight. There were lots of 210 lbers challenging themselves against the heavyweights?
Dale, I used 1/3 rather than 40% that you are using. You keep saying that 40% have full lineups and your math is wrong. That was for teams with 13 or 14 weights filled. If you look at all the other state as well, we are at about 33% of teams filling a full lineup with 14 wrestlers.
You cannot just throw away the facts that a huge amount of teams wrestled guys at regionals that normally wrestle in JV tournaments. Why is that? Their coaches do not feel they are "varsity" wrestlers and still in need of development but at regionals they feel enormous pressure from administrators to fill as many weight classes as they can. They wrestle at regionals just because they weigh the right amount
Compare the teams at Marty Loy Classic with the rosters they wrestled and what they did at regionals. Many coaches dropped their guys down into JV division because there was one at the Marty Loy.
Ghetto and other are saying that even the "math" fact that 30-40% of teams can fill a full lineup for regioanals is an illusion and does not represent a true "math"
And nobody is debating that if we drop to 12 weight classes that we would be eliminating 2 varsity wrestling spots on each team. Yes that would mean on a minority of teams that 1-2 kids might be bumped to JV.
Quote from: Dale Einerson on March 22, 2016, 10:47:31 AM
Quote from: Handles II on March 22, 2016, 10:20:26 AM
Yes Dale, I understand you are being snarky, but the evidence is there, the real numbers are there. If you really think that math is the way to find the solution, it's simple. Look at the numbers. Look at the numbers from other states. 14 weights is more than the mean, median, or mode can fill. There was zero evidence or "math" to say that it would benefit wrestling, yet it happened anyway, so maybe math isn't always the answer. It was done so as an experiment to improve numbers, especially of 11th and 12th grade football players who have never participated in the sport. It hasn't worked. If something, a new idea, a new advertisement isn't working, hasn't worked, and won't work, and all the numbers reflect it, do you as a businessman keep pushing it to work? How about if it hasn't worked for 16 years? Are you going to push to keep it for 20?
A lot of words about numbers and math; yet, devoid of actual numbers and math. As a business person; a true wrestling fan, I would ask you what numbers you are referring to and what are your sources, what the trends are, what do the trends predict, what does the standard bell curve say about weight classes for high school aged boys across the nation, what is happening to participation in all sports and extra-curricular activities, what are we trying to accomplish, what we recommend, and why we feel what we are recommending will accomplish our goal? I predict those are the questions that would require answering at any high level of decision-making.
And, as a business person, if you came to me waving your hands in the air and crying about painful forfeits and failed experiments and straw man arguments, with no actual numbers, it would be a short meeting until you ready yourself to discuss any recommendations. Or, I would do it or find somebody else to do it and then I wouldn't need you. You asked...
As a business person and wrestling guy do you need math and/or hard evidence to believe that 14 weight classes is counter productive? You see the elimination of 40% some of us see that 60% or more can't field a full line-up. Maybe it's just a difference in opinion Dale. I guess I see it that having the majority of line-ups in the state not fielding a full squad as a larger negative than the 40% loss of current varsity kids or whatever number you said. Just my opinion and I don't expect anyone to care but to me it looks bad. I don't need numbers to know it looks bad. I still read the newspaper during the week and when I see dual meet results with multiple ff's and worse yet multiple double ff's it's not good. Again, my opinion.
Quote from: DocWrestling on March 22, 2016, 10:56:27 AM
Dale, I used 1/3 rather than 40% that you are using. You keep saying that 40% have full lineups and your math is wrong. That was for teams with 13 or 14 weights filled. If you look at all the other state as well, we are at about 33% of teams filling a full lineup with 14 wrestlers.
You cannot just throw away the facts that a huge amount of teams wrestled guys at regionals that normally wrestle in JV tournaments. Why is that? Their coaches do not feel they are "varsity" wrestlers and still in need of development but at regionals they feel enormous pressure from administrators to fill as many weight classes as they can. They wrestle at regionals just because they weigh the right amount
Compare the teams at Marty Loy Classic with the rosters they wrestled and what they did at regionals. Many coaches dropped their guys down into JV division because there was one at the Marty Loy.
Ghetto and other are saying that even the "math" fact that 30-40% of teams can fill a full lineup for regioanals is an illusion and does not represent a true "math"
I used the 40% that Ghetto says have 13-14 guys on varsity. Now I read you say that according to you and Ghetto that is an illusion. Can you see why I say the arguments are not well thought out?
Quote from: DocWrestling on March 22, 2016, 10:56:27 AM
Dale, I used 1/3 rather than 40% that you are using. You keep saying that 40% have full lineups and your math is wrong. That was for teams with 13 or 14 weights filled. If you look at all the other state as well, we are at about 33% of teams filling a full lineup with 14 wrestlers.
You cannot just throw away the facts that a huge amount of teams wrestled guys at regionals that normally wrestle in JV tournaments. Why is that? Their coaches do not feel they are "varsity" wrestlers and still in need of development but at regionals they feel enormous pressure from administrators to fill as many weight classes as they can. They wrestle at regionals just because they weigh the right amount
Compare the teams at Marty Loy Classic with the rosters they wrestled and what they did at regionals. Many coaches dropped their guys down into JV division because there was one at the Marty Loy.
Ghetto and other are saying that even the "math" fact that 30-40% of teams can fill a full lineup for regioanals is an illusion and does not represent a true "math"
And nobody is debating that if we drop to 12 weight classes that we would be eliminating 2 varsity wrestling spots on each team. Yes that would mean on a minority of teams that 1-2 kids might be bumped to JV.
I've heard of coaches getting a kid to go out so he can wrestle regionals and they can get 4th at the weight class because there are only 3 other kids. No lie.
Quote from: Dale Einerson on March 22, 2016, 09:23:14 AM
Can we not agree that if 40% of the teams can field 14 weight classes then when a cut is made to 12 weight classes that 40% of the teams will lose 2 varsity wrestlers? Can we at least agree with the math? Try this, tell me what I have wrong about the math...
If a team with 14, returned the entire team, cutting 1 or 2 weight classes would remove 1 or 2 kids from the returning "varsity" team. True.
But for the vast majority of the situations, the kids eliminated from the "varsity" by removing weight classes are kids that had less than a 40% winning percentage (excluding forfeits they received) the previous year.
Sure, there are always exceptions. There are 5-15 kids (with 14 weight classes) that could have placed at state but could not make their own regional team lineup. Many more than that who may have qualified. Moving to 13 weight classes probably bumps that number some. Team wrestling in Wisconsin would be stronger with 13 weight classes.
When Rapids was nationally ranked with 13 weight classes - life went on. A senior state place winner would graduate and the next year there was a junior from Rapids wrestling that was now on the varsity wrestling in Madison. What was wrong with that? If you run a great program, you can get great results. Lincoln could have fielded a team of 16-18 varsity wrestlers. It does not mean that Wisconsin D3 schools should forfeit weights in duals because a few D1 programs are able to fill all 14 current weight classes.
Quote from: Barou on March 22, 2016, 10:59:26 AM
Quote from: Dale Einerson on March 22, 2016, 10:47:31 AM
Quote from: Handles II on March 22, 2016, 10:20:26 AM
Yes Dale, I understand you are being snarky, but the evidence is there, the real numbers are there. If you really think that math is the way to find the solution, it's simple. Look at the numbers. Look at the numbers from other states. 14 weights is more than the mean, median, or mode can fill. There was zero evidence or "math" to say that it would benefit wrestling, yet it happened anyway, so maybe math isn't always the answer. It was done so as an experiment to improve numbers, especially of 11th and 12th grade football players who have never participated in the sport. It hasn't worked. If something, a new idea, a new advertisement isn't working, hasn't worked, and won't work, and all the numbers reflect it, do you as a businessman keep pushing it to work? How about if it hasn't worked for 16 years? Are you going to push to keep it for 20?
A lot of words about numbers and math; yet, devoid of actual numbers and math. As a business person; a true wrestling fan, I would ask you what numbers you are referring to and what are your sources, what the trends are, what do the trends predict, what does the standard bell curve say about weight classes for high school aged boys across the nation, what is happening to participation in all sports and extra-curricular activities, what are we trying to accomplish, what we recommend, and why we feel what we are recommending will accomplish our goal? I predict those are the questions that would require answering at any high level of decision-making.
And, as a business person, if you came to me waving your hands in the air and crying about painful forfeits and failed experiments and straw man arguments, with no actual numbers, it would be a short meeting until you ready yourself to discuss any recommendations. Or, I would do it or find somebody else to do it and then I wouldn't need you. You asked...
As a business person and wrestling guy do you need math and/or hard evidence to believe that 14 weight classes is counter productive? You see the elimination of 40% some of us see that 60% or more can't field a full line-up. Maybe it's just a difference in opinion Dale. I guess I see it that having the majority of line-ups in the state not fielding a full squad as a larger negative than the 40% loss of current varsity kids or whatever number you said. Just my opinion and I don't expect anyone to care but to me it looks bad. I don't need numbers to know it looks bad. I still read the newspaper during the week and when I see dual meet results with multiple ff's and worse yet multiple double ff's it's not good. Again, my opinion.
As a business person and wrestling fan I would say in response to your note above, it is clear you are trying to run away from something, what are you running to and why? What are the pros and cons?
I am presuming you are proposing that you feeling bad when reading about forfeits is a con; I am wondering if demoting 1-2 wrestlers from 40% of the D1 teams can be called a pro? Said differently, do we care enough about how bad you feel to demote a real number of wrestlers to JV?
I am not for just filling the weight classes. Every team could do that. All they have to do is find a kid in school at each weight, ask them to show up and weigh-in, and then just forfeit if the other team has a wrestler. If they don't have a wrestler put on the singlet and walk out and get us 6 dual points. Never even have to practice or ever wrestle and that kid could win 5 matches for a team especially at D3 level.
The regionals numbers are the ones that are easiest to get because everyone is on there but are also the least accurate and that is the illusion.
My best idea is to use the college weights but add a 115 for 11 weights. I would subtract 5 lbs from every weight class for a JV division.
Not everyone is going to fit in an ideal weight class every year so it will hurt some individuals but believe it will help the sport as a whole.
Football does not worry about small freshman kids not ready for varsity but will become stud players by the time they are juniors and seniors.
Basketball does not worry about all the kids under 6ft that basically are fighting for 2 of the 5 starting positions or need some years to grow in strength and height.
And yet they don't seem to be worse off than wrestling in participation numbers.
Quote from: Barou on March 22, 2016, 11:01:15 AM
I've heard of coaches getting a kid to go out so he can wrestle regionals and they can get 4th at the weight class because there are only 3 other kids. No lie.
Eliminate a couple weight classes and the coaches don't convince this kid to go out to fill the spot. Now you have one less kid exposed to wrestling. ;D
I have said it before, simple solution is setup options for schools with small numbers. Quit trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, some schools for whatever reason will never field a full lineup even if it was cut to 10 weights.
Instead of setting the school limit 7 single team events (duals) and 7 multi team events (duals or individual tourneys) Give schools maybe the option to do 10 multi team and zero single team events.
Our sport is fantastic that we have the team and the individual side, for schools that can't field the "team" part, lets stop trying to make them.
Quote from: Dale Einerson on March 22, 2016, 10:47:31 AM
Quote from: Handles II on March 22, 2016, 10:20:26 AM
Yes Dale, I understand you are being snarky, but the evidence is there, the real numbers are there. If you really think that math is the way to find the solution, it's simple. Look at the numbers. Look at the numbers from other states. 14 weights is more than the mean, median, or mode can fill. There was zero evidence or "math" to say that it would benefit wrestling, yet it happened anyway, so maybe math isn't always the answer. It was done so as an experiment to improve numbers, especially of 11th and 12th grade football players who have never participated in the sport. It hasn't worked. If something, a new idea, a new advertisement isn't working, hasn't worked, and won't work, and all the numbers reflect it, do you as a businessman keep pushing it to work? How about if it hasn't worked for 16 years? Are you going to push to keep it for 20?
A lot of words about numbers and math; yet, devoid of actual numbers and math. As a business person; a true wrestling fan, I would ask you what numbers you are referring to and what are your sources, what the trends are, what do the trends predict, what does the standard bell curve say about weight classes for high school aged boys across the nation, what is happening to participation in all sports and extra-curricular activities, what are we trying to accomplish, what we recommend, and why we feel what we are recommending will accomplish our goal? I predict those are the questions that would require answering at any high level of decision-making.
And, as a business person, if you came to me waving your hands in the air and crying about painful forfeits and failed experiments and straw man arguments, with no actual numbers, it would be a short meeting until you ready yourself to discuss any recommendations. Or, I would do it or find somebody else to do it and then I wouldn't need you. You asked...
I'm not coming and waving my hands in the air. I'm looking at over 10 years of actual numbers. I'm looking at the numbers from 4 other states with presumably "better" wrestling than ours. If this was simply a fluke, we wouldn't see it repeated each year, or see the almost identical trends occuring in those other states. And what do those numbers show Dale? Do they show that more than 90% of the teams fill their 14 varsity slots?
Dale, since you are so against the numbers shown, what numbers were there in support of the change to 14 weight classes that you currently feel so good about? What is the math that you are clinging to that shows 14 weight classes is benefitting the sport as a whole both here in WI and elsewhere?
I'm not here to decide how many pounds each weight class should be. A bell curve isn't needed here. But Ghetto and others have in the past included a bell curve of the weight classes, and it is indeed, a bell curve with fewer wrestlers at each end and more in the middle.
That is a completely different topic. 14 weight classes never had any math to show it would work, and you are right, it needed to be more than a feeling or idea. It wasn't, but was passed anyway.
I'm not overly concerned about forfeits as I stated before but if we were to cut a weight I would support 13. Start at 103, evenly distribute the weights up to 195, then add 220 and heavy. If we go to 12, evenly create a 200 weight and evenly distribute up to there.
I'm right.... so don't argue :P
Quote from: Handles II on March 22, 2016, 11:52:28 AM
Quote from: Dale Einerson on March 22, 2016, 10:47:31 AM
Quote from: Handles II on March 22, 2016, 10:20:26 AM
Yes Dale, I understand you are being snarky, but the evidence is there, the real numbers are there. If you really think that math is the way to find the solution, it's simple. Look at the numbers. Look at the numbers from other states. 14 weights is more than the mean, median, or mode can fill. There was zero evidence or "math" to say that it would benefit wrestling, yet it happened anyway, so maybe math isn't always the answer. It was done so as an experiment to improve numbers, especially of 11th and 12th grade football players who have never participated in the sport. It hasn't worked. If something, a new idea, a new advertisement isn't working, hasn't worked, and won't work, and all the numbers reflect it, do you as a businessman keep pushing it to work? How about if it hasn't worked for 16 years? Are you going to push to keep it for 20?
A lot of words about numbers and math; yet, devoid of actual numbers and math. As a business person; a true wrestling fan, I would ask you what numbers you are referring to and what are your sources, what the trends are, what do the trends predict, what does the standard bell curve say about weight classes for high school aged boys across the nation, what is happening to participation in all sports and extra-curricular activities, what are we trying to accomplish, what we recommend, and why we feel what we are recommending will accomplish our goal? I predict those are the questions that would require answering at any high level of decision-making.
And, as a business person, if you came to me waving your hands in the air and crying about painful forfeits and failed experiments and straw man arguments, with no actual numbers, it would be a short meeting until you ready yourself to discuss any recommendations. Or, I would do it or find somebody else to do it and then I wouldn't need you. You asked...
I'm not coming and waving my hands in the air. I'm looking at over 10 years of actual numbers. I'm looking at the numbers from 4 other states with presumably "better" wrestling than ours. If this was simply a fluke, we wouldn't see it repeated each year, or see the almost identical trends occuring in those other states. And what do those numbers show Dale? Do they show that more than 90% of the teams fill their 14 varsity slots?
Dale, since you are so against the numbers shown, what numbers were there in support of the change to 14 weight classes that you currently feel so good about? What is the math that you are clinging to that shows 14 weight classes is benefitting the sport as a whole both here in WI and elsewhere?
I'm not here to decide how many pounds each weight class should be. A bell curve isn't needed here. But Ghetto and others have in the past included a bell curve of the weight classes, and it is indeed, a bell curve with fewer wrestlers at each end and more in the middle.
That is a completely different topic. 14 weight classes never had any math to show it would work, and you are right, it needed to be more than a feeling or idea. It wasn't, but was passed anyway.
Perhaps I should be more clear...what numbers? I repeat myself, but so very many words and still, devoid of numbers. You asked how I would respond as a business person and a wrestling fan and I told you...cue old Burger King commercial and substitute "math" for "beef." Where is the math? Without math it is wild gestures and emotion.
And, if you think a bell curve isn't needed you are definitely the center of the problem. Just my opinion...but I have not only math, but now statistics to back me up...
I see Doc wants to take college weights, plus 1 weight class; I wonder, why does he want to reduce participation so much? He has moved into the reduce 2-3 kids from 40% of the teams...how is that good for the sport and what problem is that attempting to solve? How many D1 teams are there, 150? 150 x 2.5 varsity wrestlers produced = 375 kids demoted to JV, if they stay out. What is the pro to offset that con? It is a fair question isn't it? And, that is only D1, that leaves out Ellsworth, Lodi, River Valley, Two Rivers, Stratford, Freedom, Fennimore, Mineral Point, L-C, OF...so, we are going to take 400-500 kids and demote them to JV. Shouldn't we get something for that?
What numbers? The numbers on the 1st page, 2nd page, 5th page. The numbers that show how few teams have 14 guys in their stable ready,willing, or able to compete in their end-of-the-year tournament. Those are the numbers Dale. Want a bell curve? Go ahead and make one, the numbers are all right there.
While you are doing that, the numbers of teams who can't fill 14 weights isn't increasing. The numbers of programs who may potentially be cut due to not being a viable "varsity program" are increasing.
And again I ask, where were the numbers, where was the bell curve to start and continue to support 14 weights?
Quote from: Ghetto on March 22, 2016, 09:46:02 AM
40% of teams in D1 have 13 or 14. Not 14.
When you take out kids who have not wrestled varsity all season, or lose 80% of their matches, the number of teams really filling weights drops again.
So, lets see if I can summarize the reason proposed to go to 12 weight classes: We desire to go to 12 weight classes because a lot of the kids dropped to JV were losers.
Lets see if I can summarize the reasoning to go to 12 weight classes accurately. Forfeits are bad. We don't want to see forfeits. Even if 40% of the teams don't forfeit, and we will put 1-2 kids from 40% of the teams on JV and pretend that is good, we will feel like we did the right thing by removing painful forfeits. Don't pollute our "feels" with any real math about how many forfeits would actually go away, just know what I know and ignore the cold, heartless, cruel math; demote 1-2 kids from 40% of the teams and that will be good for wrestling participation.
[/quote]
1. I've never called a wrestler a loser in my life. Your words. I am saying that if a kid never wrestled a varsity match all season long (0-0 would show that) or has lost 80% of his matches, he most likely is just filling a spot. We have a criteria for varsity letters in our program because filling a weight doesn't (in my opinion) make you a varsity wrestler. At the end of the day, if you can't win more than 2 out of 10 matches, you are likely (hopefully) the only one in the weight on your team.
2. Yes. Forfeits are bad. I don't want to see forfeits. Remember that the 60% number is not accurate for division 3. The number is 80% of teams in division 3, and 68% if you average the three divisions.
3. The trend overall is getting "worse" over the past 11 years. While I know that extrapolating that data over another 11 years isn't going to be 100% accurate, it would show that eventually all D3 schools would be less than 12.
4. I think the last year for 12 weights was 1988. If I could go back to see in trackwrestling what FFs looked like at that point, I would. I would say there were "fuller" teams in the 1980s than there are today. It's life experience. I don't have the math.
At the end of the day, like I've said before, I know nothing will get done. Not sure why I bring it up every year, but I think it's what's best for wrestling. I'll do it again next year. And the year after. And the year after that. Basically until I stop coaching.
Quote from: DocWrestling on March 22, 2016, 11:26:19 AM
My best idea is to use the college weights but add a 115 for 11 weights. I would subtract 5 lbs from every weight class for a JV division.
Not everyone is going to fit in an ideal weight class every year so it will hurt some individuals but believe it will help the sport as a whole.
Football does not worry about small freshman kids not ready for varsity but will become stud players by the time they are juniors and seniors.
Basketball does not worry about all the kids under 6ft that basically are fighting for 2 of the 5 starting positions or need some years to grow in strength and height.
And yet they don't seem to be worse off than wrestling in participation numbers.
So 115 becomes 118 by State which means the natural weight of these kids at this class will be 130-140. You have eliminated a inappropriate term3 of a lot more kids then the small freshman. You seem to have a real infinity for the large kids, but the reality is that is where most teams struggle to find quality experienced wrestlers, so why are you constantly advocating eliminating 2 classes where kids are at. In the D-1 106 bracket, half the bracket was upperclassmen. So stop perpetuating your myth that eliminating the lower weight classes is only effecting small underclassmen.
Quote from: getyourpoints on March 22, 2016, 11:11:20 AM
What weight classes should we cut?
106 because most of them are freshman?
220 because there not talented?
152 because there are to many weight classes in that range?
106-120 because there below collage weight classes?
132 and 138 its kind of the same thing so 135 should be good enough.
Most schools don't have a good HWT so that one is easy.
Lets get the ball rolling what two weight classes would you like to see discarded?
It becomes an argument that no one will win.
How about we take all the data since they started body fat testing kids in Wisconsin, throw it into a database, and see how the weights fit what is actually out there? At our JV tournament, which we've run every year for the past four years, 138 and 145 are always the largest brackets. More weights there. Less at the top and bottom because that is where kids fall. And let's revisit in another few years, to revise it. Change the weights to a name, and no weight will ever get discarded. Only the weight would change every few years.
Yikes....clearly people do not understand data and/or statistics...but not going to fix that on here. :)
To me, people are trying to solve a problem using a solution that won't have any impact on the result. First....I don't think number of weight classes solves the real problem of lack of participation (even though I would be good with going to 13 or 12...or staying at 14). What are the root causes of participation? I am no Einstein but can guarantee it isn't number of weight classes.....there are probably a host of reasons why participation is down, or not where people want it, and we should be looking at those (society, electronics, parenting, options for athletes, sport promotion, etc.). As for how to fill weight classes and the distribution of the weight classes....this should be fairly straight forward and that is where a bell shaped curve may come into play as well as some basic statistical concepts.
So...maybe we should get away from the number of weight classes and work on ideas to fix participation?
I agree 100% that the number of weight classes does not effect participation one way or the other in it's most basic sense.
In general, if a kid can bide his time on JV, learn skills, have success, etc. instead of being forced into the varsity lineup to fill a weight, we might (YES MIGHT, I DON'T HAVE MATH FOR IT) see less attrition over time. We might see larger teams, and from that, less FFs. So in that aspect, cutting weight classes might help with participation.
1978: 20,429 participants on 453 teams
1993: 7,795 on 368
2003: 7,368 on 355
2014: 7147 on 334
I am in favor of 12 wt classes
Is there a trend on what weight classes are most forfeited? I see the percentages of teams that can't field 14 kids, but what weights are missng? Reducing weight classes does not correlate to eliminating forfeits.
High School Totals last 20 years.
Year # of Wrestlers # of Teams Average / Team
1995 216453 8677 25
2000 239845 9046 27
2005 243009 9562 25
2010 272890 10362 26
2014 284114 10688 27
|
With this declining team average, the trend is obvious we need to cut 3-4 weight classes now... In addition, if this obvious trend above continues we should plan on cutting another 2-4 weight classes cut in the next ten years.
The Fix to this issue:A portion of my neighboring teams down here in the Madtown area average 7-9 forfeits in a dual, So cutting a couple weights isn't going to help with that.
So, lets think out of the box here (or late 90's reference - I'm going to move your cheese)!
Our first and number one priority, how are we going to make all the teams fair or as I call it down here in the soccer world "madison fair"?
I think we start with cutting more of the middle weights because they should not have an advantage! Don't give me this bell curve stuff about that is where most of the kids weights fall, doesn't matter - wouldn't be fair.
Next get it down to maybe six weights - Example: 100, 130, 160, 190, 220, Hwt (I read somewhere in this 10 pg thread that most of the recruited talent was coming out of the 182,195,220 weights so this would retain most of that deep talent pool)
Then lastly, we give the smaller schools the opportunity to "draft" from the teams with higher numbers - a.k.a. the "haves". We know the "haves" probably came by these numbers by ill-gotten methods, so this should balance the playing field a bit.
Quote from: gablesgrip1 on March 22, 2016, 02:22:19 PM
1978: 20,429 participants on 453 teams
1993: 7,795 on 368
2003: 7,368 on 355
2014: 7147 on 334
I am in favor of 12 wt classes
this is in wisconsin]
Quote from: dman on March 22, 2016, 01:56:54 PM
Yikes....clearly people do not understand data and/or statistics...but not going to fix that on here. :)
To me, people are trying to solve a problem using a solution that won't have any impact on the result. First....I don't think number of weight classes solves the real problem of lack of participation (even though I would be good with going to 13 or 12...or staying at 14). What are the root causes of participation? I am no Einstein but can guarantee it isn't number of weight classes.....there are probably a host of reasons why participation is down, or not where people want it, and we should be looking at those (society, electronics, parenting, options for athletes, sport promotion, etc.). As for how to fill weight classes and the distribution of the weight classes....this should be fairly straight forward and that is where a bell shaped curve may come into play as well as some basic statistical concepts.
So...maybe we should get away from the number of weight classes and work on ideas to fix participation?
I don't think anyone here disagrees with you but we have to realize that this is much tougher to change and does not necessarily have anything to do with wrestling. Participation in all sports is going down. Solving this problem is extremely complex and difficult.
So why can't we do both? Why can't we react to the present trends by making changes and still try to change "society"? Then if we get higher participation numbers we can react to that trend. What is so difficult about change or trying something new? If it does not work, change back. You have to be fluid with the rules rather than so rigid.
I agree this conversation likely has to be very different for D3 schools vs. D1 schools.
In the past 40 years, Wisconsin has lost 119 wrestling teams and # of participants is 1/3 of what it was 40 years ago and that is snowballing as wrestling conferences begin to collapse. Now we have participation teams with 14 weight classes, 3 divisions, etc at a time with a lot fewer wrestlers. My math says that having more has not helped even if it was not the cause of the decreases.
Quote from: dman on March 22, 2016, 01:56:54 PM
Yikes....clearly people do not understand data and/or statistics...but not going to fix that on here. :)
To me, people are trying to solve a problem using a solution that won't have any impact on the result. First....I don't think number of weight classes solves the real problem of lack of participation (even though I would be good with going to 13 or 12...or staying at 14). What are the root causes of participation? I am no Einstein but can guarantee it isn't number of weight classes.....there are probably a host of reasons why participation is down, or not where people want it, and we should be looking at those (society, electronics, parenting, options for athletes, sport promotion, etc.). As for how to fill weight classes and the distribution of the weight classes....this should be fairly straight forward and that is where a bell shaped curve may come into play as well as some basic statistical concepts.
So...maybe we should get away from the number of weight classes and work on ideas to fix participation?
Wasn't going to 14 weights trying to solve a problem without having an impact on the result? It didn't work, so why are people so bent on keeping it?
And while you are very correct on those other issues, the WWCA and WIAA have zero do do with them, nor can they make any changes regarding them. I'm sorry if parents decide playing on an xbox is a better and safer way for their child to spend his free time. That has nothing to do with having too many weight classes or what can be done about it.
From another posting on a different thread...
Dear Mr. Tritz, could you or somebody on your very capable staff produce a standard bell curve of the certified weights for Wisconsin for the past year? Or, perhaps more simply, list the numbers certified by weight across all divisions?
Pretty please?
Dale
If we don't ask, the answer is "no."
Full disclosure, I didn't read the first two pages. I apologize. At least I can say I didn't know, which is far, far better than those that knew and forgot or ignore.
What I learned:
-We have over 11,500 more wrestlers nationwide between 2010 and 2014. My reaction, whoda thunk?
-We will lose 120 varsity competitors across all 3 divisions, based on Ghetto's numbers, should we reduce to 12 weight classes.
My main point, if we don't use a standard bell curve to set weight classes in the future then we are doomed to fail, just like so many say we failed by going to 14 weight classes.
I believe, since I believe in math and statistics, that there will be more weight classes in the middle, the most populous part of the curve; less on the outside tails. Not only did we go to 14 weight classes, but we eliminated a weight in the middle; added one on the tail of the distribution. The kindest way I can put it, that decision was head-up-backside-stoopid.
I believe anybody that proposes new weight classes without a standard bell curve will also have their head up their backside.
Another point, not as important to me as the standard bell curve, but also important...why do we say "forfeits are bad?" Coming at it from a different direction, "why are we trying to get teams that can't fill a lineup to state, or to win conference, or to come closer in duals?" Why is that an all important goal when every team competes on a relatively level playing ground and begins their state run at individual regionals? Every team has the same opportunity and risk...
Is it so important to reduce the number of forfeits, to have more full lineups, to bench 120 varsity wrestlers? If it is, then at least do it with a standard bell curve of weight distributions, or not at all.
Quote from: DocWrestling on March 22, 2016, 03:00:34 PM
Quote from: dman on March 22, 2016, 01:56:54 PM
Yikes....clearly people do not understand data and/or statistics...but not going to fix that on here. :)
To me, people are trying to solve a problem using a solution that won't have any impact on the result. First....I don't think number of weight classes solves the real problem of lack of participation (even though I would be good with going to 13 or 12...or staying at 14). What are the root causes of participation? I am no Einstein but can guarantee it isn't number of weight classes.....there are probably a host of reasons why participation is down, or not where people want it, and we should be looking at those (society, electronics, parenting, options for athletes, sport promotion, etc.). As for how to fill weight classes and the distribution of the weight classes....this should be fairly straight forward and that is where a bell shaped curve may come into play as well as some basic statistical concepts.
So...maybe we should get away from the number of weight classes and work on ideas to fix participation?
I don't think anyone here disagrees with you but we have to realize that this is much tougher to change and does not necessarily have anything to do with wrestling. Participation in all sports is going down. Solving this problem is extremely complex and difficult.
So why can't we do both? Why can't we react to the present trends by making changes and still try to change "society"? Then if we get higher participation numbers we can react to that trend. What is so difficult about change or trying something new? If it does not work, change back. You have to be fluid with the rules rather than so rigid.
I agree this conversation likely has to be very different for D3 schools vs. D1 schools.
In the past 40 years, Wisconsin has lost 119 wrestling teams and # of participants is 1/3 of what it was 40 years ago and that is snowballing as wrestling conferences begin to collapse. Now we have participation teams with 14 weight classes, 3 divisions, etc at a time with a lot fewer wrestlers. My math says that having more has not helped even if it was not the cause of the decreases.
I have a slightly different question, why is wrestling participation increasing across the nation, but reducing in Wisconsin?
And then, can we potentially see a struggle in Wisconsin, that is seeing declining participation, aligning with the nation that is seeing increasing participation?
Finally, are we so inclined to decrease the number of participants, 120, which is more than 50% of the reduction experienced in Wisconsin between 2003 and 2014, what do we get for it?
Dale, as Ghetto said, we won't be losing wrestlers. There will be fewer varsity positions. Some wrestlers may be JV. There is a difference. I'm sure you can see that.
I agree with your more current input of finding out where all wrestlers lump regarding where the weight classes are.
Dman, There are states where wrestling is slowly being added and/or growing. That's where most of those numbers are coming from. That does not equate to filling all the weight classes or of those states having solid wrestling in general.
Quote from: ElectricGuy on March 22, 2016, 02:31:36 PM
High School Totals last 20 years.
Year # of Wrestlers # of Teams Average / Team
1995 216453 8677 25
2000 239845 9046 27
2005 243009 9562 25
2010 272890 10362 26
2014 284114 10688 27
|
Your numbers show an increasing team average. Or, am I missing something?
With this declining team average, the trend is obvious we need to cut 3-4 weight classes now... In addition, if this obvious trend above continues we should plan on cutting another 2-4 weight classes cut in the next ten years.
The Fix to this issue:
A portion of my neighboring teams down here in the Madtown area average 7-9 forfeits in a dual, So cutting a couple weights isn't going to help with that.
So, lets think out of the box here (or late 90's reference - I'm going to move your cheese)!
Our first and number one priority, how are we going to make all the teams fair or as I call it down here in the soccer world "madison fair"?
I think we start with cutting more of the middle weights because they should not have an advantage! Don't give me this bell curve stuff about that is where most of the kids weights fall, doesn't matter - wouldn't be fair.
Next get it down to maybe six weights - Example: 100, 130, 160, 190, 220, Hwt (I read somewhere in this 10 pg thread that most of the recruited talent was coming out of the 182,195,220 weights so this would retain most of that deep talent pool)
Then lastly, we give the smaller schools the opportunity to "draft" from the teams with higher numbers - a.k.a. the "haves". We know the "haves" probably came by these numbers by ill-gotten methods, so this should balance the playing field a bit.
Quote from: Dale Einerson on March 22, 2016, 03:22:46 PM
From another posting on a different thread...
Dear Mr. Tritz, could you or somebody on your very capable staff produce a standard bell curve of the certified weights for Wisconsin for the past year? Or, perhaps more simply, list the numbers certified by weight across all divisions?
Pretty please?
Dale
If we don't ask, the answer is "no."
Full disclosure, I didn't read the first two pages. I apologize. At least I can say I didn't know, which is far, far better than those that knew and forgot or ignore.
What I learned:
-We have over 11,500 more wrestlers nationwide between 2010 and 2014. My reaction, whoda thunk?
-We will lose 120 varsity competitors across all 3 divisions, based on Ghetto's numbers, should we reduce to 12 weight classes.
My main point, if we don't use a standard bell curve to set weight classes in the future then we are doomed to fail, just like so many say we failed by going to 14 weight classes.
I believe, since I believe in math and statistics, that there will be more weight classes in the middle, the most populous part of the curve; less on the outside tails. Not only did we go to 14 weight classes, but we eliminated a weight in the middle; added one on the tail of the distribution. The kindest way I can put it, that decision was head-up-backside-stoopid.
I believe anybody that proposes new weight classes without a standard bell curve will also have their head up their backside.
Another point, not as important to me as the standard bell curve, but also important...why do we say "forfeits are bad?" Coming at it from a different direction, "why are we trying to get teams that can't fill a lineup to state, or to win conference, or to come closer in duals?" Why is that an all important goal when every team competes on a relatively level playing ground and begins their state run at individual regionals? Every team has the same opportunity and risk...
Is it so important to reduce the number of forfeits, to have more full lineups, to bench 120 varsity wrestlers? If it is, then at least do it with a standard bell curve of weight distributions, or not at all.
I wholeheartedly agree Dale. I think we can keep 14 weights and all but eliminate forfeits. We will always have some in duals for many reasons.
It will take looking at the weights of the kids and making weight classes that fit the curve. Likely there will be about a 3 pound difference through the middle weights.
Quote from: MNbadger on March 22, 2016, 03:42:21 PM
Quote from: ElectricGuy on March 22, 2016, 02:31:36 PM
High School Totals last 20 years.
Year # of Wrestlers # of Teams Average / Team
1995 216453 8677 25
2000 239845 9046 27
2005 243009 9562 25
2010 272890 10362 26
2014 284114 10688 27
|
Your numbers show an increasing team average. Or, am I missing something?
With this declining team average, the trend is obvious we need to cut 3-4 weight classes now... In addition, if this obvious trend above continues we should plan on cutting another 2-4 weight classes cut in the next ten years.
The Fix to this issue:
A portion of my neighboring teams down here in the Madtown area average 7-9 forfeits in a dual, So cutting a couple weights isn't going to help with that.
So, lets think out of the box here (or late 90's reference - I'm going to move your cheese)!
Our first and number one priority, how are we going to make all the teams fair or as I call it down here in the soccer world "madison fair"?
I think we start with cutting more of the middle weights because they should not have an advantage! Don't give me this bell curve stuff about that is where most of the kids weights fall, doesn't matter - wouldn't be fair.
Next get it down to maybe six weights - Example: 100, 130, 160, 190, 220, Hwt (I read somewhere in this 10 pg thread that most of the recruited talent was coming out of the 182,195,220 weights so this would retain most of that deep talent pool)
Then lastly, we give the smaller schools the opportunity to "draft" from the teams with higher numbers - a.k.a. the "haves". We know the "haves" probably came by these numbers by ill-gotten methods, so this should balance the playing field a bit.
Yes - exactly!! The numbers are going up. My apologies, sarcasm doesn't always translate well into a post. For clarification, I was being entirely sarcastic and facetious with my post. Though - we do have a number of neighboring teams that do forfeit 7-9 matches any given dual, which cutting a couple weights doesn't solve forfeits at those schools.
Dale beat me to the punch in one of his last post, the question should be why is WI numbers going down while apparently nationally wrestling numbers are going up? Maybe it's WI has too many clubs (Askren, Advance, XFact, etc..) I'm sure <-------- Sarcasm
Quote from: ElectricGuy on March 22, 2016, 04:05:55 PM
Quote from: MNbadger on March 22, 2016, 03:42:21 PM
Quote from: ElectricGuy on March 22, 2016, 02:31:36 PM
High School Totals last 20 years.
Year # of Wrestlers # of Teams Average / Team
1995 216453 8677 25
2000 239845 9046 27
2005 243009 9562 25
2010 272890 10362 26
2014 284114 10688 27
|
Your numbers show an increasing team average. Or, am I missing something?
With this declining team average, the trend is obvious we need to cut 3-4 weight classes now... In addition, if this obvious trend above continues we should plan on cutting another 2-4 weight classes cut in the next ten years.
The Fix to this issue:
A portion of my neighboring teams down here in the Madtown area average 7-9 forfeits in a dual, So cutting a couple weights isn't going to help with that.
So, lets think out of the box here (or late 90's reference - I'm going to move your cheese)!
Our first and number one priority, how are we going to make all the teams fair or as I call it down here in the soccer world "madison fair"?
I think we start with cutting more of the middle weights because they should not have an advantage! Don't give me this bell curve stuff about that is where most of the kids weights fall, doesn't matter - wouldn't be fair.
Next get it down to maybe six weights - Example: 100, 130, 160, 190, 220, Hwt (I read somewhere in this 10 pg thread that most of the recruited talent was coming out of the 182,195,220 weights so this would retain most of that deep talent pool)
Then lastly, we give the smaller schools the opportunity to "draft" from the teams with higher numbers - a.k.a. the "haves". We know the "haves" probably came by these numbers by ill-gotten methods, so this should balance the playing field a bit.
Yes - exactly!! The numbers are going up. My apologies, sarcasm doesn't always translate well into a post. For clarification, I was being entirely sarcastic and facetious with my post. Though - we do have a number of neighboring teams that do forfeit 7-9 matches any given dual, which cutting a couple weights doesn't solve forfeits at those schools.
Dale beat me to the punch in one of his last post, the question should be why is WI numbers going down while apparently nationally wrestling numbers are going up? Maybe it's WI has too many clubs (Askren, Advance, XFact, etc..) I'm sure <-------- Sarcasm
I am sorry I missed the sarcasm, I feel foolish.
Quote from: MNbadger on March 22, 2016, 03:46:24 PM
Quote from: Dale Einerson on March 22, 2016, 03:22:46 PM
From another posting on a different thread...
Dear Mr. Tritz, could you or somebody on your very capable staff produce a standard bell curve of the certified weights for Wisconsin for the past year? Or, perhaps more simply, list the numbers certified by weight across all divisions?
Pretty please?
Dale
If we don't ask, the answer is "no."
Full disclosure, I didn't read the first two pages. I apologize. At least I can say I didn't know, which is far, far better than those that knew and forgot or ignore.
What I learned:
-We have over 11,500 more wrestlers nationwide between 2010 and 2014. My reaction, whoda thunk?
-We will lose 120 varsity competitors across all 3 divisions, based on Ghetto's numbers, should we reduce to 12 weight classes.
My main point, if we don't use a standard bell curve to set weight classes in the future then we are doomed to fail, just like so many say we failed by going to 14 weight classes.
I believe, since I believe in math and statistics, that there will be more weight classes in the middle, the most populous part of the curve; less on the outside tails. Not only did we go to 14 weight classes, but we eliminated a weight in the middle; added one on the tail of the distribution. The kindest way I can put it, that decision was head-up-backside-stoopid.
I believe anybody that proposes new weight classes without a standard bell curve will also have their head up their backside.
Another point, not as important to me as the standard bell curve, but also important...why do we say "forfeits are bad?" Coming at it from a different direction, "why are we trying to get teams that can't fill a lineup to state, or to win conference, or to come closer in duals?" Why is that an all important goal when every team competes on a relatively level playing ground and begins their state run at individual regionals? Every team has the same opportunity and risk...
Is it so important to reduce the number of forfeits, to have more full lineups, to bench 120 varsity wrestlers? If it is, then at least do it with a standard bell curve of weight distributions, or not at all.
I wholeheartedly agree Dale. I think we can keep 14 weights and all but eliminate forfeits. We will always have some in duals for many reasons.
It will take looking at the weights of the kids and making weight classes that fit the curve. Likely there will be about a 3 pound difference through the middle weights.
And, I will add, if there were, say, 3lb differences between weights in the middle, based on a standard bell curve, imagine the absolute fun and intrigue of coaching decisions to create match ups in duals. What an absolute hoot! Who won the coin flip, what is the starting weight, where are the strengths on my team v. the other team, what is the score, what do we need for bonus points or non-pins? That would be exciting.
Quote from: Ghetto on March 12, 2016, 09:27:26 PM
7 teams in D3 had 14 "varsity" kids. (see above for definition)
6 teams in D3 had 13
Dale,
Since you admitted to not reading the first two pages, here is a very telling post (I know it surprised me as well that it was from ghetto). Another poster followed up with a great deduction from this data, realistically, only 13 teams in D3 have a chance at the D3 team title.
Participation is up nationally because states and schools that never have had wrestling are adding it. In those states that have long had wrestling programs established, the numbers are going down. Not sure what the trend is for number of wrestlers per team
It is not just a Wisconsin thing with participation numbers going down.
It is not just a wrestling thing with participation numbers going down in all sports.
For the record I believe a bell curve should be used. Use that data to change the weights every couple years. Where I disagree ist that the bell curve should be weighted more to what juniors and seniors weigh and JV weights should be weighted towards what freshman and sophomores weigh.
And somehow it should not be weighted by the 145 that a wrestler can wrestle during the season but now weighs 170 lbs 3 weeks after the season. Maybe you use 8 or 9% for the weight classes but still allow wrestlers to go to 7% if the want to.
It's taking off pretty well in Texas; but, as you say, in places where there's been little or none. Nonetheless, I was glad when my nephew got into rasslin' down in Houston.
Quote from: bigoil on March 22, 2016, 08:43:31 PM
Quote from: Ghetto on March 12, 2016, 09:27:26 PM
7 teams in D3 had 14 "varsity" kids. (see above for definition)
6 teams in D3 had 13
Dale,
Since you admitted to not reading the first two pages, here is a very telling post (I know it surprised me as well that it was from ghetto). Another poster followed up with a great deduction from this data, realistically, only 13 teams in D3 have a chance at the D3 team title.
It was helpful to go back to the initial posts and the information provided!
Here is where you and I part ways...i say; I believe I am correct in saying this, that every team in D3 has a chance at the D3 team title. They all have individual regionals to determine who goes to Team Sectionals. I must admit, I do not understand how socialism has crept into our sport.
All of those t-shirts with amazing slogans on them for wrestling, like, "hold my headgear while I kiss your girlfriend," or "wrestling is not a sport, it is a lifestyle." But, the reality is, the statement and belief behind it that we are going to have to legislate so the teams that don't succeed at competing with a level set of rules have a better chance...perhaps the t-shirts should say, "wrestling, where we whine and cry about not succeeding under the same rules as those who succeed."
Which is part of my reason in saying the arguments for reducing weight classes are not well thought out and not well articulated. Leveling the playing field is not a reason to reduce weight classes. It is weakness defined...
As proof, in D3, Stratford and Fennimore. Stratford took a long-term approach and build from the youth program up. Fennimore has always had tough individuals and nice teams, then they add a proven and committed Coach who has been there and done that; a well-earned state championship.
So please, in my biased and noisy opinion, come up with better reasons for reducing weight classes...
Quote from: Dale Einerson on March 23, 2016, 08:51:29 AM
Quote from: bigoil on March 22, 2016, 08:43:31 PM
Quote from: Ghetto on March 12, 2016, 09:27:26 PM
7 teams in D3 had 14 "varsity" kids. (see above for definition)
6 teams in D3 had 13
Dale,
Since you admitted to not reading the first two pages, here is a very telling post (I know it surprised me as well that it was from ghetto). Another poster followed up with a great deduction from this data, realistically, only 13 teams in D3 have a chance at the D3 team title.
It was helpful to go back to the initial posts and the information provided!
Here is where you and I part ways...i say; I believe I am correct in saying this, that every team in D3 has a chance at the D3 team title. They all have individual regionals to determine who goes to Team Sectionals. I must admit, I do not understand how socialism has crept into our sport.
All of those t-shirts with amazing slogans on them for wrestling, like, "hold my headgear while I kiss your girlfriend," or "wrestling is not a sport, it is a lifestyle." But, the reality is, the statement and belief behind it that we are going to have to legislate so the teams that don't succeed at competing with a level set of rules have a better chance...perhaps the t-shirts should say, "wrestling, where we whine and cry about not succeeding under the same rules as those who succeed."
Which is part of my reason in saying the arguments for reducing weight classes are not well thought out and not well articulated. Leveling the playing field is not a reason to reduce weight classes. It is weakness defined...
As proof, in D3, Stratford and Fennimore. Stratford took a long-term approach and build from the youth program up. Fennimore has always had tough individuals and nice teams, then they add a proven and committed Coach who has been there and done that; a well-earned state championship.
So please, in my biased and noisy opinion, come up with better reasons for reducing weight classes...
And from what I hear both D3 programs you mention also benefited from open enrollment. Not that I have an issue with that at all (100% totally fine with that) should be noted though.
Quote from: DocWrestling on March 22, 2016, 10:37:24 PM
Participation is up nationally because states and schools that never have had wrestling are adding it. In those states that have long had wrestling programs established, the numbers are going down. Not sure what the trend is for number of wrestlers per team
It is not just a Wisconsin thing with participation numbers going down.
It is not just a wrestling thing with participation numbers going down in all sports.
For the record I believe a bell curve should be used. Use that data to change the weights every couple years. Where I disagree ist that the bell curve should be weighted more to what juniors and seniors weigh and JV weights should be weighted towards what freshman and sophomores weigh.
And somehow it should not be weighted by the 145 that a wrestler can wrestle during the season but now weighs 170 lbs 3 weeks after the season. Maybe you use 8 or 9% for the weight classes but still allow wrestlers to go to 7% if the want to.
It would be very beneficial to look at data a few ways to make some headway in this discussion. I suggest, since declining numbers are an issue, take 7th graders through 12 graders, the weights they weighed at the time of certifications. Adds competitors, maximizes numbers, is simpler than your proposal (most first time high school parents absolutely freak out about this whole 5-7% thing), and if weight cutting is an issue, set the bell curve where people are, not where inexperienced people are challenged to make unhealthy choices that potentially affect their quality of life. That doesn't mean somebody can't go down to 7%, but I predict with more weight classes in the middle where a significant majority of high school aged boys already are, would help with the numbers problem to the maximum extent.
1) Could we agree that reducing the number of weight classes might improve the competitiveness and experience for the 60-70% of teams that have struggled to fill 14 weight classes. The top 25% will likely be the traditional powers and not much will change with that. They will still dominate.
2) Could we agree that reducing the number of weight classes might actually save some programs as it will look much better to administrators? This might take going all the way to 11 weight classes or something.. Cross country and tennis programs are not being cut even though many teams only have less than 10 on the team but with that 10 they can field a full team.
3) Could we agree that reducing the weight classes would likely improve the JV experience with duals, etc also and more paid coaches?
I agree that reducing to 13 would likely have minimal effect on any of this which is why I have gone off the deep end and think a drastic change to 10 or 11 weights would be ideal. In the end I think reducing the number of weight classes would greatly improve the team aspect of the sport.
My hope is that improving the team aspect would lead to increased participation. We are not short of great wrestlers. We are short the wrestlers that are average and wrestle for the fun and to help the team. 90% of teams that get on the bus for a dual already know the result of the dual so all that matters is the individual part. Reducing the weight classes changes that outside of those top teams which will always be very tough to beat. Fans do not come to watch individuals, they come to watch exciting team events
Quote from: Dale Einerson on March 23, 2016, 10:12:50 AM
It would be very beneficial to look at data a few ways to make some headway in this discussion. I suggest, since declining numbers are an issue, take 7th graders through 12 graders, the weights they weighed at the time of certifications. Adds competitors, maximizes numbers, is simpler than your proposal (most first time high school parents absolutely freak out about this whole 5-7% thing), and if weight cutting is an issue, set the bell curve where people are, not where inexperienced people are challenged to make unhealthy choices that potentially affect their quality of life. That doesn't mean somebody can't go down to 7%, but I predict with more weight classes in the middle where a significant majority of high school aged boys already are, would help with the numbers problem to the maximum extent.
I agree with that
I took a look at all the D3 Regionals this year. In those I looked at all teams with 10-12 wrestlers (who some are saying should be helped to get to full teams)
This is the breakdown of what weights they were missing
35 total teams
106 - 14
113 - 15 (6) teams missed both 106 & 113
120 - 9
126 - 2
132 - 4
138 - 4
145 - 2
152 - 3
160 - 3
170 - 8
182 - 8
195 - 6
220 - 12
285 - 9 (4) teams missed both 220 & 285
Again, where do you propose we take out some weight classes?
Taking out a weight on the bottom only helps 17% of the teams (6 teams with no 106 and 113).
Taking out a weight on the top helps 11% (4 teams with no 220 and 285).
So basically at 12 you may not help these teams get to a full roster anyway if the weights taken out and moved don't align with the roster they have this year.
AND to agree with Dale.....33 kids in D3 who participated this year would not have been able to if we went to 12 weights......I agree with Dale and think it's wrong to eliminate their chance at competing.
I know you will bring up JV, etc. but has anyone gone to a HS football or Basketball or Baseball game lately, most of those teams don't have full rosters of studs, sure some do, and they win lots of games and state championships. Most have some great kids, some good kids, some average kids and some fillers....and they all are playing. So why does wrestling have to be different?
In D5 to D7 Football most rosters are filled with freshman and sophomores, with quite a few seeing extended playing time due to low particpation of Juniors & Seniors.
Quote from: Dale Einerson on March 23, 2016, 08:51:29 AM
Quote from: bigoil on March 22, 2016, 08:43:31 PM
Quote from: Ghetto on March 12, 2016, 09:27:26 PM
7 teams in D3 had 14 "varsity" kids. (see above for definition)
6 teams in D3 had 13
Dale,
Since you admitted to not reading the first two pages, here is a very telling post (I know it surprised me as well that it was from ghetto). Another poster followed up with a great deduction from this data, realistically, only 13 teams in D3 have a chance at the D3 team title.
It was helpful to go back to the initial posts and the information provided!
Here is where you and I part ways...i say; I believe I am correct in saying this, that every team in D3 has a chance at the D3 team title. They all have individual regionals to determine who goes to Team Sectionals. I must admit, I do not understand how socialism has crept into our sport.
All of those t-shirts with amazing slogans on them for wrestling, like, "hold my headgear while I kiss your girlfriend," or "wrestling is not a sport, it is a lifestyle." But, the reality is, the statement and belief behind it that we are going to have to legislate so the teams that don't succeed at competing with a level set of rules have a better chance...perhaps the t-shirts should say, "wrestling, where we whine and cry about not succeeding under the same rules as those who succeed."
Which is part of my reason in saying the arguments for reducing weight classes are not well thought out and not well articulated. Leveling the playing field is not a reason to reduce weight classes. It is weakness defined...
As proof, in D3, Stratford and Fennimore. Stratford took a long-term approach and build from the youth program up. Fennimore has always had tough individuals and nice teams, then they add a proven and committed Coach who has been there and done that; a well-earned state championship.
So please, in my biased and noisy opinion, come up with better reasons for reducing weight classes...
Dale, making better competition is better for the sport. We can see that with the NFL regarding profit sharing, salary caps, and draft pick order. Having more teams able to compete with their peers in a "who's gonna win this game?" has made the NFL one of the most popular sports. They did it right. They didn't want to continue with the parody that was starting, and visibly happening in other sports.
Of course we can applaud those few teams who regularly can fill all 14 weights with quality wrestlers. We know however that the same coach using the same formulas applied to build one team in one school may not have the same effect in another. So to ignore or only focus, nay, continue to "reward" only a few programs, we are certainly belittling those coaches and individuals who are doing everything in their power to get the job done, including using the ideas and efforts of the "successful", but it simply doesn't happen. We know of winning programs who, under that same coach who did things "right" are now floundering in mediocrity, not due to his efforts and that of others in the program. And for some teams, that difference is simply having 14 guys. It's tough for a team of 10 good kids to make up 24 points of forfeits. When the crowd starts leaving because the result is in the bag, that's not a positive for our sport.
Back on page 3, Ramjet said something that may be close to being true "90% of the teams that get on the bus for a dual already know the outcome because of forfeits". While it certainly isn't 90%, the large number of forfeits, which IN PART is related to the number of required weights absolutely is playing a part in determining wins/losses and if the coaches and wrestlers know it, so does the public. That's where my concern is. If we ONLY rearrange the weights based off of a bell curve, for many many teams in the state, that will simply mean filling or attempting to fill another weight with a kid who really should be on JV. It will still mean finding 14 varsity-ready guys. 14 guys of varying weights.That is still a tall order for well over 150 teams in the state. And JV will still be 3,4,5,6,7, matches total. When we talk about building our youth programs, but there not being a JV level to continue that growth (for many) we are helping push some of those kids out.
Quote from: foose4 on March 23, 2016, 10:58:20 AM
I took a look at all the D3 Regionals this year. In those I looked at all teams with 10-12 wrestlers (who some are saying should be helped to get to full teams)
This is the breakdown of what weights they were missing
35 total teams
106 - 14
113 - 15 (6) teams missed both 106 & 113
120 - 9
126 - 2
132 - 4
138 - 4
145 - 2
152 - 3
160 - 3
170 - 8
182 - 8
195 - 6
220 - 12
285 - 9 (4) teams missed both 220 & 285
Again, where do you propose we take out some weight classes?
Taking out a weight on the bottom only helps 17% of the teams (6 teams with no 106 and 113).
Taking out a weight on the top helps 11% (4 teams with no 220 and 285).
So basically at 12 you may not help these teams get to a full roster anyway if the weights taken out and moved don't align with the roster they have this year.
AND to agree with Dale.....33 kids in D3 who participated this year would not have been able to if we went to 12 weights......I agree with Dale and think it's wrong to eliminate their chance at competing.
I know you will bring up JV, etc. but has anyone gone to a HS football or Basketball or Baseball game lately, most of those teams don't have full rosters of studs, sure some do, and they win lots of games and state championships. Most have some great kids, some good kids, some average kids and some fillers....and they all are playing. So why does wrestling have to be different?
In D5 to D7 Football most rosters are filled with freshman and sophomores, with quite a few seeing extended playing time due to low particpation of Juniors & Seniors.
There are more than 35 teams in D3 aren't there? Assuming your cross-section is an accurate portrayal of all D3 schools, then the data is accurate but your statements I don't believe are. Cutting a weight class on the bottom will help 23 schools (29-6) out of 35 or 65% of the schools (54% on the top of weight brackets).
As stated in my first line, I only looked at schools that took 10-12 to regionals as that who this is supposed to help the most. That number was 35.
Only 6 of those 35 did not cover both 106 & 113 and only 4 did not cover both 220 & 285.
Looking at the breakdown of schools with 10-12 wrestlers, which weight brackets do we eliminate to help them get to full teams? Not any certain on will help everyone so now we have to decide which weights are gone. That is all I am saying. Everyone wants to eliminate weight classes.....which ones and why? Which ones move and why?
And don't use college weights. There are more high school teams than college teams so why would we use the smaller groups weights?
I think we can all agree we would like to see more competitive duals and reducing weight classes to say 11 or whatever may accomplish that somewhat but by doing that you will be reducing participants plain and simple. Our numbers across the state of total wrestlers will go down dramatically. I hear it all the time part of the reason kids don't come out is wrestling is hard work and not an easy sport so the fence sitters don't come out, so if you lessen the opportunity to make a varsity position you totally lost them with no chance at all of them coming out. You can say there is JV but I'm telling you reality is those marginal kids are not going to practice for four months and 2-3 years with the hope of making a varsity position. Your die hard wrestlers will always be there no matter what but its the fence sitters that we need to fill those 14 weights. Your talking two entirely different things that your trying to accomplish. Some say we need to increase participation numbers, if that's the case cutting weights is the worst thing you can do because where are you cutting that weight, maybe one I could see and even then where? If that happens your numbers go down. I know some don't want to hear this but I think our season is to long, I think if we started after Thanksgiving a lot of teams would pick up a few more kids in there programs. Programs that still want to have open gyms or your schools Askren ect would have things out there for those that don't want the break between seasons. Kids in the D2 and D3 schools just don't get much of a break and if they did I think they would be more inclined to give wrestling a try. I think this holds true for D 1 as well.
Maybe I just have a difference in syntax. I think we lost the JV crowd. It's varsity or nothing for most. Kids, and many parents, will not roll on the bench or JV. Just my dos centavos.
With that data, if you combined 106/113 into one weight class and 220/285 into one weight class you would be down to 12 weight classes and eliminated a lot of forfeits. This would have eliminated 40 for sure forfeits which is over half of the total. I think this is exactly what a bell curve would have us doing.
Now if you eliminate one more in the mid to upper weights by spreading out the weights, you would eliminate many more and are at 11 weight classes.
Then imagine how few there would be if you went to 10 weight classes. Might even be depth at weight classes. We should have system that supports even having a back-up at each weight, not just one wrestler.
Nobody has their head in the sand. Reducing the weight classes will not eliminate all forfeits but everyone has to admit that it would at least help.
Quote from: bigoil on March 23, 2016, 01:00:28 PM
There are more than 35 teams in D3 aren't there? Assuming your cross-section is an accurate portrayal of all D3 schools, then the data is accurate but your statements I don't believe are. Cutting a weight class on the bottom will help 23 schools (29-6) out of 35 or 65% of the schools (54% on the top of weight brackets).
Yes my math was wrong on that...but it also depends on where you put the weights on the bottom
If we were to eliminate 106 it would help 8 schools as 6 still would not have a wrestler 113 (missing both 106 & 113) so they would still have one open spot there anyway. So really by eliminating 106 you would help 23% (8 of 35) of the schools fill their roster with no 106 but have a 113, but hurt 37% (13 of 35) of the schools that had a wrestler at 106 and 113 and now can't use them both.
Quote from: goldmedal on March 23, 2016, 01:15:36 PM
I think we can all agree we would like to see more competitive duals and reducing weight classes to say 11 or whatever may accomplish that somewhat but by doing that you will be reducing participants plain and simple. Our numbers across the state of total wrestlers will go down dramatically. I hear it all the time part of the reason kids don't come out is wrestling is hard work and not an easy sport so the fence sitters don't come out, so if you lessen the opportunity to make a varsity position you totally lost them with no chance at all of them coming out. You can say there is JV but I'm telling you reality is those marginal kids are not going to practice for four months and 2-3 years with the hope of making a varsity position. Your die hard wrestlers will always be there no matter what but its the fence sitters that we need to fill those 14 weights. Your talking two entirely different things that your trying to accomplish. Some say we need to increase participation numbers, if that's the case cutting weights is the worst thing you can do because where are you cutting that weight, maybe one I could see and even then where? If that happens your numbers go down. I know some don't want to hear this but I think our season is to long, I think if we started after Thanksgiving a lot of teams would pick up a few more kids in there programs. Programs that still want to have open gyms or your schools Askren ect would have things out there for those that don't want the break between seasons. Kids in the D2 and D3 schools just don't get much of a break and if they did I think they would be more inclined to give wrestling a try. I think this holds true for D 1 as well.
There's a lot of thoughts, but these are all opinions.
We don't KNOW that kids will quit if they don't make varsity. Some fence sitters are perfectly happy not to be in the limelight on varsity. Some kids quit because they get forced onto the varsity without having the skills to be there.
I do agree with your opinion regarding starting after Thanksgiving and the season being too long.
Is wrestling changing the kids or are the kids changing wrestling?
Wrestling gives everyone a medal and a trophy from a young age for everything. Then we give them a varsity spot. I guess my old school thinking is that your pride came from working towards something and earning it. Many talk about the character that is built on the journey of becoming a wrestler. Is that not true anymore? Weigh-in, wrestle varsity, get your letter, move on!
Other sports are tougher to "earn" now than wrestling is.
At all the best wrestling schools, many kids have to wrestle JV for a few years simply because they are stuck behind a good wrestler. They do not quit too often. They have an expectation and that leads to their hard work and ultimately the continued success of that team. Why at other schools with less tradition do we worry that we have to give them a varsity spot or they will quit.
At our D1 school, no freshman competes on varsity in any sport other than maybe other than track or cross country. It is rare for a freshman or sophomore to compete on varsity. They don't quit! They work hard and wait their turn when they are then the best and have earned it.
Part of that is because there are JV squads. Maybe we need to look at improving JV as the #1 priority. How do we do that without just saying coaches have to do more and more recruiting? JV needs to be similar to the varsity experience. Tell me how many JV dual tournaments you have seen? Tell me how many JV tournaments use the same weight classes as the varsity? We treat the few guys on JV's like 3rd graders. That is why they might quit. They are misfits with no team! That is why they quit, not because they are not on varsity
Shortening the season and fewer Saturdays will help improve participation.
All our hockey and basketball families can't wait until their kids get in high school because they get their weekends back and a shorter season.
Wrestling is the opposite as it takes up more Saturdays for the majority of our wrestlers who are new or wrestled in middle school but did not do all the Saturday tournaments. The season is also much longer for those kids.
It really comes down to getting kids involved. It's no different for wrestling or football or other sports.
This is not a wrestling problem, this is a high school sports problem. We have to find a way to get kids involved, but let them be high schoolers also. I know some people will bang on youth sports but I really feel what is pushing people (kids and parents) away is TOO MANY SUMMER REQUIREMENTS. Baseball wants summer ball a couple nights a week and tournaments on weekends, Basketball wants summer leagues and a couple tournaments on weekends. Footballs wants 7 on 7 and lifting every day with a summer camp or two mixed in. Wrestling wants open mats and summer camps/duals. Maybe some kids want a little summer job, go camping with friends and family, take a couple weeks to stay with grandparents, or just take a month off. The culture is now that everyone (coaches, parents, etc.) really push you have to do it all summer long and that is pushing kids to quit sports as life isn't all about sports and stuff, it's about much more than that.
Just for a disclaimer, my son is a 3 sport athlete. We have started the last few years to take a more laid back approach to sports in the summer and off season. Focus on the sport he is in (football, wrestling, track) and worry about the next when the current season is done. Summers for us are pretty open now, use to do 1 to 2 nights of wrestling a week, not lucky to that all summer. Try to fit in school team and 1 other wrestling camp, plus the school team football camp. He is a much happier kid when he can go hang at the camper and not worry about getting back for a wrestling workout on a Sunday night in July. It has worked very well for us but I know it doesn't fit everyone's mold.
Quote from: DocWrestling on March 23, 2016, 10:16:38 AM
1) Could we agree that reducing the number of weight classes might improve the competitiveness and experience for the 60-70% of teams that have struggled to fill 14 weight classes. The top 25% will likely be the traditional powers and not much will change with that. They will still dominate.
2) Could we agree that reducing the number of weight classes might actually save some programs as it will look much better to administrators? This might take going all the way to 11 weight classes or something.. Cross country and tennis programs are not being cut even though many teams only have less than 10 on the team but with that 10 they can field a full team.
3) Could we agree that reducing the weight classes would likely improve the JV experience with duals, etc also and more paid coaches?
I agree that reducing to 13 would likely have minimal effect on any of this which is why I have gone off the deep end and think a drastic change to 10 or 11 weights would be ideal. In the end I think reducing the number of weight classes would greatly improve the team aspect of the sport.
My hope is that improving the team aspect would lead to increased participation. We are not short of great wrestlers. We are short the wrestlers that are average and wrestle for the fun and to help the team. 90% of teams that get on the bus for a dual already know the result of the dual so all that matters is the individual part. Reducing the weight classes changes that outside of those top teams which will always be very tough to beat. Fans do not come to watch individuals, they come to watch exciting team events
1)Answer - No, What number helps 60-70% - cutting 1 weight, 2, 3,4, more? I can't agree without a specific number, because I don't believe cutting 1-2 will help 60-70%
2)Answer - No, Again that is a very subjective statement. Are we seeing dozens of Admins clamoring to cut wrestling? Maybe most understand when they have a team of 15-20 kids that some are doubled up at weights, some aren't ready for varsity and that is why there is 6,7,8,9 forfeits? I think with a little education by the coach, most Admin types would understand from year to year ability to fill the lineup changes because of the makeup of that room between duplicate weights and experience. As long as the overall number in the room remains reasonable.
Side note: I personally think Admin's would be fine with my idea in a previous post (why are we trying to make all wrestling rooms "dual teams") when some year to year are much better served maybe participating in mostly/all individual tournaments.
3)Answer - No - how is reducing weight classes going to add more paid coaches? Yes - maybe to the JV experience if those wrestlers stay out.
"My hope is that improving the team aspect would lead to increased participation" - Doc, you actually can say with a straight face? Cutting 3-4 weights would increase participation? Can you? ::)
Ghetto, we don't know kids will quit? Regardless of the sport many are dropping out of sports come their Jr / Sr year if there is no chance for varsity time ..
In addition, I'm sure the added gap's between weights wont lead to more weight cutting or exasperate the number of undersized wrestlers. <--Sarcasm
I must be missing something, the last 20yrs national the sport has grown in the number of teams and the number of wrestlers and the talk is about reducing up to just shy of a 30% of the weights.
Yep, lets reduce the varsity field and opportunities and keep this as much of a cult / niche sport as we can.
Hello, tonight's Olympic broadcast in lieu of wrestling will be equestrian dressage ugh.....
Quote from: DocWrestling on March 23, 2016, 01:32:27 PM
Is wrestling changing the kids or are the kids changing wrestling?
Wrestling gives everyone a medal and a trophy from a young age for everything. Then we give them a varsity spot. I guess my old school thinking is that your pride came from working towards something and earning it. Many talk about the character that is built on the journey of becoming a wrestler. Is that not true anymore? Weigh-in, wrestle varsity, get your letter, move on!
Other sports are tougher to "earn" now than wrestling is.
At all the best wrestling schools, many kids have to wrestle JV for a few years simply because they are stuck behind a good wrestler. They do not quit too often. They have an expectation and that leads to their hard work and ultimately the continued success of that team. Why at other schools with less tradition do we worry that we have to give them a varsity spot or they will quit.
At our D1 school, no freshman competes on varsity in any sport other than maybe other than track or cross country. It is rare for a freshman or sophomore to compete on varsity. They don't quit! They work hard and wait their turn when they are then the best and have earned it.
Part of that is because there are JV squads. Maybe we need to look at improving JV as the #1 priority. How do we do that without just saying coaches have to do more and more recruiting? JV needs to be similar to the varsity experience. Tell me how many JV dual tournaments you have seen? Tell me how many JV tournaments use the same weight classes as the varsity? We treat the few guys on JV's like 3rd graders. That is why they might quit. They are misfits with no team! That is why they quit, not because they are not on varsity
My experience at a large DI high school is that kids do quit when they don't make the varsity.
I know of two kids that were place winners that did not go out at Rapids because they either didn't believe they would wrestle varsity the following season, or, they were not willing to make the cut to make the varsity. It pained me...and, not just because I was envisioning Scott Benitz with all those options come duals if those guys would have stayed out.
I agree with ElectricGuy's responses to Doc. With this add, is it important to legislate to be more competitive? Can we not agree all teams start on a level playing field? And I have only posted this biased opinion a few times in the past, if you think a dual will be closer because there are 1-3 less weight classes against a state power, when that state power can take 1-3 of their weakest wrestlers out of a line-up, that is wrong-headed.
I also say, the data that is missing from the D3 info provided, nice work by the way, is how many 135-165 pounders were on the bench and available to wrestle, if the weight classes actually matched the available wrestlers.
Bell curve anyone? The only reason I keep pounding my head against this wall is it feels so good when I stop...
Our team had 14 weights filled the last 6 years at regionals and then this year due to a kid quitting and an injury we didn't. In a perfect world we would have filled the line-up, but there is so much more to wrestling than other sports. Injuries, skin conditions, kids quitting due to how hard it is, your wrestlers all needed to be a different weight(God forbid anyone cuts a pound) amongst other things will always make it tough....doesnt matter how many weight classes there are.
I wrestled in the mid-80s...few teams in our conference had a full line-up with 12 weights. A bit tired of hearing about the good old days when tons of teams had multiple forfeits back then also.
I find a lot of coaches are actually not that worried about it. Sure, they'd love to have a full line-up but are not willing to put in the time to get one....it takes a looooong time. You have to start from the bottom up and get kids that can compete early in their high school career. I am by no means from a wrestling background town that has a 310 population in their high school so I know it can work....but the time sacrificed is not something most are willing to do. They need to go out and find dedicated youth dads that they trust to help build...get everyone on board that they are doing something big. How many high school coaches attend a youth practice? Very few. It sucks it takes more time out of your schedule but many of these youth are wrestling a season that is 6 weeks longer than high school and they need to see these high school coaches care. These youth coaches don't want to hear how busy you are....they are putting in the extra time. Get some of your good high school kids down there too...nothing goes further for these kids than seeing these guys there....explain that they were in those kids shoes at one time too and teach them what it takes to be a good wrestler for a long time. There are so many things you can do if you think outside the box....not just hoping for a change.
Instead of whining about it Im going to try even harder to get more back ups in case this happens again. At maximum they'd go down 1 weight class so most teams will be sitting in basically the same boat. Its not easy but spend time recruiting instead of hoping for a change.
As far as JV seasons....it is too short I believe, You start competing at the beginning of December...then week and a half off for break. They come back and if not on varsity they are done at end of January(if their coach gets them a tournament that weekend). I'm not sure how much better a kid can get in this amount of time. Do all the boys basketball teams complain its too long and they go two more weeks?
I am also a bit tired of hearing about the participation trophies. Kids don't like to lose whether they get a trophy for fourth or not....all they know is they lost 2-3 times. I've never had a kid happy about 4th place just because they got a trophy. The premise behind everyone getting an award is trying to keep wrestlers out for the sport...to me it works better than anything else someone can come up with. While maybe these kids aren't good enough to get 1st or 2nd they are being recognized for putting it all out there and competing in a combat sport that most would never think of doing....to me getting an award for that is OK.....remember its not all about winning, especially at the younger ages....we need to do everything possible to give these kids an incentive to keep coming back. They know they are taking pictures at the bottom of the podium.
So for the last several years wrestling numbers have grown nationally but not in Wisconsin. .....could it be we are so obsessed with cutting weight classes that we refuse to look at recruiting?
Cant believe I am going to say this....but I agree 100% with Padre.....focus on a solution to get more participants on your team.....not less on tbe others.
Quote from: aarons23 on March 23, 2016, 02:32:18 PM
So for the last several years wrestling numbers have grown nationally but not in Wisconsin. .....could it be we are so obsessed with cutting weight classes that we refuse to look at recruiting?
Cant believe I am going to say this....but I agree 100% with Padre.....focus on a solution to get more participants on your team.....not less on tbe others.
I think you do both. I certainly can't mathematically argue about the best solution. I will say this though. Our dual meet product right now is poor. I'm a "wrestling guy" and I didn't even go to a single dual this year so I can't imagine the novice fan wanting to go. It seems that the amount of weight classes is diluting the overall competitiveness and it allows for more jockeying between weight classes. Fire away on my lack of "proof", just my opinion but a lot of my wrestling people are like me and attending less and less HS events. This year we went to Bi-State and some college events.
Quote from: Barou on March 23, 2016, 02:49:11 PM
Quote from: aarons23 on March 23, 2016, 02:32:18 PM
So for the last several years wrestling numbers have grown nationally but not in Wisconsin. .....could it be we are so obsessed with cutting weight classes that we refuse to look at recruiting?
Cant believe I am going to say this....but I agree 100% with Padre.....focus on a solution to get more participants on your team.....not less on tbe others.
I think you do both. I certainly can't mathematically argue about the best solution. I will say this though. Our dual meet product right now is poor. I'm a "wrestling guy" and I didn't even go to a single dual this year so I can't imagine the novice fan wanting to go. It seems that the amount of weight classes is diluting the overall competitiveness and it allows for more jockeying between weight classes. Fire away on my lack of "proof", just my opinion but a lot of my wrestling people are like me and attending less and less HS events. This year we went to Bi-State and some college events.
How many really good duals were there ever? A low percentage.
You can still find some great duals and get more wrestling when you do. Sure you have to pick and choose but I think we have always had to. If you go to Milton vs. Stoughton it was a good dual 15 years ago and still is...but those type of duals have ALWAYS been few and far between. Much can be said the same in other sports...a great majority of football and basketball one knows going in it is going to be lopsided....seldom does a poor team in these sports compete well with a team that has tradition. Just because they put the same amount of kids on the floor or field doesn't automatically make for a better game. Sure I wish all teams were full....I am embarrassed that fans come when a team has 3-5 wrestlers but know they aren't putting all of their energies into getting better. Is the dual better if that team puts all beginners out there that get pinned in one minute...probably not really but at least they'd have something to improve on. However, i have witnessed teams with poor tradition grow into a good team through years of hard work in the lower levels. It is not easy to be competitive in ANY sport without a good youth program. PERIOD.
Quote from: Dale Einerson on March 23, 2016, 02:06:43 PM
I know of two kids that were place winners that did not go out at Rapids because they either didn't believe they would wrestle varsity the following season, or, they were not willing to make the cut to make the varsity. It pained me...and, not just because I was envisioning Scott Benitz with all those options come duals if those guys would have stayed out.
I agree with ElectricGuy's responses to Doc. With this add, is it important to legislate to be more competitive? Can we not agree all teams start on a level playing field? And I have only posted this biased opinion a few times in the past, if you think a dual will be closer because there are 1-3 less weight classes against a state power, when that state power can take 1-3 of their weakest wrestlers out of a line-up, that is wrong-headed.
I also say, the data that is missing from the D3 info provided, nice work by the way, is how many 135-165 pounders were on the bench and available to wrestle, if the weight classes actually matched the available wrestlers.
Bell curve anyone? The only reason I keep pounding my head against this wall is it feels so good when I stop...
I agree with you on this Dale, going to fewer weights makes good teams stronger and even more dominant.
Here is another thought for those who lament the days of 12 weights. Do you also want to go back to the 185 - heavyweight gap?
(also remember then heavyweight was unlimited as well).
Sorry if this offends some coaches out there.....but this is the reality:
A good coach that can recruit/convince kids to give it a try......
and can find a way to engage everyone (parents, other coaches, youth coach) in the process.....
and develops BOTH a short term and long term strategy.....
that includes a lot of elbow grease....
and includes some development and nurturing at the youth level.....
WILL fill 14 weight classes year in, year out, and will probably be pretty darn competitive year in, year out.
Guys, we see this over and over and over. Everything revolves around a good coach. It has nothing to do with 10 weights, 12 weights, 20 weights. If it's not happening at your school, then rethinking your strategy and looking in the mirror might be a good idea. Maybe if you can't get kids to come out for your program or can't keep them in the room, there is something wrong with your approach that has absolutely nothing to do with how many weight classes or how big a population you have.
Ugh ::)
Where are all these coaches that could be filling all these "holes" at 70% of schools in Wisconsin. At 335 high school teams in WI that means there are 235+ coaches that are not doing what they need to?
The coaches are not in Iowa because they have same problems.
Nope, they are not in Minnesota either because they have same problems.
What are you telling the D3 schools that only have 100 total boys in the entire high school?
It is so easy to just say find the coach but they are not out there anywhere. We are losing more coaches than losing coaches because they see how difficult it is not only dealing with the athletes but the parents. The ones we have are the ones that have stepped up and are trying. All these other coaches must be doing nothing for teams and are not coaching anywhere?
It is also easy to say we just need to get kids off the couch and to participate in any sport. Go ahead and try to change the world why you are at it also.
In conclusion, we are lucky to have the coaches we have at WI high schools because when there is an opening there certainly is not a long list of applicants.
It does offend me. A lot.
So did you just call me a bad coach? Cuz you did.
I have a short time vision, and a long term vision. I have busted my tail for 10 years to make my program what it is. And I'm not filling the weights.
But really it isn't about me.
So we have a ton of bad coaches in this state. Got it.
Oh gosh. I can't tell you how much this offends me.
Here's an example of how much work I've put into this sport.
For the past 10 years I've missed countless things that my own kids have done, to coach wrestling. I've given up every Saturday during the winter for the past 10 years to try and build a program. Our school has 20 state qualifiers. EVER. I have half of them.
My son started wrestling this year. I missed every dual he wrestled in. EVERY ONE. Please don't tell me that I haven't put in the time.
Quote from: Ghetto on March 23, 2016, 05:11:00 PM
Oh gosh. I can't tell you how much this offends me.
Here's an example of how much work I've put into this sport.
For the past 10 years I've missed countless things that my own kids have done, to coach wrestling. I've given up every Saturday during the winter for the past 10 years to try and build a program. Our school has 20 state qualifiers. EVER. I have half of them.
My son started wrestling this year. I missed every dual he wrestled in. EVERY ONE. Please don't tell me that I haven't put in the time.
Problem is it can not be a one man show.....coaches need a supporting cast which includes assistants and coaches in the school at the middle school and high school to communicate with wrestlers and potential wrestlers a good middle school program aswell as a good youth program that is also has imput from high school. Plus a group of parents that are passionate about wrestling and growing wrestling. Its not a one man job. I know personally that Ghetto is passionate and dedicated.....but does he have the surrounding cast that he needs?
http://www.cdc.gov/growthcharts/data/set1clinical/cj41l021.pdf
If you went from 5th percentile to 95 percentile, 14-17 years old you would go from 88 pounds to 195 pounds.
Again, this is walking around weight.
http://www.cdc.gov/growthcharts/data/set2clinical/cj41l071.pdf
If you take 3rd percentile to 97th percentile, 14-17 years old you would go from 82 pounds to 208 pounds.
I know, its sometimes tough to face the brutal realities. Im not sayimg anyone is a bad coach, im saying thay sometimes we must ask the tough questions of ourselves. Am i doing this right? Brute force (lots of hours, sacrafice) dont always translate into success. Thats when you have to ask the tough questions.
Ghetto, i know you work hard, i dont doubt that for a minute. Sometimes pushing the 1,000 poind rock up the mountain by yourself just wont work.
Quote from: getyourpoints on March 23, 2016, 05:26:38 PM
Thanks Ghetto....
We need more guys like you, I don't agree with you but I do support you.
This is a critical point I want to make, like it or not cutting weight classes will not improve the duels!!! Wrestling has turned into a sport of haves or have not's just like baseball and basketball. Stratford and Fennimore are total proof, The duel's are being dominated by the kids putting in the extra time at the privet clubs.
That train has left the station and isn't coming back.
Look it up 92% (d1 and d2)of all the high school place winners placed by 6th grade. Over 85% of the place winners have registered at tournaments under the flag of a privet club. Kids are smart they are not coming out for wrestling for the first time in jr high school because they understand it will be almost impossible to be competitive.
So how does cutting weight classes fix this?
I don't disagree but not sure I undertand your point. Should we just forget about all the wrestlers that just dream of being a sectional qualifier or a conference placewinner? Or we are just supposed to make it easier for them so we need a weight class for them all to be varsity right away?
wrestlers that come up then expect to be on varsity right away
Quote from: Ghetto on March 23, 2016, 05:11:00 PM
Oh gosh. I can't tell you how much this offends me.
Here's an example of how much work I've put into this sport.
For the past 10 years I've missed countless things that my own kids have done, to coach wrestling. I've given up every Saturday during the winter for the past 10 years to try and build a program. Our school has 20 state qualifiers. EVER. I have half of them.
My son started wrestling this year. I missed every dual he wrestled in. EVERY ONE. Please don't tell me that I haven't put in the time.
You have to make sure you make your kids meets. I'm sure you have an assistant that can run practices on those nights. Makes for an easier life and the kids and parents will definitely understand.
Lifted from a CDC website, idea generated by MNBadger...
Typical Height and Weight Charts
Height and Weights for Teen Boys
Age Range Height Weight Percentile
12-13 years 58 - 62 inches 85 - 100 lbs 50%
14-15 years 63 - 66 inches 105 - 125 lbs 50%
16-17 years 67 - 70 inches 130 - 150 lbs 50%
18-20 years 68 - 70 inches 150 - 160 lbs 50%
Not a bell curve at all, however it is equivalent to 4 high points on 4 separate bell curves. And what did our breathtakingly math-challenged national wrestling leadership do? Why, they took a weight out of the middle, right where the 14-15, 16-17 and 18 year olds are grouped; placed it in the tail of the distribution. People, take a weight away, from say 215, and move the weights between 113 and 195 towards the middle and much of your problem will be solved.
How bad would it really be if we had a 145, 150, 155 and 160? And, please note, since 130-150 are the mid/high points for 16-17 year olds and can safely presume this is pre-7% cut-down weight, that grouping should lower and centered around the midpoint.
Doc, I have a strawman for you, if a tennis team can only get 10 kids out; that is how many positions there are on varsity, should they cut it to 7 or 8 just so somebody has to work at it to make varsity?
With all due respect; I have huge respect for your contributions to wrestling and for what I think I know about you as a person, I have to question what problem you are attempting to address by cutting weight classes? So far I am hearing you want to legislate competitiveness and make it harder to become a varsity competitor. Others tell me forfeits are killing their brain and damaging their esophagus.
I say, I keep saying, why don't you let the guys riding the pines wrestle varsity in the most heavily populated weight range; add those talented 7th and 8th graders to fill in the lighter weights?
And Ghetto; all wrestling Coaches, school or club, thank you. Sincerely, thank you. You don't do it for the money, your "why" is a passion for kids, for giving back, for seeing progress, for positively impacting the life of others, all centered around a sport that you enjoy and strongly desire to see thrive. Thank you.
Quote from: padre on March 23, 2016, 05:50:24 PM
Quote from: Ghetto on March 23, 2016, 05:11:00 PM
Oh gosh. I can't tell you how much this offends me.
Here's an example of how much work I've put into this sport.
For the past 10 years I've missed countless things that my own kids have done, to coach wrestling. I've given up every Saturday during the winter for the past 10 years to try and build a program. Our school has 20 state qualifiers. EVER. I have half of them.
My son started wrestling this year. I missed every dual he wrestled in. EVERY ONE. Please don't tell me that I haven't put in the time.
You have to make sure you make your kids meets. I'm sure you have an assistant that can run practices on those nights. Makes for an easier life and the kids and parents will definitely understand.
Oh my, betting they are Saturdays...and that is another challenge with high school wrestling schedules...it is a tournament-based sport that requires a lot of time to complete competitions, which means weekends, which means not Sunday, which means Saturday...
Quote from: Dale Einerson on March 23, 2016, 06:14:24 PM
Lifted from a CDC website, idea generated by MNBadger...
Typical Height and Weight Charts
Height and Weights for Teen Boys
Age Range Height Weight Percentile
12-13 years 58 - 62 inches 85 - 100 lbs 50%
14-15 years 63 - 66 inches 105 - 125 lbs 50%
16-17 years 67 - 70 inches 130 - 150 lbs 50%
18-20 years 68 - 70 inches 150 - 160 lbs 50%
Not a bell curve at all, however it is equivalent to 4 high points on 4 separate bell curves. And what did our breathtakingly math-challenged national wrestling leadership do? Why, they took a weight out of the middle, right where the 14-15, 16-17 and 18 year olds are grouped; placed it in the tail of the distribution. People, take a weight away, from say 215, and move the weights between 113 and 195 towards the middle and much of your problem will be solved.
How bad would it really be if we had a 145, 150, 155 and 160? And, please note, since 130-150 are the mid/high points for 16-17 year olds and can safely presume this is pre-7% cut-down weight, that grouping should lower and centered around the midpoint.
Doc, I have a strawman for you, if a tennis team can only get 10 kids out; that is how many positions there are on varsity, should they cut it to 7 or 8 just so somebody has to work at it to make varsity?
With all due respect; I have huge respect for your contributions to wrestling and for what I think I know about you as a person, I have to question what problem you are attempting to address by cutting weight classes? So far I am hearing you want to legislate competitiveness and make it harder to become a varsity competitor. Others tell me forfeits are killing their brain and damaging their esophagus.
I say, I keep saying, why don't you let the guys riding the pines wrestle varsity in the most heavily populated weight range; add those talented 7th and 8th graders to fill in the lighter weights?
And Ghetto; all wrestling Coaches, school or club, thank you. Sincerely, thank you. You don't do it for the money, your "why" is a passion for kids, for giving back, for seeing progress, for positively impacting the life of others, all centered around a sport that you enjoy and strongly desire to see thrive. Thank you.
Pathetically responding to my own post...if we have the numbers provided by the CDC above I know a standard bell curve could be calculated from that...where is our math teacher that provides prognoses when we need him? I could figure it out, but then I have this immense gift for
avoiding work delegating.
I get it what most are saying on this.
Fact I have that I would like to put out there.
Alot of this comes down to school size and such.
Small school with less than 300 hundred in the high school might be hard to find the numbers to fill out all weight classes.
Mid size schools with less than 850, sure you have enough to fill out a line up but your also in competition with basketball, band, hockey, play and other events so your pool gets smaller.
Large sized school with over 850 have the numbers and the kids to fill out the weights.
So with that said, I am still behind the 2 divisions, one with 14 weights and 1 with 12 weights. Also like Doc said with the options for either school to apply for going to one of the divisions.
Not sure as to solve any problems.
I know putting "blame" on coaches may not be the answer though.
Also, after reading about placing at youth state and what is does in high school. I am still alittle out on that one at this point.
Sure building some good skills as a youth is kid butt important but I would go as far as saying you have to place at youth state to set the tone as to what you do in high school.
I went back 3-7 years and just looked at brackets in youth and pulled out a high school state book. While I see several names at the top in youth that are on the top in high school. But what I also see is kids not in the youth state records that do fairly well in high school also. Also see names in youth and not in high school.
I see believe you can get a kid out in middle school and they can have success in high school. Coaching, what the kids wants to put into it and if that team is supportive. An athlete is an athlete no matter how you slice and dice it.
What people measure success by is another thing. Some kids goal is to make sectionals and maybe that is all they have. Heck I know of kids that were as happy as one could be placing 3rd at their conference meet. I call that success also. Not every kid can be a state champ.
Quote from: getyourpoints on March 23, 2016, 05:26:38 PM
Thanks Ghetto....
We need more guys like you, I don't agree with you but I do support you.
This is a critical point I want to make, like it or not cutting weight classes will not improve the duels!!! Wrestling has turned into a sport of haves or have not's just like baseball and basketball. Stratford and Fennimore are total proof, The duel's are being dominated by the kids putting in the extra time at the privet clubs.
That train has left the station and isn't coming back.
Look it up 92% (d1 and d2)of all the high school place winners placed by 6th grade. Over 85% of the place winners have registered at tournaments under the flag of a privet club. Kids are smart they are not coming out for wrestling for the first time in jr high school because they understand it will be almost impossible to be competitive.
So how does cutting weight classes fix this?
Yep, it wasn't more than about a dozen years ago when we didn't have anyone place at state because there weren't the masses of for-profit clubs.Was there even a State tournament?? That's sarcasm if you weren't aware. Oh, and it's spelled private.
I get your point about the halves and have not's. That's certainly true about individuals and there isn't much the WWCA or WIAA can possibly do about who thinks their child is better off in a private club rather than helping support and improve their local club. But when we are talking entire teams, during the HS season, yes they can do things to help level the playing field. D2 and D3 allow top 3 placers in Sectionals to State, right? So that's an adjustment. We have schools with 9 man football? Our Divisions of participation, as well as our Regional and Sectional assignments fluctuate, in theory to add fairness to those within. So why in the world, when over 40% of teams can't do it, would reducing a weight or two be so different or damaging to the sport? I guess I don't follow the fear that improving competition would be bad.
Certainly the "what" weights has to be looked at as Dale showed how our latest changes in weights were opposite of where kids actually are, but without a doubt the number of weights is of importance. Having taken my team to a 10-13 team scramble in Wi the last three years, regardless of what the weights were, if it was at 14 almost all of those teams would still be giving up 3-4 forfeits. They just don't have the numbers, or numbers of varsity-ready kids. So they still look bad to the community. They still look bad to admin (who unlike one poster suggested, don't take into consideration the forces behind why a program can't fill it's varsity) and they still know that they will be giving up 18-24 points at every dual. In addition for many teams in the state, attending the increasingly popular dual tournaments is futile other than maybe you get a decent match or two for your good guys, but being that it's a dual and coaching strategies come into play, and wins are important, often the studs get forfeits because of the gaps in line ups anyway.
LG301, Your points about kids placing at State (both youth and HS) who weren't in private clubs is very true, as is your observation that kids in private clubs who place at youth state never make it to state, or never place, or perhaps never even wrestle in high school is also true. Thank you for bringing it to the forefront.
Sorry I didn't respond last night. I was at a wrestling club meeting. I also wanted to get my thoughts together.
I apologize for bringing up my own personal stuff. I was not trying to toot my own horn.
Here's the point I was trying to make...
14 weights, in my mind, is unsustainable, and that is what the numbers show. The reason I brought up my own story was not to get ideas on how to get to my son's dual. It's an example that to use the blanket statement that you do or do not have good coaches is just plain not correct. Truth is, you don't know what others are doing, but you assume that because coaches are not filling weights they are not good. To assume that 80% of the coaches in D3 are bad can't be true, can it? Do we really think so?
Getyourpoints makes one point for me. Our sport has become like all the others in that if you don't start really early, you most likely will never get to the top of the mountain. The main problem with that is that you need to have a kids club that starts them early and somehow makes it so they don't burn out before they make it to the high school. Finding that guy, or group of guys, in a non wrestling culture is very difficult to do. So then the head coach does it, and he's away from his family for yet another night (nights). If you look at places that are thriving, they had an amazing kids club guy who stuck around. Padre is exhibit A through Z. Will that program be able to sustain it when he leaves? So if a team starts their kids program with a super guy who sticks around forever, they might have success 10 years from now. What about right now, or 5 years from now?
At many schools, the stars and planets all have to align to fill all the weights.
We had 12 weights back in the day and the sport was not dying.
What people fail to understand is that I do not care in the least bit about beating Wisconsin Rapids in a dual, or Kaukauna, or Mukwonago, or any other team that was at team state. Teams like mine want to walk into a conference dual with a fighting chance to win it. I don't want Nicolet to be able to throw some JV scrub out there because they can warm body a FF to win the dual. I want people who come to the duals and be entertained by a decent product, which might make that 9 year old in the crowd try wrestling, which might bring a friend out, which might build the freshman group I get to 6 instead of 2, and down the road I might be able to have some JV matches at a dual. We all know that winning builds programs. Students see home duals. Creating a vibe MIGHT build the program. I think, for the majority of teams in this state, that being competitive as a team within their conference is more on the radar than beating the powers that be.
What we do know is that the numbers are getting worse, and not better over time. At what point do we think change is critical? If it was a business, and the numbers were going steadily down, when would you step in and try something new? Would you just blame the workers and not look to see if the system itself was flawed?
I have heard back from the WIAA, and they said they would get back to me in regards to getting the data from the body fat testing. I asked only for the weights of all kids who tested. I don't care about the names or the teams. Not sure why they'd say no, but they might. If they do give it to me, I will put it out there as to what the 12 weights/13 weights/14 weights would be on the wrestling bell curve in Wisconsin.
At the end of the day, we all care about this sport. We can do something and try to change it, or we can continue to blame the people trying to make it better for not doing enough. While changing it may not help one bit, blaming the people who are trying to make it better most certainly will not help at all.
A lot of reading but I'm still not sure what we are solving. Is the problem statement that we are having too many forfeits? Is the problem statement we don't have enough participation?
If there are too many forfeits and the solution is to eliminate weight classes I would bet all the money in my right front pocket that there will be reduced participation. I think the edge of the bell curve weight classes (if those are eliminated) will result in kids not participating because there is no weight class for them. They don't care about JV (that's a reality). Many of these edge of the bell curves guys are absolute studs who would no longer have a spot on varsity without going up to a higher weight class that they are not strong enough to compete. I will also admit that many of the spots filled are from weaker kids just to fill a size spot (but you have to acknowledge that happens in the middle of the bell curve weights too).
I will stomp my feet and hold my breath if we continue to eliminate lower weight classes and continue to move the minimum weight up. Let these little athletes alone and show their stuff. Forfeit when there isn't one.
To me the problem statement of too many forfeits isn't an actual problem needing to be addressed. I think the problem is that the forfeits create too much of an imbalance of score in the dual meets. Solve that problem and forfeits are less of an issue.
Simply put!
Wrestling is never going to be the sport I think it can be and never on a parallel with other sports if we are going to say that wrestlers will quit if they have to wrestle JV for a year or two. That might be because they are too small, not skilled enough, or just flat out have some studs in front of them.
By being too small I am not just talking about the 100lb or less freshman. The same thing happens to 135lb and 170lb freshman. They are also too small as freshman to compete against upper classmen. We do not need them all on varsity as freshman much less 7th and 8th graders. I speak of the 90% of wrestlers. There are always a few exceptions with some freshman that are ready.
Every one of these kids will grow into a weight class that fits them as sophomores, juniors, and seniors.
Quote from: Oldtimer on March 24, 2016, 11:41:25 AM
A lot of reading but I'm still not sure what we are solving. Is the problem statement that we are having too many forfeits? Is the problem statement we don't have enough participation?
If there are too many forfeits and the solution is to eliminate weight classes I would bet all the money in my right front pocket that there will be reduced participation. I think the edge of the bell curve weight classes (if those are eliminated) will result in kids not participating because there is no weight class for them. They don't care about JV (that's a reality). Many of these edge of the bell curves guys are absolute studs who would no longer have a spot on varsity without going up to a higher weight class that they are not strong enough to compete. I will also admit that many of the spots filled are from weaker kids just to fill a size spot (but you have to acknowledge that happens in the middle of the bell curve weights too).
I will stomp my feet and hold my breath if we continue to eliminate lower weight classes and continue to move the minimum weight up. Let these little athletes alone and show their stuff. Forfeit when there isn't one.
To me the problem statement of too many forfeits isn't an actual problem needing to be addressed. I think the problem is that the forfeits create too much of an imbalance of score in the dual meets. Solve that problem and forfeits are less of an issue.
http://www.cdc.gov/growthcharts/data/set1clinical/cj41l021.pdf
If you went from 5th percentile to 95 percentile, 14-17 years old you would go from 88 pounds to 195 pounds.
Again, this is walking around weight.
http://www.cdc.gov/growthcharts/data/set2clinical/cj41l071.pdf
If you take 3rd percentile to 97th percentile, 14-17 years old you would go from 82 pounds to 208 pounds.
I agree with most of what you say OT. But looking at the above data shows we have repeatedly moved the weight classes up making more weight classes where there are fewer kids.
Ghetto....apologize if my statements came off as calling you and/or others as a bad coach.
I know by watching you the few times I've seen you in action that you care a lot and are a good coach. I also realize that sometimes there are other competing forces that hold teams/communities back. More times than not though, it centers around a coach or group of coaches. That doesn't mean they are bad, it may just mean they are missing a key ingredient. It's just my personal opinion that some coaches do it better than others, and THAT alone is the reason why they are able to be competitive year in, year out. Competitive DOES NOT mean beating Rapids or Stoughton or Kaukauna to everyone. You are correct, it may just mean being competitive in your conference, which generally just means fielding a full team.
In the end, I do not believe that a change in the number of weight classes has ANYTHING to do with every teams opportunity to BE COMPETITIVE. I'm very confused at exactly what problem would be fixed by reducing weight classes?
The "problem" has been stated over and over. Some just do not see the a problem and that is fine. Agree to disagree. Some see the problem but disagree on the corrective action needed. That is also fine and we can agree to disagree.
The perceived "problem" was laid out on 1st page by ghetto and it is...........
The overwhelming majority of teams in Wisconsin cannot put out a full lineup at the most important date of the year, WIAA regionals. He posted the numbers below. These numbers would be even higher if he used 13 which is still an incomplete starting lineup. Even at 12 those are pretty unbelievable numbers especially in lower divisions. The stats have proven to be similar in Iowa and Minnesota. It is up to you if you think that those numbers represent a "problem"
This season, teams at regionals with 12 or less wrestlers in their lineups:
Division 1: 56% (56.7% last year)
Division 2: 67.89% (64.7% last year)
Division 3: 80.05% (83.5% last year)
This season, teams at regionals with 12 or less "varsity" wrestlers in their lineups:
Division 1: 67.97% (69.9% last year)
Division 2: 72.04% (77.5% last year)
Division 3: 87.49% (92.2% last year)
To me it looks like a huge problem and looks actually quite silly when looking at it from a non-wrestling perspective. Pretend you knew nothing about wrestling and loved another sport. Would you not think it is odd that so few teams in Wisconsin can even field a full varsity team. Are there football teams out there only playing with 9 guys on the field at a time? Any varsity soccer teams out there competing with 9 players on the field?
Take away everything else and look at it from an administrator or non-wrestling fan and the numbers look like a huge problem.
Pretty sure if we were just starting the sport, that from an administrative standpoint you would never set up a system that had those types of numbers
At the very least can we agree that the divisions should likely be divided up equally.
Right now D1 takes the top 128 teams. With 333 wrestling teams that leaves 205 more teams and they are split equally so 102 teams in each division.
Plus there are more open weight classes in lineups for D2 and D3.
Should we not at least divide up the 333 teams equally and have 111 teams in each division? And then in each sectional should there not be the same amount of teams?
Then take top 16 in each weight class in every division?
I finally caught up, so I can make a statement.
First eliminating weight classes will not give wrestlers more experience on JV, if the team doesn't have varsity wrestlers, they won't have JV wrestlers either.
The bell curve is great, but you have to start and finish at the right weights. I think 105 and 285 is good.
I think cutting weights will solve nothing. Cutting 2 weights will not help a lot of teams.
To get numbers up you need community support. Especially former wrestlers. Make practice fun for the little kids.
Times have changed since I wrestled, wrestling was a heck of a lot easier than working on the farm. Kids just are not accustomed to work that hard. Tell them that placing at a tournament is good, getting second or third at regionals they are better than half the wrestlers in the state. So many kids quit to play basketball but you never see their names mentioned anywhere.
How many basketball teams leave for a game and know they have almost no chance to win?
On cutting weight I think the way it is set up encourages cutting, whoever set that up had to have their head up their but. Go back to the old way at least. Make the wrestlers wrestle that weight all season.
I know there were other points I wanted to cover but I can't remember now.