It's been a few years since I've done this. This past spring the NFHS allowed states to adjust the number of weight classes they use. WIAA made no changes and we stayed at 14 weight classes. Let's see how things are going, shall we?
Taking a look at 12/4 individual tournaments and scrambles, there were 122 teams that participated in 8 tournaments (there were two more tournaments listed that either don't have any info on Trackwrestling, and/or I couldn't get it to load after several attempts). We'll just stick with these 8 for today. I'm not counting any out-of-state tournaments, though I am including teams that come into our state to wrestle. In some tournaments, teams were allowed to wrestle more than one person per weight class to help fill brackets, so that will skew the numbers higher but we'll run with it.
122 teams x 14 weight classes = spots for 1708 wrestlers. We filled 1056 of those spots, or approximately 62%. 62% of 14 weights = 8.6 Thus our 122 teams that participated in these 8 varsity tournaments averaged 8.6 wrestlers per team.
By weight class, percentage of teams able to fill that slot on that day, which of course will create angst for some of you, but in reality should be looked at objectively and logically:
106 - 48%
113 - 46%
120 - 52%
126 - 67%
132 - 62%
138 - 58%
145 - 72%
152 - 75%
160 - 67%
170 - 69%
182 - 64%
195 - 56%
220 - %70
285 - 60%
So... There's your data for this weekend, similar to this time 5-6 years ago but a lower average number of wrestlers per team, and a shift to wrestlers being heavier. I've been hearing for a few years that the massive number of kids in youth wrestling and private clubs was going to change this trend. Maybe neither of those actually equate to more participants in our sport? Recruiting without retention is useless.
Quote from: Handles II on December 09, 2021, 11:13:17 AM
It's been a few years since I've done this. This past spring the NFHS allowed states to adjust the number of weight classes they use. WIAA made no changes and we stayed at 14 weight classes. Let's see how things are going, shall we?
Taking a look at 12/4 individual tournaments and scrambles, there were 122 teams that participated in 8 tournaments (there were two more tournaments listed that either don't have any info on Trackwrestling, and/or I couldn't get it to load after several attempts. We'll just stick with these 8 for today. I'm not counting any out-of-state tournaments, though I am including teams that come into our state to wrestle. In some tournaments, teams were allowed to wrestle more than one person per weight class to help fill brackets, so that will skew the numbers higher but we'll run with it.
122 teams x 14 weight classes = spots for 1708 wrestlers. We filled 1056 of those spots, or approximately 62%. 62% of 14 weights = 8.6 Thus our 122 teams that participated in these 8 varsity tournaments averaged 8.6 wrestlers per team.
By weight class, percentage of teams able to fill that slot on that day, which of course will create angst for some of you, but in reality should be looked at objectively and logically:
106 - 48%
113 - 46%
120 - 52%
126 - 67%
132 - 62%
138 - 58%
145 - 72%
152 - 75%
160 - 67%
170 - 69%
182 - 64%
195 - 56%
220 - %70
285 - 60%
So... There's your data for this weekend, similar to this time 5-6 years ago but a lower average number of wrestlers per team, and a shift to wrestlers being heavier. I've been hearing for a few years that the massive number of kids in youth wrestling and private clubs was going to change this trend. Maybe neither of those actually equate to more participants in our sport? Recruiting without retention is useless.
Not a surprise when kids aren't allowed to go to school in some areas, play sports, and do there regular activites. Easy to walk into a school and see the change from pre covid to present.
Quote from: wrastle63 on December 09, 2021, 11:17:37 AM
Quote from: Handles II on December 09, 2021, 11:13:17 AM
It's been a few years since I've done this. This past spring the NFHS allowed states to adjust the number of weight classes they use. WIAA made no changes and we stayed at 14 weight classes. Let's see how things are going, shall we?
Taking a look at 12/4 individual tournaments and scrambles, there were 122 teams that participated in 8 tournaments (there were two more tournaments listed that either don't have any info on Trackwrestling, and/or I couldn't get it to load after several attempts. We'll just stick with these 8 for today. I'm not counting any out-of-state tournaments, though I am including teams that come into our state to wrestle. In some tournaments, teams were allowed to wrestle more than one person per weight class to help fill brackets, so that will skew the numbers higher but we'll run with it.
122 teams x 14 weight classes = spots for 1708 wrestlers. We filled 1056 of those spots, or approximately 62%. 62% of 14 weights = 8.6 Thus our 122 teams that participated in these 8 varsity tournaments averaged 8.6 wrestlers per team.
By weight class, percentage of teams able to fill that slot on that day, which of course will create angst for some of you, but in reality should be looked at objectively and logically:
106 - 48%
113 - 46%
120 - 52%
126 - 67%
132 - 62%
138 - 58%
145 - 72%
152 - 75%
160 - 67%
170 - 69%
182 - 64%
195 - 56%
220 - %70
285 - 60%
So... There's your data for this weekend, similar to this time 5-6 years ago but a lower average number of wrestlers per team, and a shift to wrestlers being heavier. I've been hearing for a few years that the massive number of kids in youth wrestling and private clubs was going to change this trend. Maybe neither of those actually equate to more participants in our sport? Recruiting without retention is useless.
Not a surprise when kids aren't allowed to go to school in some areas, play sports, and do there regular activites. Easy to walk into a school and see the change from pre covid to present.
As stated, the numbers are about the same as 5-6 years ago, maybe a bit lower. If I would have done this 4 years ago, 3 years ago, it would have also been similar. Your point is noted and perhaps has some validity.
I see a lot of good competition in all 14 weight classes.
Unfortunately, forfeits are a part of the sport and will always be a part of a sport... 80% of high school teams in WI are not in contention for a team state birth/state title/conference title, and I think they understand that.
A similar document was created based on the last 6 years of Regional data by the WWCA. I'd suggest logging onto their website, checking out their September notes, and finding the link. The data is very clear as it relates to participation at the end of the year at Regionals.
Or you can go directly to the document here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1t9tVNDg4QQfsaySxJ9aqNQfCFBTPb2KKJ7gU5EaYCqE/edit?usp=sharing
Thank you for the info from WWCA. I went thru the last 1+ years of meeting minutes and while I may have missed it, it appears the WWCA is not actively addressing the HS participation rates. Just curious--isn't this something that the WWCA should/could take a lead in? Is there concern from the WWCA?
In my opinion the coach/coaching has the largest direct effect on participation #'s in HS sports.
" 122 teams x 14 weight classes = spots for 1708 wrestlers. We filled 1056 of those spots, or approximately 62%. 62% of 14 weights = 8.6 Thus our 122 teams that participated in these 8 varsity tournaments averaged 8.6 wrestlers per team. "
So we should go to having 8 weights?
Quote from: Handles II on December 09, 2021, 11:13:17 AM
It's been a few years since I've done this. This past spring the NFHS allowed states to adjust the number of weight classes they use. WIAA made no changes and we stayed at 14 weight classes. Let's see how things are going, shall we?
Taking a look at 12/4 individual tournaments and scrambles, there were 122 teams that participated in 8 tournaments (there were two more tournaments listed that either don't have any info on Trackwrestling, and/or I couldn't get it to load after several attempts). We'll just stick with these 8 for today. I'm not counting any out-of-state tournaments, though I am including teams that come into our state to wrestle. In some tournaments, teams were allowed to wrestle more than one person per weight class to help fill brackets, so that will skew the numbers higher but we'll run with it.
122 teams x 14 weight classes = spots for 1708 wrestlers. We filled 1056 of those spots, or approximately 62%. 62% of 14 weights = 8.6 Thus our 122 teams that participated in these 8 varsity tournaments averaged 8.6 wrestlers per team.
By weight class, percentage of teams able to fill that slot on that day, which of course will create angst for some of you, but in reality should be looked at objectively and logically:
106 - 48%
113 - 46%
120 - 52%
126 - 67%
132 - 62%
138 - 58%
145 - 72%
152 - 75%
160 - 67%
170 - 69%
182 - 64%
195 - 56%
220 - %70
285 - 60%
So... There's your data for this weekend, similar to this time 5-6 years ago but a lower average number of wrestlers per team, and a shift to wrestlers being heavier. I've been hearing for a few years that the massive number of kids in youth wrestling and private clubs was going to change this trend. Maybe neither of those actually equate to more participants in our sport? Recruiting without retention is useless.
Quote from: FortWrestling on December 09, 2021, 01:36:08 PM
A similar document was created based on the last 6 years of Regional data by the WWCA. I'd suggest logging onto their website, checking out their September notes, and finding the link. The data is very clear as it relates to participation at the end of the year at Regionals.
Or you can go directly to the document here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1t9tVNDg4QQfsaySxJ9aqNQfCFBTPb2KKJ7gU5EaYCqE/edit?usp=sharing
Yes, this is excellent data, and excellent of you to share the link! Hopefully the readers (parents) and WWCA members will be reading it. When only 25% +/- of the teams in the state can field a full team, there is a problem with the size of the team.
Quote from: Handles II on December 10, 2021, 07:42:38 AM
Quote from: FortWrestling on December 09, 2021, 01:36:08 PM
A similar document was created based on the last 6 years of Regional data by the WWCA. I'd suggest logging onto their website, checking out their September notes, and finding the link. The data is very clear as it relates to participation at the end of the year at Regionals.
Or you can go directly to the document here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1t9tVNDg4QQfsaySxJ9aqNQfCFBTPb2KKJ7gU5EaYCqE/edit?usp=sharing
Yes, this is excellent data, and excellent of you to share the link! Hopefully the readers (parents) and WWCA members will be reading it. When only 25% +/- of the teams in the state can field a full team, there is a problem with the size of the team.
You should do the same thing with other individual/team sports like cross country, track, etc. Sports that don't have any weight restrictions. You don't see track/cross country cutting the number of varsity spots, because teams don't fill a varsity spot. Flawed logic. Again if you want to do seperate weight classes for duals that is a good solution, but don't take away individual opportunities. That will not help the sport.
Quote from: wrastle63 on December 10, 2021, 09:29:49 AM
Quote from: Handles II on December 10, 2021, 07:42:38 AM
Quote from: FortWrestling on December 09, 2021, 01:36:08 PM
A similar document was created based on the last 6 years of Regional data by the WWCA. I'd suggest logging onto their website, checking out their September notes, and finding the link. The data is very clear as it relates to participation at the end of the year at Regionals.
Or you can go directly to the document here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1t9tVNDg4QQfsaySxJ9aqNQfCFBTPb2KKJ7gU5EaYCqE/edit?usp=sharing
Yes, this is excellent data, and excellent of you to share the link! Hopefully the readers (parents) and WWCA members will be reading it. When only 25% +/- of the teams in the state can field a full team, there is a problem with the size of the team.
You should do the same thing with other individual/team sports like cross country, track, etc. Sports that don't have any weight restrictions. You don't see track/cross country cutting the number of varsity spots, because teams don't fill a varsity spot. Flawed logic. Again if you want to do seperate weight classes for duals that is a good solution, but don't take away individual opportunities. That will not help the sport.
If this is your logic and your defense, you don't really understand wrestling or other sports very well. Are you suggesting that when we had 16,000 wrestlers in the state and 12 weight classes that the opportunities for wrestlers were "taken away"? Do you know what's taking away opportunities? Wrestling teams that are shut down because they can only fill 8 of 14 varsity weight classes on average. THAT takes away opportunities and it's happening every year. Creating Co-ops takes away opportunities and it's happening every year. Reduction of weight classes doesn't take away opportunities or 9 man football wouldn't exist.
Quote from: Handles II on December 10, 2021, 09:48:13 AM
Quote from: wrastle63 on December 10, 2021, 09:29:49 AM
Quote from: Handles II on December 10, 2021, 07:42:38 AM
Quote from: FortWrestling on December 09, 2021, 01:36:08 PM
A similar document was created based on the last 6 years of Regional data by the WWCA. I'd suggest logging onto their website, checking out their September notes, and finding the link. The data is very clear as it relates to participation at the end of the year at Regionals.
Or you can go directly to the document here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1t9tVNDg4QQfsaySxJ9aqNQfCFBTPb2KKJ7gU5EaYCqE/edit?usp=sharing
Yes, this is excellent data, and excellent of you to share the link! Hopefully the readers (parents) and WWCA members will be reading it. When only 25% +/- of the teams in the state can field a full team, there is a problem with the size of the team.
You should do the same thing with other individual/team sports like cross country, track, etc. Sports that don't have any weight restrictions. You don't see track/cross country cutting the number of varsity spots, because teams don't fill a varsity spot. Flawed logic. Again if you want to do seperate weight classes for duals that is a good solution, but don't take away individual opportunities. That will not help the sport.
If this is your logic and your defense, you don't really understand wrestling or other sports very well. Are you suggesting that when we had 16,000 wrestlers in the state and 12 weight classes that the opportunities for wrestlers were "taken away"? Do you know what's taking away opportunities? Wrestling teams that are shut down because they can only fill 8 of 14 varsity weight classes on average. THAT takes away opportunities and it's happening every year. Creating Co-ops takes away opportunities and it's happening every year. Reduction of weight classes doesn't take away opportunities or 9 man football wouldn't exist.
If your making an assumption of my knowledge of wrestling and sports based on 5 sentences on a forum that says a LOT more about you than it does about me and not in a positive manner in your case. Also you clearly didn't read my post, or respond at all to what I had talked about with individual/team sports. Maybe reread. Just a thought.
If the stated average is 8.6 wrestlers per team, then for every team that had a full line-up (14 wrestlers) there would be a team that has only 3 wrestlers in the line-up. That's just not making sense. Where are the teams that only have 3 kids? Because I regularly see teams with 13 or 14 kids in the line-up.
Instead of reducing weight classes across the entire state, have a new division for programs that can't field full teams. The 8-man football example is a great one. WIAA didn't make every school in the state play 8-man, only offered it as a solution for those that couldn't get full teams. Create an 8 weight class division and let those schools that can't get kids compete there for duals.
Quote from: NoFooForU on December 10, 2021, 11:50:40 AM
If the stated average is 8.6 wrestlers per team, then for every team that had a full line-up (14 wrestlers) there would be a team that has only 3 wrestlers in the line-up. That's just not making sense. Where are the teams that only have 3 kids? Because I regularly see teams with 13 or 14 kids in the line-up.
Instead of reducing weight classes across the entire state, have a new division for programs that can't field full teams. The 8-man football example is a great one. WIAA didn't make every school in the state play 8-man, only offered it as a solution for those that couldn't get full teams. Create an 8 weight class division and let those schools that can't get kids compete there for duals.
It's in the math. If there are X number of teams participating in tournaments, then multiply that number by 14 weights. That equals the numbers of wrestlers there would or could be if every weight was filled by every team, ie 100%. However, when there are teams without a wrestler at a weight, that lowers the percentage. In this case the percentage of possible wrestlers vs actual wrestlers was 62%. 62% of 14 weight classes = 8.6. Thus across each weight class and each team we would get 8.6 wrestlers per team on average. As a point of emphasis, in looking at each tournament, there wasn't even one weight class where each spot was filled completely, ie 10 schools having 10 160lbers. In every tournament, every weight, there were empty spots.
Quote from: wrastle63 on December 10, 2021, 10:43:50 AM
Quote from: Handles II on December 10, 2021, 09:48:13 AM
Quote from: wrastle63 on December 10, 2021, 09:29:49 AM
Quote from: Handles II on December 10, 2021, 07:42:38 AM
Quote from: FortWrestling on December 09, 2021, 01:36:08 PM
A similar document was created based on the last 6 years of Regional data by the WWCA. I'd suggest logging onto their website, checking out their September notes, and finding the link. The data is very clear as it relates to participation at the end of the year at Regionals.
Or you can go directly to the document here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1t9tVNDg4QQfsaySxJ9aqNQfCFBTPb2KKJ7gU5EaYCqE/edit?usp=sharing
Yes, this is excellent data, and excellent of you to share the link! Hopefully the readers (parents) and WWCA members will be reading it. When only 25% +/- of the teams in the state can field a full team, there is a problem with the size of the team.
You should do the same thing with other individual/team sports like cross country, track, etc. Sports that don't have any weight restrictions. You don't see track/cross country cutting the number of varsity spots, because teams don't fill a varsity spot. Flawed logic. Again if you want to do seperate weight classes for duals that is a good solution, but don't take away individual opportunities. That will not help the sport.
If this is your logic and your defense, you don't really understand wrestling or other sports very well. Are you suggesting that when we had 16,000 wrestlers in the state and 12 weight classes that the opportunities for wrestlers were "taken away"? Do you know what's taking away opportunities? Wrestling teams that are shut down because they can only fill 8 of 14 varsity weight classes on average. THAT takes away opportunities and it's happening every year. Creating Co-ops takes away opportunities and it's happening every year. Reduction of weight classes doesn't take away opportunities or 9 man football wouldn't exist.
If your making an assumption of my knowledge of wrestling and sports based on 5 sentences on a forum that says a LOT more about you than it does about me and not in a positive manner in your case. Also you clearly didn't read my post, or respond at all to what I had talked about with individual/team sports. Maybe reread. Just a thought.
I clearly read your post. And, I read it clearly. If your defense for our sport losing programs, and only 25% able to fill all of the positions, is to simply compare them to other sports that don't have a scoring system with missing players as automatic scoring for the other team, or that allows players to compete in more than one position or event, then maybe you don't really understand wrestling or other sports? Otherwise, provide a bit more depth to your argument other than it's "taking away opportunities", which the cutting of programs and co-ops are act uallydoing. Comparing our sport to football, where the WIAA (and other states) has created a lower number of required players. Or compare it to volleyball, where if a team cannot field 6 players, it's a forfeit and a loss, which is essentially happening in wrestling.
Quote from: Handles II on December 10, 2021, 12:55:11 PM
Quote from: wrastle63 on December 10, 2021, 10:43:50 AM
Quote from: Handles II on December 10, 2021, 09:48:13 AM
Quote from: wrastle63 on December 10, 2021, 09:29:49 AM
Quote from: Handles II on December 10, 2021, 07:42:38 AM
Quote from: FortWrestling on December 09, 2021, 01:36:08 PM
A similar document was created based on the last 6 years of Regional data by the WWCA. I'd suggest logging onto their website, checking out their September notes, and finding the link. The data is very clear as it relates to participation at the end of the year at Regionals.
Or you can go directly to the document here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1t9tVNDg4QQfsaySxJ9aqNQfCFBTPb2KKJ7gU5EaYCqE/edit?usp=sharing
Yes, this is excellent data, and excellent of you to share the link! Hopefully the readers (parents) and WWCA members will be reading it. When only 25% +/- of the teams in the state can field a full team, there is a problem with the size of the team.
You should do the same thing with other individual/team sports like cross country, track, etc. Sports that don't have any weight restrictions. You don't see track/cross country cutting the number of varsity spots, because teams don't fill a varsity spot. Flawed logic. Again if you want to do seperate weight classes for duals that is a good solution, but don't take away individual opportunities. That will not help the sport.
If this is your logic and your defense, you don't really understand wrestling or other sports very well. Are you suggesting that when we had 16,000 wrestlers in the state and 12 weight classes that the opportunities for wrestlers were "taken away"? Do you know what's taking away opportunities? Wrestling teams that are shut down because they can only fill 8 of 14 varsity weight classes on average. THAT takes away opportunities and it's happening every year. Creating Co-ops takes away opportunities and it's happening every year. Reduction of weight classes doesn't take away opportunities or 9 man football wouldn't exist.
If your making an assumption of my knowledge of wrestling and sports based on 5 sentences on a forum that says a LOT more about you than it does about me and not in a positive manner in your case. Also you clearly didn't read my post, or respond at all to what I had talked about with individual/team sports. Maybe reread. Just a thought.
I clearly read your post. And, I read it clearly. If your defense for our sport losing programs, and only 25% able to fill all of the positions, is to simply compare them to other sports that don't have a scoring system with missing players as automatic scoring for the other team, or that allows players to compete in more than one position or event, then maybe you don't really understand wrestling or other sports? Otherwise, provide a bit more depth to your argument other than it's "taking away opportunities", which the cutting of programs and co-ops are act uallydoing. Comparing our sport to football, where the WIAA (and other states) has created a lower number of required players. Or compare it to volleyball, where if a team cannot field 6 players, it's a forfeit and a loss, which is essentially happening in wrestling.
Not going to get in an argument, because I wasn't arguing I was just stating that CC/Track are individual and team sports just like wrestling and that they don't cut spots because some teams can't fill the whole varsity roster. So why we would make teams cut opportunities for those that fill all the weight classes?
You didn't address CC/Track format/scoring or different weight class options for tournament/duals(which would be good for duals and still give kids the opportunities at state tournament time). Giving teams an option to go to 8 man like NoFoo said would be a good option, but to make every school drop to 12 weight classes or less is not good for our sport no matter how hard you try to make it sound good. It will hurt a lot of teams also while helping some, but they will still lose to the same teams. You bring up football to prove your point but it actually does the opposite.
Quote from: Handles II on December 10, 2021, 12:22:59 PM
Quote from: NoFooForU on December 10, 2021, 11:50:40 AM
If the stated average is 8.6 wrestlers per team, then for every team that had a full line-up (14 wrestlers) there would be a team that has only 3 wrestlers in the line-up. That's just not making sense. Where are the teams that only have 3 kids? Because I regularly see teams with 13 or 14 kids in the line-up.
Instead of reducing weight classes across the entire state, have a new division for programs that can't field full teams. The 8-man football example is a great one. WIAA didn't make every school in the state play 8-man, only offered it as a solution for those that couldn't get full teams. Create an 8 weight class division and let those schools that can't get kids compete there for duals.
It's in the math. If there are X number of teams participating in tournaments, then multiply that number by 14 weights. That equals the numbers of wrestlers there would or could be if every weight was filled by every team, ie 100%. However, when there are teams without a wrestler at a weight, that lowers the percentage. In this case the percentage of possible wrestlers vs actual wrestlers was 62%. 62% of 14 weight classes = 8.6. Thus across each weight class and each team we would get 8.6 wrestlers per team on average. As a point of emphasis, in looking at each tournament, there wasn't even one weight class where each spot was filled completely, ie 10 schools having 10 160lbers. In every tournament, every weight, there were empty spots.
I understand averages. You don't have to teach me 6th grade math.
My point is that if this calculated average is 8.6, and I know there are many teams with full line-ups, then that would mean there are teams with less than 8 wrestlers. And, I don't buy it. The OP logic doesn't pass the sniff test.
Quote from: Handles II on December 10, 2021, 07:42:38 AM
Quote from: FortWrestling on December 09, 2021, 01:36:08 PM
A similar document was created based on the last 6 years of Regional data by the WWCA. I'd suggest logging onto their website, checking out their September notes, and finding the link. The data is very clear as it relates to participation at the end of the year at Regionals.
Or you can go directly to the document here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1t9tVNDg4QQfsaySxJ9aqNQfCFBTPb2KKJ7gU5EaYCqE/edit?usp=sharing
Yes, this is excellent data, and excellent of you to share the link! Hopefully the readers (parents) and WWCA members will be reading it. When only 25% +/- of the teams in the state can field a full team, there is a problem with the size of the team.
OR maybe coaches, AD's, and parents will realize the problem lies with them not forfeits and sizes of teams. Believe it was Willie Saylor that stated those crying that forfeits are the reason for reduced #'s are just trying to make themselves feel better by winning a worthless dual in January. He is 100% correct.
Plenty of schools reload every year. Plenty of schools for decades have barely fielded a team. Our conference has a team that has been a perennial powerhouse have less then 15 kids out this year suddenly. Other team has over 50, yet had 5-6 forfeits on varsity 3 years ago. Forfeits have nothing to do with all these. In my opinion, it is coaching/administration.
Those that believe in reducing weight classes are advocating for a lazy solution to a multi-factoral problem. Many of those advocating admit in past blogs they couldn't field a full team themselves, never had a 106#er, on and on.
Be careful for unintended consequences of changes. Wrestling could go the way of many other HS sports and have kids opting out of HS seasons for club/AAU.
So tired of this discussion (now & in the past.
H.S. wrestling is about both competition & opportunity to participate. I don't see why anybody would want to limit either.
Who cares if there are more forfeits at some weight classes!? ... as long as it's not indicative of lack of participation in the sport as a whole.
What's the goal?: ... starting tournaments later? ... getting out earlier? ... trying to gain line-up equality for dual result purposes? None of these outrank increasing opportunity to participate.
When you get to the 4-8 wrestlers of any tournament (16-32 of the state tournament) - you can't tell me that the quality of wrestling isn't relatively equal - and if it's not ... it's not necessarily at the weights that it's likely you're targeting.
Likewise - I doubt that results due to roster holes has played a part in any "state tourney" level duals ... or even any decent conference dual championships.
Bottom line - let who wants to wrestle ... wrestle - if weight classes become non-competitive (rather than numbers are unbalanced) ... then we have something to talk about.
Pretty well-put.
Quote from: neutral on December 11, 2021, 01:18:54 PM
So tired of this discussion (now & in the past.
H.S. wrestling is about both competition & opportunity to participate. I don't see why anybody would want to limit either.
Who cares if there are more forfeits at some weight classes!? ... as long as it's not indicative of lack of participation in the sport as a whole.
What's the goal?: ... starting tournaments later? ... getting out earlier? ... trying to gain line-up equality for dual result purposes? None of these outrank increasing opportunity to participate.
When you get to the 4-8 wrestlers of any tournament (16-32 of the state tournament) - you can't tell me that the quality of wrestling isn't relatively equal - and if it's not ... it's not necessarily at the weights that it's likely you're targeting.
Likewise - I doubt that results due to roster holes has played a part in any "state tourney" level duals ... or even any decent conference dual championships.
Bottom line - let who wants to wrestle ... wrestle - if weight classes become non-competitive (rather than numbers are unbalanced) ... then we have something to talk about.
I, for one, am stunned we aren't filling the weights.
I wish we would have had data going back to 2005 so we could have started doing something about it long ago.
A dual win in January is useless. Huh. Good to know.
"A dual win in January is useless. Huh. Good to know." (Ghetto) ... didn't say that. Perhaps a more appropriate interpretation would be that no duel of consequence (where there is a higher level of competition & the result has significance beyond that event) in January (or anytime of the season) is likely decided by FFs due to roster holes.
No team in the 2021 Devil Duals had 8.6 kids in the line up. Looks like the fewest was 11 (Random Lake).
Still no one questions the data that is presented.
Quote from: Ghetto on December 11, 2021, 11:18:09 PM
I wish we would have had data going back to 2005 so we could have started doing something about it long ago.
We were not filling the weights as far back as 1995 or further.
The City of Green Bay has 4 high schools. All used to have wrestling teams that competed well in the distant past.
Now they have 2 teams; Green Bay Preble and then the other 3 co=op together.
This weekend at the Battle on the Bay those 4 high schools had 10 varsity wrestlers total. Green Bay Preble- 7 wrestlers, Co-op- 3 wrestlers.
Now you take the surrounding schools in suburbs of Green Bay
Bay Port- 19 (They were allowed to enter extra wrestlers)
West De Pere- 10
Ashwaubenon- 9
De Pere - 9
8 Public High Schools in Green Bay proper. 52 weight classes filled for an average of 6.5 wrestlers per high school (D1 high schools)
If you look at numbers in Green Bay, Milwaukee, Madison, Eau Claire, La Crosse, etc. and then look at results like at the Devils Duals, it sure seems to be trending that wrestling is hurting more in the bigger cities with D1 schools than in some of the smaller communities.
I predict more co-ops in the future and then you are really losing opportunities. Unfortunately wrestling is evolving into an individual sport and will be more like track and swimming. No reason to reduce weight classes if it is an individual sport.
Quote from: NoFooForU on December 12, 2021, 11:37:06 AM
No team in the 2021 Devil Duals had 8.6 kids in the line up. Looks like the fewest was 11 (Random Lake).
Still no one questions the data that is presented.
Devil's advocate here, if you had 8.6 kids on your team, would you enter a Dual Tournament or would you concentrate on individual tournaments. I think using data from a dual tournament may be a bit skewed
I am disappointed in myself to be drawn into this conversation, but....
The problem with forfeits manifests itself only because we insist on promoting a dual format - the issue would largely disappear if we moved to more individualistic format, i.e., tournament based format. Even better if it were a tournament format with schools allowed to enter more than one competitor at each weight (so good kids don't have to sit on the sidelines just because there is another good kid from their respective school). The problem manifests itself only because we (as part of our American mentality) insist on mano-a-mano type competitions. If we could simply try embrace the "jamboree" concept for our sport and just promote the involvement of kids, instead of determining which school is better than another, this problem would resolve itself.
If kids are truly number one, the answer is simple.
Quote from: DocWrestling on December 12, 2021, 03:31:37 PM
The City of Green Bay has 4 high schools. All used to have wrestling teams that competed well in the distant past.
Now they have 2 teams; Green Bay Preble and then the other 3 co=op together.
This weekend at the Battle on the Bay those 4 high schools had 10 varsity wrestlers total. Green Bay Preble- 7 wrestlers, Co-op- 3 wrestlers.
Now you take the surrounding schools in suburbs of Green Bay
Bay Port- 19 (They were allowed to enter extra wrestlers)
West De Pere- 10
Ashwaubenon- 9
De Pere - 9
8 Public High Schools in Green Bay proper. 52 weight classes filled for an average of 6.5 wrestlers per high school (D1 high schools)
If you look at numbers in Green Bay, Milwaukee, Madison, Eau Claire, La Crosse, etc. and then look at results like at the Devils Duals, it sure seems to be trending that wrestling is hurting more in the bigger cities with D1 schools than in some of the smaller communities.
I predict more co-ops in the future and then you are really losing opportunities. Unfortunately wrestling is evolving into an individual sport and will be more like track and swimming. No reason to reduce weight classes if it is an individual sport.
Be ready for Handles attack of your sport IQ. Lol
I like npop's idea.
THIS.
Quote from: npope on December 12, 2021, 05:57:23 PM
I am disappointed in myself to be drawn into this conversation, but....
The problem with forfeits manifests itself only because we insist on promoting a dual format - the issue would largely disappear if we moved to more individualistic format, i.e., tournament based format. Even better if it were a tournament format with schools allowed to enter more than one competitor at each weight (so good kids don't have to sit on the sidelines just because there is another good kid from their respective school). The problem manifests itself only because we (as part of our American mentality) insist on mano-a-mano type competitions. If we could simply try embrace the "jamboree" concept for our sport and just promote the involvement of kids, instead of determining which school is better than another, this problem would resolve itself.
If kids are truly number one, the answer is simple.
I teach and coach in a large metro/suburban district. When I started in the late eighties my high school dressed 110 football players for each game. This was only 10th-12th grade. Each of the junior highs had 50 ninth graders in the respective teams.(we are now a 9-12 school). This past season we finished with less than FIFTY players 9-12. We have dropped middle school sports but three years ago before we did so, the middle school I was at could not get enough girls out to field a middle school basketball team.
Participation is down in everything in many areas.
I understand that some might see this as a reason for retraction. I do not. I agree with The Pope.
I have had years where we were at the top and years where we forfeited four and five weights. I have never seen the positives some claim for retraction. I say this being in the most dual obsessed state there is.
Given my druthers I would opt to get out of our conference all together. I would schedule a single dual once a week with teams of our ilk and participate in individual tournaments each Saturday. I schedule according to my team needs now as well.
It is a mistake to retract and it has been a mistake to raise the starting weight as we have done repeatedly over time.
Quote from: MNbadger on December 12, 2021, 07:12:20 PM
I teach and coach in a large metro/suburban district. When I started in the late eighties my high school dressed 110 football players for each game. This was only 10th-12th grade. Each of the junior we are now a 9-12 school). We have dropped middle school sports but three years ago before we did so, the middle school I was at could not get enough girls out to field a middle school basketball team.
Participation is down in everything in many areas.
I understand that some might see this as a reason for retraction. I do not. I agree with The Pope.
I have had years where we were at the top and years where we forfeited four and five weights. I have never seen the positives some claim for retraction. I say this being in the most dual obsessed state there is.
Given my druthers I would opt to get out of our conference all together. I would schedule a single dual once a week with teams of our ilk and participate in individual tournaments each Saturday. I schedule according to my team needs now as well.
It is a mistake to retract and it has been a mistake to raise the starting weight as we have done repeatedly over time.
Very much agree. There are a lot of talented lightweights out there.
Unfortunately when people talk about reducing weights classes it always centers around the lightweights.
Fun fact-Only 7% of HS athletes go on to collegiate athletics--across all divisions and sports. Below are the list of WI kids that placed 4th or better at 106# and went onto college. "U" means they placed as sophomore or older.
Greyson Clark (DI WI commit)
Shane Corrigan (U...D2 Parkside commit)
Tyler Klein ((U...D3 Whitewater)
Nicolar Rivera (no commit yet, but will be college wrestler if he chooses)
Jaden Verhagen (U...D2 U of Mary)
Alec Hunter (U...D2 Parkside)
Hayden Halter (JUCO Central Iowa)
Eric Barnett (U...D1 WI)
Hunter Lewis (U...D1 NCST)
T.Dineen (U...D1 SIUE)
Zeke Smith (U...D3 Loras)
B Koontz (U..D1 OSU)
N. Hensley (U...D2 Parkside)
A Schulist (D1 SIUE)
J. Groshek (U...thought he wrestled in college, but dont see anything on track).
I only went back 5-6 years and did not look at those that placed past 4th. Sure we are missing a few that never placed or started at 106# and didn't qualify and grew. What an impressive group of kids! Wonder how many would be just as successful if they had to start at a higher weight? Would they have stuck around or maybe just held themselves out a year a trained at club?
Point is WI actually has a strong history with the light weights, hopefully it doesn't get eliminated. So much can be changed first. Again, what is WWCA, WIAA, AD groups, Youth Wrestling associations, etc. doing to address this alleged state wide concern (that has been going on since 1995 per other posts)? I ask this question every time the same 3 or 4 bloggers post this junk and no one ever seems to have that answer.
Quote from: NoFooForU on December 10, 2021, 03:20:59 PM
Quote from: Handles II on December 10, 2021, 12:22:59 PM
Quote from: NoFooForU on December 10, 2021, 11:50:40 AM
If the stated average is 8.6 wrestlers per team, then for every team that had a full line-up (14 wrestlers) there would be a team that has only 3 wrestlers in the line-up. That's just not making sense. Where are the teams that only have 3 kids? Because I regularly see teams with 13 or 14 kids in the line-up.
Instead of reducing weight classes across the entire state, have a new division for programs that can't field full teams. The 8-man football example is a great one. WIAA didn't make every school in the state play 8-man, only offered it as a solution for those that couldn't get full teams. Create an 8 weight class division and let those schools that can't get kids compete there for duals.
It's in the math. If there are X number of teams participating in tournaments, then multiply that number by 14 weights. That equals the numbers of wrestlers there would or could be if every weight was filled by every team, ie 100%. However, when there are teams without a wrestler at a weight, that lowers the percentage. In this case the percentage of possible wrestlers vs actual wrestlers was 62%. 62% of 14 weight classes = 8.6. Thus across each weight class and each team we would get 8.6 wrestlers per team on average. As a point of emphasis, in looking at each tournament, there wasn't even one weight class where each spot was filled completely, ie 10 schools having 10 160lbers. In every tournament, every weight, there were empty spots.
I understand averages. You don't have to teach me 6th grade math.
My point is that if this calculated average is 8.6, and I know there are many teams with full line-ups, then that would mean there are teams with less than 8 wrestlers. And, I don't buy it. The OP logic doesn't pass the sniff test.
You are certainly welcome to do the math yourself, but before you do, look at the wwca link that showed even at 12 weight classes, only around 50% of teams could fill all 12. Thus the average is lower than that. Additionally, this was the first weekend of tournaments, so it might be an anomaly.
Quote from: asdf on December 10, 2021, 08:48:09 PM
Quote from: Handles II on December 10, 2021, 07:42:38 AM
Quote from: FortWrestling on December 09, 2021, 01:36:08 PM
A similar document was created based on the last 6 years of Regional data by the WWCA. I'd suggest logging onto their website, checking out their September notes, and finding the link. The data is very clear as it relates to participation at the end of the year at Regionals.
Or you can go directly to the document here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1t9tVNDg4QQfsaySxJ9aqNQfCFBTPb2KKJ7gU5EaYCqE/edit?usp=sharing
Yes, this is excellent data, and excellent of you to share the link! Hopefully the readers (parents) and WWCA members will be reading it. When only 25% +/- of the teams in the state can field a full team, there is a problem with the size of the team.
OR maybe coaches, AD's, and parents will realize the problem lies with them not forfeits and sizes of teams. Believe it was Willie Saylor that stated those crying that forfeits are the reason for reduced #'s are just trying to make themselves feel better by winning a worthless dual in January. He is 100% correct.
Plenty of schools reload every year. Plenty of schools for decades have barely fielded a team. Our conference has a team that has been a perennial powerhouse have less then 15 kids out this year suddenly. Other team has over 50, yet had 5-6 forfeits on varsity 3 years ago. Forfeits have nothing to do with all these. In my opinion, it is coaching/administration.
Those that believe in reducing weight classes are advocating for a lazy solution to a multi-factoral problem. Many of those advocating admit in past blogs they couldn't field a full team themselves, never had a 106#er, on and on.
Be careful for unintended consequences of changes. Wrestling could go the way of many other HS sports and have kids opting out of HS seasons for club/AAU.
Unfortunately when a team calls for 14 players and there are only 8-10 available, THIS is what the A.D. School Board members and others involved with budgets will see. It doesn't really matter if it's a dual or not. And if duals are worthless, lets get rid of team state asap. Facts are duals are what get the most people coming into the gym and watching wrestling. Hardcore fans will travel to tournaments, but it won't give exposure to the sport like home duals will. So whether we like it or not, forfeits in duals, as well as not having kids fill weights in tournaments don't look good for any team that's close to getting the axe. We've lost too many already, and 14 weights can certainly be an eyesore.
I grew up where our wrestling program was all about the team dual first and then individual. Emphasis was always on scoring team points or giving up less team points. This even mattered for individual tournaments. That started with middle school duals
Today I am not even sure what percentage of high school wrestlers know how team scoring works and it is a low priority except for maybe 10% of duals in the state now.
I have accepted duals are going to disappear. I always thought 10 weight classes for duals and 14 for individual tournaments would be a fun compromise.
Duals allowed a wrestler two chances to win and allowed a wrestler to contribute to the team without even winning. Losing duals will mean fewer wrestlers. Pretty hard already for athletic departments to worry about supporting and hiring coaches for wrestling and would get worse if there are fewer home duals.
As was said earlier, participation is declining in all sports so wrestling will have to evolve.
Speaking of weight classes, I am amazed that college wrestling still does not have a 215lb weight class.
New weekend numbers... Big storm caused some teams to cancel, and others to re-schedule at attend other tournaments. It's great to see that some schools went completely out of their way to add several more schools to their tournaments. Obviously this increased the work load for the host schools. Outstanding efforts on the part of the sport. There were also tournaments that once again allowed more than one competitor from each school per weight. One tournament had 24 teams, but 28 kids in a weight class. Doing this skews the numbers high a little bit. No biggie, and it might offset the kids who couldn't get to the bus because of the storm.
As far as I can tell, there were 12 varsity individual tournaments/scrambles this weekend. Just a note for those of you submitting to Trackwrestling, somehow identifying a tournament as a dual or as a JV event is probably helpful to the public.
12 tournaments with 161 teams participating. 161x14= 2254 possible wrestlers. We had 1457 actual wrestlers. That's 65% of the spots were filled. 65% of 14 weights =9.1 Varsity wrestlers per team.
By weight class:
106 - 55%
113 - 47%
120 - 55%
126 - 62%
132 - 65%
138 - 73%
145 - 82%
152 - 73%
160 - 67%
170 - 72%
182 - 68%
195 - 52%
220 - 62%
285 - 66%
So you are proposing that we should have 9 weight classes?
Quote from: Handles II on December 13, 2021, 10:03:23 AM
New weekend numbers... Big storm caused some teams to cancel, and others to re-schedule at attend other tournaments. It's great to see that some schools went completely out of their way to add several more schools to their tournaments. Obviously this increased the work load for the host schools. Outstanding efforts on the part of the sport. There were also tournaments that once again allowed more than one competitor from each school per weight. One tournament had 24 teams, but 28 kids in a weight class. Doing this skews the numbers high a little bit. No biggie, and it might offset the kids who couldn't get to the bus because of the storm.
As far as I can tell, there were 12 varsity individual tournaments/scrambles this weekend. Just a note for those of you submitting to Trackwrestling, somehow identifying a tournament as a dual or as a JV event is probably helpful to the public.
12 tournaments with 161 teams participating. 161x14= 2254 possible wrestlers. We had 1457 actual wrestlers. That's 65% of the spots were filled. 65% of 14 weights =9.1 Varsity wrestlers per team.
By weight class:
106 - 55%
113 - 47%
120 - 55%
126 - 62%
132 - 65%
138 - 73%
145 - 82%
152 - 73%
160 - 67%
170 - 72%
182 - 68%
195 - 52%
220 - 62%
285 - 66%
"Facts are duals are what get the most people coming into the gym and watching wrestling. Hardcore fans will travel to tournaments, but it won't give exposure to the sport like home duals will. "
Does the WIAA dual tournament draw more fans than the individual tournament?
Quote from: MNbadger on December 13, 2021, 10:13:40 AM
"Facts are duals are what get the most people coming into the gym and watching wrestling. Hardcore fans will travel to tournaments, but it won't give exposure to the sport like home duals will. "
Does the WIAA dual tournament draw more fans than the individual tournament?
LOL exactly.
He doesn't have a plan he just wants to cut weight classes because Math.....
Quote from: MNbadger on December 13, 2021, 10:11:14 AM
So you are proposing that we should have 9 weight classes?Quote from: Handles II on December 13, 2021, 10:03:23 AM
New weekend numbers... Big storm caused some teams to cancel, and others to re-schedule at attend other tournaments. It's great to see that some schools went completely out of their way to add several more schools to their tournaments. Obviously this increased the work load for the host schools. Outstanding efforts on the part of the sport. There were also tournaments that once again allowed more than one competitor from each school per weight. One tournament had 24 teams, but 28 kids in a weight class. Doing this skews the numbers high a little bit. No biggie, and it might offset the kids who couldn't get to the bus because of the storm.
As far as I can tell, there were 12 varsity individual tournaments/scrambles this weekend. Just a note for those of you submitting to Trackwrestling, somehow identifying a tournament as a dual or as a JV event is probably helpful to the public.
12 tournaments with 161 teams participating. 161x14= 2254 possible wrestlers. We had 1457 actual wrestlers. That's 65% of the spots were filled. 65% of 14 weights =9.1 Varsity wrestlers per team.
By weight class:
106 - 55%
113 - 47%
120 - 55%
126 - 62%
132 - 65%
138 - 73%
145 - 82%
152 - 73%
160 - 67%
170 - 72%
182 - 68%
195 - 52%
220 - 62%
285 - 66%
I'm putting out data for people to see. Personally I feel 14 weights is too difficult for the majority of our teams to fill on a regular basis. The data I put out 6 years ago, the WWCA data spanning the following 5 years, and thus far this year seem to show exactly that. Personally, since you are asking, I feel that going back to 12 weights would be a positive. No kids would lose their "opportunity" to wrestle. They might not get a free spot on Varsity, but that is very different than a program being cut or co-oped. 14 weights imo has been a 20 year long experiment that has not benefitted the sport in the ways that was hoped. If anything it has created more forfeits, less beneficial JV experiences, and has probably contributed to the loss of programs.
Quote from: MNbadger on December 13, 2021, 10:13:40 AM
"Facts are duals are what get the most people coming into the gym and watching wrestling. Hardcore fans will travel to tournaments, but it won't give exposure to the sport like home duals will. "
Does the WIAA dual tournament draw more fans than the individual tournament?
Is the WIAA tournament in your home school gym? Sorry man, but you certainly knew before posing that question that it wasn't relevant to the scope of the problem.
The sport has been what it is. It has nothing to do with the number of weight classes. More weight classes is more opportunity. The CDC data tells us we are no recruiting many small athletes. I am happy to work at it as I have for 40+ years. I think the opportunity should be there. In fact, just this season I got a junior out for the first time. He is under 113 pounds and certifies to 106 easily.
All this aside, the twenty year experiment as you call it is not one. Wrestling has been 5th in popularity for high school boys for all of my life(I am 63 yo). It has been consistent in this regard. The idea that ADs cut based on this is flawed. It might be used as an excuse in a few cases.
As I said, participation is down in our district in everything. I hear the same from many of our opponents. To think that wrestling will ever be the choice of a non-wrestling family/individuls as far as spectators is a dead end street. We tend to consume what is shoved in our faces(FB, BB, BSB, etc.).
Earlier, I posted about our high school and football participation. Attendance has paralleled participation. Even in years where our programs are competitive, the spectators, including students, is very low.
We are forfeiting four weights this season at this point. Some of the kids I put out there are virtually the same as a forfeit due to their lack of experience and/or not being near their certified weight. We wrestle ten out of fourteen weights. If we win 7/10 we call it a win. The wrestlers understand this. If I wanted to be selfish, I would demand we have only 126, 138, and 145 lb weight classes. We would win more duals but who cares? I know I don't.
Other than a few snide remarks and personal digs, I'd say that this is an excellent discussion and there are lots and lots of good viewpoints here. I have no answers, I guess just that flexibility needs to be key and it's especially tough since some huge schools don't get many kids out while some tiny ones can pull impressive numbers. I think 14 is great for (most) tournaments but maybe there could be 12 (or even 10) formats for some duals. Possibly there could even be 10-man dual tournaments to attract smaller programs - not sure on this. I also think schools/coaches need to very carefully consider their scheduling (every season) to best utilize the kids they have - both in terms of talent and numbers.
The same applies to our home gym.
Quote from: Handles II on December 13, 2021, 11:02:24 AM
Quote from: MNbadger on December 13, 2021, 10:13:40 AM
"Facts are duals are what get the most people coming into the gym and watching wrestling. Hardcore fans will travel to tournaments, but it won't give exposure to the sport like home duals will. "
Does the WIAA dual tournament draw more fans than the individual tournament?
Is the WIAA tournament in your home school gym? Sorry man, but you certainly knew before posing that question that it wasn't relevant to the scope of the problem.
Quote from: MNbadger on December 12, 2021, 07:12:20 PM
I teach and coach in a large metro/suburban district. When I started in the late eighties my high school dressed 110 football players for each game. This was only 10th-12th grade. Each of the junior highs had 50 ninth graders in the respective teams.(we are now a 9-12 school). This past season we finished with less than FIFTY players 9-12. We have dropped middle school sports but three years ago before we did so, the middle school I was at could not get enough girls out to field a middle school basketball team.
Participation is down in everything in many areas.
I understand that some might see this as a reason for retraction. I do not. I agree with The Pope.
I have had years where we were at the top and years where we forfeited four and five weights. I have never seen the positives some claim for retraction. I say this being in the most dual obsessed state there is.
Given my druthers I would opt to get out of our conference all together. I would schedule a single dual once a week with teams of our ilk and participate in individual tournaments each Saturday. I schedule according to my team needs now as well.
It is a mistake to retract and it has been a mistake to raise the starting weight as we have done repeatedly over time.
I think this is a point that needs to be understood. Participation is down in all of the traditional sports for a variety of reasons. More kids are specializing today, where as 30 years ago many if not most of them would have been multi sport athletes. You also have more opportunities being offered, such as ski team, La Crosse, Rugby, ect. This means that every sport is fighting for smaller pool of kids by the time they are HS age.
I personally believe that the best option would be a 10 team Dual team and a 14 team tournament team.
I do think duals would be pretty exciting with 10 weight classes like these
115, 125, 135, 143, 152, 162, 172, 185, 200, 285
Lots of teams could fill those weight classes with everyone wrestling up and nobody would know what weight class a lot of guys would wrestle. Likely could be great JV duals also. Just need to change the rules on weigh ins so guys could weigh more on Thursday and still wrestle lower on Saturday with losing more than a lb in 2 days. Maybe switch to morning weigh-ins for duals don't count duals on weight descent plans.
Quote from: Handles II on December 13, 2021, 11:02:24 AM
Quote from: MNbadger on December 13, 2021, 10:13:40 AM
"Facts are duals are what get the most people coming into the gym and watching wrestling. Hardcore fans will travel to tournaments, but it won't give exposure to the sport like home duals will. "
Does the WIAA dual tournament draw more fans than the individual tournament?
Is the WIAA tournament in your home school gym? Sorry man, but you certainly knew before posing that question that it wasn't relevant to the scope of the problem.
a few people posting weight class participants means that there's a problem? Its only being discussed because some folks think its a problem. But, it's not a problem, it's just the situation. Problem implies there is something wrong, I don't see anything wrong. It's just the world we live in.
Quote from: NoFooForU on December 13, 2021, 05:55:09 PM
Quote from: Handles II on December 13, 2021, 11:02:24 AM
Quote from: MNbadger on December 13, 2021, 10:13:40 AM
"Facts are duals are what get the most people coming into the gym and watching wrestling. Hardcore fans will travel to tournaments, but it won't give exposure to the sport like home duals will. "
Does the WIAA dual tournament draw more fans than the individual tournament?
Is the WIAA tournament in your home school gym? Sorry man, but you certainly knew before posing that question that it wasn't relevant to the scope of the problem.
a few people posting weight class participants means that there's a problem? Its only being discussed because some folks think its a problem. But, it's not a problem, it's just the situation. Problem implies there is something wrong, I don't see anything wrong. It's just the world we live in.
High school competitions with 14 weights that do not even last 30 minutes. Many wrestlers watching/making weight for a forfeit. JV wrestlers on Varsity to fill spots because there must be 14 contested weights you know. (The number of varsity entries are not all varsity competitive.)
PA moved from 14 to 13 but does that state know anything about wrestling? People who want to ignore problems will do just that. Just deal with the status quo because change might take leadership and effort and many do not care that much about the sport of wrestling today (much less a few years from now.)
14 weights being too many is a national issue. Why do you think the option for states to move to 13 or 12 high school weights was approved by the national body?
We tried the 12 and 13 weight option and I don't know that anyone ever used it.
Quote from: MNbadger on December 13, 2021, 10:13:40 AM
"Facts are duals are what get the most people coming into the gym and watching wrestling. Hardcore fans will travel to tournaments, but it won't give exposure to the sport like home duals will. "
Does the WIAA dual tournament draw more fans than the individual tournament?
I'm far too lazy to look it up, but I'm gonna guess there were 200 teams represented at 2020 individual state vs 16. Of course there was higher attendance.
I'm in the camp that says competitive duals help build programs.
Yep. And the reality is that our fan base whether in dual form or individual is largely the families of the wrestlers themselves. My point is that the fans don't really drive wrestling, budgeting, or anything about it other than more individuals wrestling will equal more fans. Cutting weights will simply cut fans as well.
Quote from: Ghetto on December 13, 2021, 09:41:51 PM
Quote from: MNbadger on December 13, 2021, 10:13:40 AM
"Facts are duals are what get the most people coming into the gym and watching wrestling. Hardcore fans will travel to tournaments, but it won't give exposure to the sport like home duals will. "
Does the WIAA dual tournament draw more fans than the individual tournament?
I'm far too lazy to look it up, but I'm gonna guess there were 200 teams represented at 2020 individual state vs 16. Of course there was higher attendance.
I'm in the camp that says competitive duals help build programs.
How does that equate? Since you said it is largely family members, won't those same family members come and watch their child wrestle if there are 12 weights rather than 14? Won't they watch JV rather than Varsity if that's the case? Duals are what bring in fans from the community that won't attend tournaments. Duals will bring in members of the student body that won't go to tournaments on Saturdays. Duals will very often have administrators and school board members there who wouldn't otherwise attend wrestling at all. When it's a 30 minute pre-determined dual with one JV match and 7 forfeits, that's simply not a good look and the people who are in charge of the budget remember it. Don't believe it? Start asking teams that were cut how some of the decisions were made.
Quote from: MNbadger on December 13, 2021, 11:01:58 PM
Yep. And the reality is that our fan base whether in dual form or individual is largely the families of the wrestlers themselves. My point is that the fans don't really drive wrestling, budgeting, or anything about it other than more individuals wrestling will equal more fans. Cutting weights will simply cut fans as well.Quote from: Ghetto on December 13, 2021, 09:41:51 PM
Quote from: MNbadger on December 13, 2021, 10:13:40 AM
"Facts are duals are what get the most people coming into the gym and watching wrestling. Hardcore fans will travel to tournaments, but it won't give exposure to the sport like home duals will. "
Does the WIAA dual tournament draw more fans than the individual tournament?
I'm far too lazy to look it up, but I'm gonna guess there were 200 teams represented at 2020 individual state vs 16. Of course there was higher attendance.
I'm in the camp that says competitive duals help build programs.
Quote from: Handles II on December 14, 2021, 07:47:36 AM
How does that equate? Since you said it is largely family members, won't those same family members come and watch their child wrestle if there are 12 weights rather than 14? Won't they watch JV rather than Varsity if that's the case? Duals are what bring in fans from the community that won't attend tournaments. Duals will bring in members of the student body that won't go to tournaments on Saturdays. Duals will very often have administrators and school board members there who wouldn't otherwise attend wrestling at all. When it's a 30 minute pre-determined dual with one JV match and 7 forfeits, that's simply not a good look and the people who are in charge of the budget remember it. Don't believe it? Start asking teams that were cut how some of the decisions were made.
Quote from: MNbadger on December 13, 2021, 11:01:58 PM
Yep. And the reality is that our fan base whether in dual form or individual is largely the families of the wrestlers themselves. My point is that the fans don't really drive wrestling, budgeting, or anything about it other than more individuals wrestling will equal more fans. Cutting weights will simply cut fans as well.Quote from: Ghetto on December 13, 2021, 09:41:51 PM
Quote from: MNbadger on December 13, 2021, 10:13:40 AM
"Facts are duals are what get the most people coming into the gym and watching wrestling. Hardcore fans will travel to tournaments, but it won't give exposure to the sport like home duals will. "
Does the WIAA dual tournament draw more fans than the individual tournament?
I'm far too lazy to look it up, but I'm gonna guess there were 200 teams represented at 2020 individual state vs 16. Of course there was higher attendance.
I'm in the camp that says competitive duals help build programs.
So we are going to switch to a 30 minute predetermined dual with one JV match and 3 forfeits. That will make our sport so much better. Does that change the product at all? It is the same teams and wrestlers. Teams with small numbers need to bump wrestlers up to get matches in a dual scenario where possible. A match is better than a forfeit. You think this is a solution, but doesn't change the product. The only way to make the product better is the coach, alumni, parents, etc getting kids out for the sport, building a solid feeder program whether that is middle school and/or youth, positive coaching so kids enjoy the sport, and putting in the work that it requires to have a successful program.
Ghetto, I know you are passionate about this. We disagree. There are places that have gym-filling rivalries but in reality they are few and far between (and always have been).
I don't want to waste time posting the CDC numbers that show all the student athletes we are not recruiting. With retraction comes raising the starting weight class. I'll keep recruiting all the kids I can(and I am not feeling particularly successful of late....). I actually have plenty of 106 pounders. We can't get big kids. The ones we have are quite honestly overweight. I know this is a bit off the issue of fewer weight classes but it is related. The kids I have in the room work hard, love the sport, are getting better, and becoming better people. They know exactly what we are as a team. If we wrestle ten out of fourteen matches and win seven, we consider it a win regardless of technically losing the dual score. Wrestling is at it's heart an individual sport. The dual thing is nice when it works out but not the be all and end all by any means. And to be clear, my kids felt the same when we were winning all but one or two duals each season. In my opinion (and most the kids I have coached throughout my life) having more weight class opportunities far outweighs the dual stuff. My 106 pounders are already small for their weight and are in effect "wrestling up". Yes, they can do it but their rate of success in a brutal conference and section can be off-putting for them. This is another factor in recruiting and retaining wrestlers. Retraction will make this worse in my opinion.
Quote from: MNbadger on December 14, 2021, 08:57:59 AM
Ghetto, I know you are passionate about this. We disagree. There are places that have gym-filling rivalries but in reality they are few and far between (and always have been).
I don't want to waste time posting the CDC numbers that show all the student athletes we are not recruiting. With retraction comes raising the starting weight class. I'll keep recruiting all the kids I can(and I am not feeling particularly successful of late....). I actually have plenty of 106 pounders. We can't get big kids. The ones we have are quite honestly overweight. I know this is a bit off the issue of fewer weight classes but it is related. The kids I have in the room work hard, love the sport, are getting better, and becoming better people. They know exactly what we are as a team. If we wrestle ten out of fourteen matches and win seven, we consider it a win regardless of technically losing the dual score. Wrestling is at it's heart an individual sport. The dual thing is nice when it works out but not the be all and end all by any means. And to be clear, my kids felt the same when we were winning all but one or two duals each season. In my opinion (and most the kids I have coached throughout my life) having more weight class opportunities far outweighs the dual stuff. My 106 pounders are already small for their weight and are in effect "wrestling up". Yes, they can do it but their rate of success in a brutal conference and section can be off-putting for them. This is another factor in recruiting and retaining wrestlers. Retraction will make this worse in my opinion.
Nailed it. Also the teams who want to focus on duals and have team state aspirations can schedule duals, tri meets, and dual tournaments. The teams with 7 kids can schedule more tournaments now with the 7 and 7 rule being done. This gives coaches the opportunity to schedule based on their team. Also agree that wrestling is much more of an individual sport than team sport.
Do we ever want to talk about the real problem?? Changing weight classes isn't going to fix any problem, but rather temporarily mask the real issue. Which is the change in our society and parenting and thus, our kids interests have changed. To me we need to focus on parents and how to market our sport better. We need to sell the parents...where the parents go the kids will go. How do we "generate" the traditions some schools have around wrestling? You do that by getting to the parents and how our sport is viewed...IMHO.
You are on point but I don't see a "problem". Wrestling is very difficult. It is difficult in the short term(competing in an individual match) and the long term(it really is a commitment/life choice rather than a sport). You are correct in that there are less and less people willing/wanting to do this. As I mentioned, other sports are seeing some of this.
I just had a kid recently come to one practice. He was pretty lean, athletic, and strong. For a beginner he was quite a natural. I was very pro-active explaining how he would have to work gradually into the conditioning aspect. The next day he told my assistant that though he liked wrestling and thought it was fun, he did not like the conditioning. Well, I guess we could quit doing conditioning but this then dooms them to failure in competition. Basically he self-selected out of the sport he barely tried. He can play football which in comparison is devoid of the conditioning component.
I see the same thing in our basketball program. Talented players choose Community Rec BB over high school ball. They can't take practicing every day and being asked to be in good c-v shape.
I don't see the value in lamenting the societal reasons that may or may not be responsible for any of this. Wrestling is what it is and always has been. What we do is good, we use it in our daily lives. We will always try to spread the word and we always have. I have spent a life time doing the same with education. Some choose to buy, others don't. I don't beat myself up about it anymore whether in education or coaching athletics. You can't push a rope............
I had 21 kids in the room last night. Most of them work like dogs. Some are competitive in a brutal conference and section. Others are rank beginners. Some may never be great wrestlers. I keep selling. The number of weight classes is important to keep for those of different sizes. Forfeits in duals mean nothing to the 21 kids I have. We wrestled in an individual tournament on Saturday and they were the ones bringing up where we improved, where we needed work, etc.
Maybe 8 years ago a basketball coach told me that I could pick a team from all the kids in the high school that were not out for basketball and without coaching my team would likely beat his team. So many good players that no longer played due to laziness or playing other sports. He was honest that if it was about winning he would win more games by maybe practicing once per week because then more kids would come out for team.
I now see that in a lot of wrestling programs. So many good wrestlers that are not wrestling and may or may not be doing other sports.
Youth sports still have a lot of participation but those numbers are also declining but much less.
Youth sports have fewer practices and more games. High school sports have more practices and less games. Is that the reason kids quit? If so which one should change their format?
Would high school wrestling have more wrestlers if we practiced 1-2x/week. Would that change what wrestlers get out of the sport in terms of fun and life lessons. Would your wrestlers lose that many more matches with fewer or shorter practices?
I come from the old school pride where wrestling was the toughest sport and we liked knowing that. It has changed as all sports have but do they need to change more?
Doc, I get your point. The problem would be that as I mentioned, practicing 2 times per week and backing off on conditioning dooms them to failure. We are experiencing a lessening of participants interested in ours(and other) sports. The Community Rec players would not beat our basketball team or they would be on it. They might have more potential/talent but simply based on conditioning our high school team would kill them. Additionally, they are not willing to practice technique enough to be there.
I see it is soccer as well. We have lots of diversity in our district and tons of kids who love soccer. they can handle the ball, good skills but they don't participate in club soccer(much of it due to economics)so even though they have skills and such, they get killed by teams that have learned to play soccer in club as a team over the years. This is even if they are on different teams/clubs in the summer.
I guess what you are describing is intramurals and that is an option.
I believe there is a momentum swell when you have good duals. Kids come out to be a part of a program that has excitement IMO.
There's no way any sport could practice 1 or 2 days a week and be competitive. While we may need to change the way we practice, there are fundamental parts of wrestling and practice that cannot be compromised.
Quote from: wrastle63 on December 14, 2021, 08:02:53 AM
Quote from: Handles II on December 14, 2021, 07:47:36 AM
How does that equate? Since you said it is largely family members, won't those same family members come and watch their child wrestle if there are 12 weights rather than 14? Won't they watch JV rather than Varsity if that's the case? Duals are what bring in fans from the community that won't attend tournaments. Duals will bring in members of the student body that won't go to tournaments on Saturdays. Duals will very often have administrators and school board members there who wouldn't otherwise attend wrestling at all. When it's a 30 minute pre-determined dual with one JV match and 7 forfeits, that's simply not a good look and the people who are in charge of the budget remember it. Don't believe it? Start asking teams that were cut how some of the decisions were made.
Quote from: MNbadger on December 13, 2021, 11:01:58 PM
Yep. And the reality is that our fan base whether in dual form or individual is largely the families of the wrestlers themselves. My point is that the fans don't really drive wrestling, budgeting, or anything about it other than more individuals wrestling will equal more fans. Cutting weights will simply cut fans as well.Quote from: Ghetto on December 13, 2021, 09:41:51 PM
Quote from: MNbadger on December 13, 2021, 10:13:40 AM
"Facts are duals are what get the most people coming into the gym and watching wrestling. Hardcore fans will travel to tournaments, but it won't give exposure to the sport like home duals will. "
Does the WIAA dual tournament draw more fans than the individual tournament?
I'm far too lazy to look it up, but I'm gonna guess there were 200 teams represented at 2020 individual state vs 16. Of course there was higher attendance.
I'm in the camp that says competitive duals help build programs.
So we are going to switch to a 30 minute predetermined dual with one JV match and 3 forfeits. That will make our sport so much better. Does that change the product at all? It is the same teams and wrestlers. Teams with small numbers need to bump wrestlers up to get matches in a dual scenario where possible. A match is better than a forfeit. You think this is a solution, but doesn't change the product. The only way to make the product better is the coach, alumni, parents, etc getting kids out for the sport, building a solid feeder program whether that is middle school and/or youth, positive coaching so kids enjoy the sport, and putting in the work that it requires to have a successful program.
Does getting a new red paintjob actually change the green car, or just the perception of the car? While as purists we might think that there is no difference between the number of forfeits at 14 weights vs having potentially fewer of them and more JV with fewer weights. We also aren't the people in charge of the decision making process related to budget cuts in a school district. Most of us would coach 1 kid if that was all we had, to give them the chance to wrestle. Unfortunately the bean counters don't really care about our passion. Fewer forfeits might not change the actual number of wrestlers, but it can change the perception of observers.
Quote from: Handles II on December 15, 2021, 09:55:58 AM
Quote from: wrastle63 on December 14, 2021, 08:02:53 AM
Quote from: Handles II on December 14, 2021, 07:47:36 AM
How does that equate? Since you said it is largely family members, won't those same family members come and watch their child wrestle if there are 12 weights rather than 14? Won't they watch JV rather than Varsity if that's the case? Duals are what bring in fans from the community that won't attend tournaments. Duals will bring in members of the student body that won't go to tournaments on Saturdays. Duals will very often have administrators and school board members there who wouldn't otherwise attend wrestling at all. When it's a 30 minute pre-determined dual with one JV match and 7 forfeits, that's simply not a good look and the people who are in charge of the budget remember it. Don't believe it? Start asking teams that were cut how some of the decisions were made.
Quote from: MNbadger on December 13, 2021, 11:01:58 PM
Yep. And the reality is that our fan base whether in dual form or individual is largely the families of the wrestlers themselves. My point is that the fans don't really drive wrestling, budgeting, or anything about it other than more individuals wrestling will equal more fans. Cutting weights will simply cut fans as well.Quote from: Ghetto on December 13, 2021, 09:41:51 PM
Quote from: MNbadger on December 13, 2021, 10:13:40 AM
"Facts are duals are what get the most people coming into the gym and watching wrestling. Hardcore fans will travel to tournaments, but it won't give exposure to the sport like home duals will. "
Does the WIAA dual tournament draw more fans than the individual tournament?
I'm far too lazy to look it up, but I'm gonna guess there were 200 teams represented at 2020 individual state vs 16. Of course there was higher attendance.
I'm in the camp that says competitive duals help build programs.
So we are going to switch to a 30 minute predetermined dual with one JV match and 3 forfeits. That will make our sport so much better. Does that change the product at all? It is the same teams and wrestlers. Teams with small numbers need to bump wrestlers up to get matches in a dual scenario where possible. A match is better than a forfeit. You think this is a solution, but doesn't change the product. The only way to make the product better is the coach, alumni, parents, etc getting kids out for the sport, building a solid feeder program whether that is middle school and/or youth, positive coaching so kids enjoy the sport, and putting in the work that it requires to have a successful program.
Does getting a new red paintjob actually change the green car, or just the perception of the car? While as purists we might think that there is no difference between the number of forfeits at 14 weights vs having potentially fewer of them and more JV with fewer weights. We also aren't the people in charge of the decision making process related to budget cuts in a school district. Most of us would coach 1 kid if that was all we had, to give them the chance to wrestle. Unfortunately the bean counters don't really care about our passion. Fewer forfeits might not change the actual number of wrestlers, but it can change the perception of observers.
LOL....keep moving the goal posts.
Quote from: wrastle63 on December 15, 2021, 10:28:42 AM
Quote from: Handles II on December 15, 2021, 09:55:58 AM
Quote from: wrastle63 on December 14, 2021, 08:02:53 AM
Quote from: Handles II on December 14, 2021, 07:47:36 AM
How does that equate? Since you said it is largely family members, won't those same family members come and watch their child wrestle if there are 12 weights rather than 14? Won't they watch JV rather than Varsity if that's the case? Duals are what bring in fans from the community that won't attend tournaments. Duals will bring in members of the student body that won't go to tournaments on Saturdays. Duals will very often have administrators and school board members there who wouldn't otherwise attend wrestling at all. When it's a 30 minute pre-determined dual with one JV match and 7 forfeits, that's simply not a good look and the people who are in charge of the budget remember it. Don't believe it? Start asking teams that were cut how some of the decisions were made.
Quote from: MNbadger on December 13, 2021, 11:01:58 PM
Yep. And the reality is that our fan base whether in dual form or individual is largely the families of the wrestlers themselves. My point is that the fans don't really drive wrestling, budgeting, or anything about it other than more individuals wrestling will equal more fans. Cutting weights will simply cut fans as well.Quote from: Ghetto on December 13, 2021, 09:41:51 PM
Quote from: MNbadger on December 13, 2021, 10:13:40 AM
"Facts are duals are what get the most people coming into the gym and watching wrestling. Hardcore fans will travel to tournaments, but it won't give exposure to the sport like home duals will. "
Does the WIAA dual tournament draw more fans than the individual tournament?
I'm far too lazy to look it up, but I'm gonna guess there were 200 teams represented at 2020 individual state vs 16. Of course there was higher attendance.
I'm in the camp that says competitive duals help build programs.
So we are going to switch to a 30 minute predetermined dual with one JV match and 3 forfeits. That will make our sport so much better. Does that change the product at all? It is the same teams and wrestlers. Teams with small numbers need to bump wrestlers up to get matches in a dual scenario where possible. A match is better than a forfeit. You think this is a solution, but doesn't change the product. The only way to make the product better is the coach, alumni, parents, etc getting kids out for the sport, building a solid feeder program whether that is middle school and/or youth, positive coaching so kids enjoy the sport, and putting in the work that it requires to have a successful program.
Does getting a new red paintjob actually change the green car, or just the perception of the car? While as purists we might think that there is no difference between the number of forfeits at 14 weights vs having potentially fewer of them and more JV with fewer weights. We also aren't the people in charge of the decision making process related to budget cuts in a school district. Most of us would coach 1 kid if that was all we had, to give them the chance to wrestle. Unfortunately the bean counters don't really care about our passion. Fewer forfeits might not change the actual number of wrestlers, but it can change the perception of observers.
LOL....keep moving the goal posts.
Maybe that's what it's doing. But then again, wasn't going to 14 weights doing the same? If not, please explain how it increased participation and opportunities for students in programs across the state. Myself and a few others have really been paying attention to the numbers for the past 20 years, and moving to 14 weights has in no way helped increase numbers and perhaps ONLY based on perception by those in charge of budget cuts, has been the nail in the coffin for far too many programs. If the perception is that something is failing when maybe it isn't, then change the perception of those who think it is.
Dual format or individual format ... participation is the goal of HS sports.
Until/unless we can find unworthy participants in the state championship tournaments ... I fail to see a cause to retract. Anybody want to name one?
If we are providing both valid champions and participation ... I'd we're doing a decent job of balancing the two.
The only opportunity for improvement is through increased participation - which, unfortunately (as always), requires the constant efforts of coaches (especially), team leaders, parents and even other coaches (encouraging their athletes to "round" their skills. Coaches need to do their share of the diggin' (for sure) - but the kids need to do more "scouting" and recruiting. Once the team has built a reputation within the school ... more kids will want to be a part of it. And - more younger siblings of those new wrestlers may investigate youth wrestling (this is where parents could be of influence (to other parents. This is how I believe things work in successful programs.
participation ... participation ... participation --- recruit ... recruit ... recruit. It's tireless effort - but it but it gets a bit more self-fulfilling as it goes along. Ask any coach who has built a program. It's not about who finds the most kids who want to be state champions ... it's about finding kids who want to be part of something.
I agree, participation is the key. We are at about 50% of our participation numbers from the early 90's in this state. It IS more work recruiting and more importantly RETAINING kids in our sport than it once was. I don't think any wrestling coach that has coached through a couple decades would disagree. Lots of reasons for that of course. Some the wrestling community can/should help control, some we can't.
It still boils down to the participation at any given H.S. (or M.S) is based on the $$ available to fund extracurriculars and the participation or perception of participation/value of that sport to the district by those who control the decisions. The success at high school X to get a state champion or field a full team doesn't hold water for school Y's school board or admin, and even team Y getting a state champ doesn't do much if the team can't win a dual meet in their gym.
If you have 7 studs who can pin every opponent from team X, but 7 forfeits (14 weights), by score, you can only tie. That's what is seen in the local papers and in your gym, by people who make decisions. If you have 7 studs and 5 forfeits (12 weights) you can win outright in a home dual. Same number of kids. Different outcome. Different news article. Different perception.
14 weights has created a points imbalance that smaller teams simply can't often overcome, and we've lost a number of teams because of it, or the perception it brings. All the data from the past 6 years shows that about 75% of our teams can't fill 14 weights on a regular basis (and just "filling" a weight class isn't very beneficial to said wrestler). If recruiting was what needed to happen to flip that to only 25%, it would have already happened. I'm certain that well over 75% of our coaches and programs recruit as often and in as many ways as they can. I know coaches borrow ideas from other coaches all the time. I know coaches listen to their wrestlers about new ways to entice kids into their wrestling room. Things have changed, our participation numbers have not increased since going to 14 weights, and we have lost programs. So why do we insist on keeping them? If changing weight class numbers could change outcomes and negative perceptions, then let's do it already.
At the end of the day I don't think forfeits have anything to do with growing the sport. A few on here care and find it embarrassing to wrestle in duals with tons of forfeits but the vast majority of kids could care less. Those that you can keep Out for the sport we just need to focus on.
We wrestled Coleman a couple nights ago and maybe 2 kids on our team knew about their history, and one was my son. So they aren't thinking about how do we catch up to them.
As MNBadger wrote our main way to help participation would be to lower our expectations at practice. That's just not going to happen. So although every day I focus on creating more kids for my district I don't see numbers changing overall. Half or more of the coaches in my conference would love to have their numbers increase but do absolutely nothing to make it happen...so I'm not holding my breathe.
I will respectfully posit that our obsession with duals is the issue. I have said it before and The Pope does a better job than I doing so.
The times two times throughout my career that our district cut wrestling we had great numbers so that is not why cuts are made...... at least not in my experience in my district. If duals were put on the back burner, the things you are frustrated with go away.
As I said before, I would prefer to get out of our conference schedule. Then I could schedule a few single duals with like competition and wrestle in individual tournaments on Saturdays. I believe firmly this would result in more numbers as we could get out of late week (SCHOOL) nights tris and quads, leaving us to compete whether we have 3 or 30 wrestlers.
Quote from: Handles II on December 17, 2021, 12:18:21 PM
I agree, participation is the key. We are at about 50% of our participation numbers from the early 90's in this state. It IS more work recruiting and more importantly RETAINING kids in our sport than it once was. I don't think any wrestling coach that has coached through a couple decades would disagree. Lots of reasons for that of course. Some the wrestling community can/should help control, some we can't.
It still boils down to the participation at any given H.S. (or M.S) is based on the $$ available to fund extracurriculars and the participation or perception of participation/value of that sport to the district by those who control the decisions. The success at high school X to get a state champion or field a full team doesn't hold water for school Y's school board or admin, and even team Y getting a state champ doesn't do much if the team can't win a dual meet in their gym.
If you have 7 studs who can pin every opponent from team X, but 7 forfeits (14 weights), by score, you can only tie. That's what is seen in the local papers and in your gym, by people who make decisions. If you have 7 studs and 5 forfeits (12 weights) you can win outright in a home dual. Same number of kids. Different outcome. Different news article. Different perception.
14 weights has created a points imbalance that smaller teams simply can't often overcome, and we've lost a number of teams because of it, or the perception it brings. All the data from the past 6 years shows that about 75% of our teams can't fill 14 weights on a regular basis (and just "filling" a weight class isn't very beneficial to said wrestler). If recruiting was what needed to happen to flip that to only 25%, it would have already happened. I'm certain that well over 75% of our coaches and programs recruit as often and in as many ways as they can. I know coaches borrow ideas from other coaches all the time. I know coaches listen to their wrestlers about new ways to entice kids into their wrestling room. Things have changed, our participation numbers have not increased since going to 14 weights, and we have lost programs. So why do we insist on keeping them? If changing weight class numbers could change outcomes and negative perceptions, then let's do it already.
Padre: From your previous post....." Half or more of the coaches in my conference would love to have their numbers increase but do absolutely nothing to make it happen...so I'm not holding my breathe."
Do you really think this is so? I have worked at recruiting and coaching since I was 18 years old. I even coached youth when competing in college. Some years it has been good and other years not. I have busted my hump forever. What I found was that I was a heckuva coach when I had good wrestlers and athletes and not so good when I did not(this is from the outside looking in of course). Sometimes it just won't work. Some will say; "if you can do it in Somewhereville you can do it anywhere". I disagree. Sometimes there just is not enough material in Anywhere.
Let's say you own a herd of Herefords. You could milk them three times a day for a lifetime and you'll never, ever be a successful dairyman. Could you get them to produce more over time, sure but it will never be like a herd of Holsteins or another breed more suited to dairying. Some of us coach Herefords. All the wishing, work, and sweat can't change this. It does not mean we give up but reality is what it is.
My point Padre is I hope you'd be careful when thinking/assuming/claiming the coaches you refer to are not working hard or extracting all they can from their "herd".
Quote from: MNbadger on December 17, 2021, 01:59:09 PM
Padre: From your previous post....." Half or more of the coaches in my conference would love to have their numbers increase but do absolutely nothing to make it happen...so I'm not holding my breathe."
Do you really think this is so? I have worked at recruiting and coaching since I was 18 years old. I even coached youth when competing in college. Some years it has been good and other years not. I have busted my hump forever. What I found was that I was a heckuva coach when I had good wrestlers and athletes and not so good when I did not(this is from the outside looking in of course). Sometimes it just won't work. Some will say; "if you can do it in Somewhereville you can do it anywhere". I disagree. Sometimes there just is not enough material in Anywhere.
Let's say you own a herd of Herefords. You could milk them three times a day for a lifetime and you'll never, ever be a successful dairyman. Could you get them to produce more over time, sure but it will never be like a herd of Holsteins or another breed more suited to dairying. Some of us coach Herefords. All the wishing, work, and sweat can't change this. It does not mean we give up but reality is what it is.
My point Padre is I hope you'd be careful when thinking/assuming/claiming the coaches you refer to are not working hard or extracting all they can from their "herd".
I don't speak non truths. Generally half or more of my conference barely knows who's coaching from year to year and have no youth wrestling program and basically non existent junior high programs. They continue to host duals with 2-4 wrestlers instead of just going to tournaments. Those duals hurt wrestling and there may be a few cases where a coach is working his tail off and has 2-5 wrestlers on their team but I just don't see it happening often.
I have a district that's got two junior highs in it...both are equal size. I get 95 percent of my wrestlers from one of the junior highs no matter how hard I recruit at the other school for the last 24 years. So my high school has about 300 kids..say half are boys so that leaves me with 150. Now half of those are from the town that generates basically no wrestlers. So my team every year has to be from those 75 kids...not easy to even get 20 kids even though the school has enjoyed considerable success the last decade plus. So yes I feel your pain.
My point is nothing is going to change overall dramatically no matter what we do. It's dependent on each district coach on how things go for them. Same as every other sport.
As I read through this thread, I enjoy the wonderful metaphors that are coming out of it, and see lots of people who love the sport racking their brains to solve the problem.
But I think I need to put another metaphor out there: Are we trying to fix a flat tire by arguing about the best brand of wiper blades?
In other words, does the decline in wrestling participation numbers have anything at all to do with the number of weights? I don't know if it does. Most HS sports have seen a decline in numbers--and it's not because the kids are all playing club sports. Kids are choosing to do different things (or nothing at all) with their time. Most of the kids who are not out for wrestling couldn't even begin to tell you how many weight classes there are. It's not playing into their decision when making up their mind about participation. Their decision is mostly based on whether they want to participate in team sports or school activities at all. In many schools it is harder nowadays to get kids out for the play or forensics or student government or any other activity.
But I just can't imagine this conversation happening.
"Going out for wrestling this year, son?"
"Naw, Dad. Too many weights."
Quote from: firemanscarry on December 17, 2021, 03:48:39 PM
As I read through this thread, I enjoy the wonderful metaphors that are coming out of it, and see lots of people who love the sport racking their brains to solve the problem.
But I think I need to put another metaphor out there: Are we trying to fix a flat tire by arguing about the best brand of wiper blades?
In other words, does the decline in wrestling participation numbers have anything at all to do with the number of weights? I don't know if it does. Most HS sports have seen a decline in numbers--and it's not because the kids are all playing club sports. Kids are choosing to do different things (or nothing at all) with their time. Most of the kids who are not out for wrestling couldn't even begin to tell you how many weight classes there are. It's not playing into their decision when making up their mind about participation. Their decision is mostly based on whether they want to participate in team sports or school activities at all. In many schools it is harder nowadays to get kids out for the play or forensics or student government or any other activity.
But I just can't imagine this conversation happening.
"Going out for wrestling this year, son?"
"Naw, Dad. Too many weights."
Agreed. The number of weight classes has nothing to do with participation. Basically few kids overall are not going to care more than maybe getting a buddy to try it. Only has to do with us coaches and fans that want there to be less forfeits. Unfortunately
the same people many times arguing about forfeits are the same ones that say JV kids shouldn't be on varsity. Well...I bet 5-10 percent of the kids that do go out are JV type kids that only came out because a coach talked them into it to field a spot in the lineup. I know I get a couple every year I get try it based on that.
The number of weight classes do matter to administrators and that affects participation when programs are lost or co-ops created. It also affects how many coaches they will fund. If you can't even fill your varsity team why would I worry about a JV coach?
We have lost some teams but we have lost a ton of funding for coaches.
Perception of administrators does matter. Especially when they start underfunding scheduling. When an entire conference of AD"s get together to discuss wrestling it does not focus on how can we help participation. It is all about how can we decease costs.
I will respectfully tell you that is not how the cutting of athletics happens around here. My district cut all ms activities with no regard to participation numbers. As I said in a previous post, both times we were cut, our numbers were pretty good.
Quote from: DocWrestling on December 17, 2021, 05:20:34 PM
The number of weight classes do matter to administrators and that affects participation when programs are lost or co-ops created. It also affects how many coaches they will fund. If you can't even fill your varsity team why would I worry about a JV coach?
We have lost some teams but we have lost a ton of funding for coaches.
Perception of administrators does matter. Especially when they start underfunding scheduling. When an entire conference of AD"s get together to discuss wrestling it does not focus on how can we help participation. It is all about how can we decease costs.
I was not accusing you of lying. I just think spmetopimes we all make assumptions about things in life. If you see this for real, I believe you. I will say and your post supports it that sometimes there is nothing you can do. You are getting little to no production from. One of your ms/JV. Should that coach subdue athletes at gun point, forcing them into the wrestling room?. I can tell you I've done everything and anything short of that through the years.
I illustrated how participation in my district is pathetic in all sports. As I said, there was a time where we dressed 110 players in football in 10th-12th grade(2600 students 10-12 at that time). This past season we finished with under 50 (2400 9-12).s
Quote from: padre on December 17, 2021, 03:09:08 PM
Quote from: MNbadger on December 17, 2021, 01:59:09 PM
Padre: From your previous post....." Half or more of the coaches in my conference would love to have their numbers increase but do absolutely nothing to make it happen...so I'm not holding my breathe."
Do you really think this is so? I have worked at recruiting and coaching since I was 18 years old. I even coached youth when competing in college. Some years it has been good and other years not. I have busted my hump forever. What I found was that I was a heckuva coach when I had good wrestlers and athletes and not so good when I did not(this is from the outside looking in of course). Sometimes it just won't work. Some will say; "if you can do it in Somewhereville you can do it anywhere". I disagree. Sometimes there just is not enough material in Anywhere.
Let's say you own a herd of Herefords. You could milk them three times a day for a lifetime and you'll never, ever be a successful dairyman. Could you get them to produce more over time, sure but it will never be like a herd of Holsteins or another breed more suited to dairying. Some of us coach Herefords. All the wishing, work, and sweat can't change this. It does not mean we give up but reality is what it is.
My point Padre is I hope you'd be careful when thinking/assuming/claiming the coaches you refer to are not working hard or extracting all they can from their "herd".
I don't speak non truths. Generally half or more of my conference barely knows who's coaching from year to year and have no youth wrestling program and basically non existent junior high programs. They continue to host duals with 2-4 wrestlers instead of just going to tournaments. Those duals hurt wrestling and there may be a few cases where a coach is working his tail off and has 2-5 wrestlers on their team but I just don't see it happening often.
I have a district that's got two junior highs in it...both are equal size. I get 95 percent of my wrestlers from one of the junior highs no matter how hard I recruit at the other school for the last 24 years. So my high school has about 300 kids..say half are boys so that leaves me with 150. Now half of those are from the town that generates basically no wrestlers. So my team every year has to be from those 75 kids...not easy to even get 20 kids even though the school has enjoyed considerable success the last decade plus. So yes I feel your pain.
My point is nothing is going to change overall dramatically no matter what we do. It's dependent on each district coach on how things go for them. Same as every other sport.
I have not been a part of a team getting cut but I can tell you that AD's are constantly talking about co-ops in low participation sports.
If you hired an independent data person to give a number of weight classes recommendation, there is a chance they would propose 10 weights in Wisconsin. These unfilled weights stats are after the large amount of coops Wisconsin already has.
The national body says the options are 12, 13, or 14. Wisconsin should move to 12 weights.
For the situations where above average varsity wrestlers are blocked, there will still be tournaments that allow second entries at a weight class. West Allis this weekend is one.
I have found this thread to be interesting, filled with diverse perspectives, insightful and perhaps most interesting - civil. And let me say up front, I love a good dual meet - that's the best thing about our sport. That said...I hate a bad dual meet - it's a painful experience.
The club system employed in much of the rest of the world disassociates itself from affiliation with the national education system, as it does with many of its sports programs. It is a different model from the US, but I am wondering if anyone on here can speak to it with some experience regarding the drop in participation numbers we are seeing in the US. I am given to the impression that European wrestling, for example, operates on a non-school affiliated club system and while duals between clubs do indeed take place on occasion, they are not the more common competition model - I think weekend tournaments are the norm (please correct me if I am incorrect on my understanding).
If however, I am correct in my competition format assumption, then how is it working for them in terms of developing and promoting participation in broader participation among their youth and development programs. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, the inability of schools to put a (relatively) full line-up together only becomes obvious when we try to put on duals and keep team scores. I think we would all agree that that is a "bad look" and contributes to the dismissal of the sport as being viable and concurrently contributes to open discussion as to the lack of value the sport presents to our youth. Do boxing training gyms hold "dual meets"? And my introduction of boxing here is not without a point to be made. In the early 1900s boxing, along with other sports were being introduced to our nation's school system. Boxing came and went for at least a couple of reasons that are shared with the sport of wrestling from the uninitiated person's perspective. Wrestling as part of the educational system could easily experience the same fate if not deftly managed...and I think allowing wrestling to be portrayed as an unpopular (low participation numbers), pugilistic experience is helping to push wrestling to the archives of the "sports that once existed." The rising popularity of sports like MMA is helping to redefine wrestling as we know it and I dare say we will never see two high school MMA teams go at it for obvious reasons.
So, polish up the marketing of the sport; keep it civil; have obvious/enforceable rules, etc.
I don't see how more weight classes encourages more participation. I think a lot of kids look at all the forfeits in the average dual meet and see the sport as more of a joke. School's getting a lot of wins just by inserting live bodies into whatever classes the can. It's an embarrassing aspect of the sport (even though the sport is great overall).
Quote from: Army Ant on December 18, 2021, 02:24:48 PM
I don't see how more weight classes encourages more participation. I think a lot of kids look at all the forfeits in the average dual meet and see the sport as more of a joke. School's getting a lot of wins just by inserting live bodies into whatever classes the can. It's an embarrassing aspect of the sport (even though the sport is great overall).
It doesn't ... it provides opportunities to wrestle. Opportunities to wrestle aid retention.
Again - if you can provide the name of any unworthy state champions, at any weight class(es), with any consistency, in any division ... then we have a place to start talking about reducing weight classes.
Quote from: MNbadger on December 17, 2021, 01:50:57 PM
As I said before, I would prefer to get out of our conference schedule. Then I could schedule a few single duals with like competition and wrestle in individual tournaments on Saturdays.
[/quote]
I agree with almost everything you post on this subject ... except this. For some teams ... scheduling would be a nightmare - and possibly unfilled schedules and possibly/likely the dissolution of teams.
Quote from: neutral on December 19, 2021, 08:14:59 AM
Quote from: Army Ant on December 18, 2021, 02:24:48 PM
I don't see how more weight classes encourages more participation. I think a lot of kids look at all the forfeits in the average dual meet and see the sport as more of a joke. School's getting a lot of wins just by inserting live bodies into whatever classes the can. It's an embarrassing aspect of the sport (even though the sport is great overall).
It doesn't ... it provides opportunities to wrestle. Opportunities to wrestle aid retention.
Again - if you can provide the name of any unworthy state champions, at any weight class(es), with any consistency, in any division ... then we have a place to start talking about reducing weight classes.
This point does not apply. It would be like PA should have at least 20 weight classes because many state champs could still wrestle D1.
Quote from: neutral on December 19, 2021, 08:14:59 AM
Quote from: Army Ant on December 18, 2021, 02:24:48 PM
I don't see how more weight classes encourages more participation. I think a lot of kids look at all the forfeits in the average dual meet and see the sport as more of a joke. School's getting a lot of wins just by inserting live bodies into whatever classes the can. It's an embarrassing aspect of the sport (even though the sport is great overall).
It doesn't ... it provides opportunities to wrestle. Opportunities to wrestle aid retention.
Again - if you can provide the name of any unworthy state champions, at any weight class(es), with any consistency, in any division ... then we have a place to start talking about reducing weight classes.
More opportunities for receive wins by forfeit I would say.
I miss the days when it was a big deal to be varsity or for an underclassmen to "start" on jv and there were enough jv wrestlers to actually keep a team score. It's all relative. Yes, more opportunities to wrestle varsity but everything has been watered down. And yes, I'd say many state champions are "less worthy" than if we had fewer weight classes. I'm not oing to say that any particular wrestler is "unworthy" but Id be much more excited if we had 12 state champions (more competitive matches) than the 42 we currently have . Not advocating to go that far but something in that direction at least.
Sorry, you are WAY off base here. Wrestling gets better and better each here. My dad used to tell me the state champs of his day would have been section winners at best in my day.
More weight classes makes for more participation. Size differential is a big thing. We all have or have had kids that have to "wrestle up". It might be because their parents won't let them drop or they are "tweezers" who can't beat the wrestler at their weight. They struggle. The narrower weight jumps in high school make this better. This is why you rarely see college wrestlers bump up. There comes a point where in a match, the size differential tells no matter how good or talented the wrestler is who is wrestling up.
As far as wishing for the "old days" for participation it has been mentioned the same is true in other sports. The truth is I don't think kids think about forfeits at all, at least not in regard to a match being a "joke" in any way.
Quote from: Army Ant on December 19, 2021, 10:48:28 AM
Quote from: neutral on December 19, 2021, 08:14:59 AM
Quote from: Army Ant on December 18, 2021, 02:24:48 PM
I don't see how more weight classes encourages more participation. I think a lot of kids look at all the forfeits in the average dual meet and see the sport as more of a joke. School's getting a lot of wins just by inserting live bodies into whatever classes the can. It's an embarrassing aspect of the sport (even though the sport is great overall).
It doesn't ... it provides opportunities to wrestle. Opportunities to wrestle aid retention.
Again - if you can provide the name of any unworthy state champions, at any weight class(es), with any consistency, in any division ... then we have a place to start talking about reducing weight classes.
More opportunities for receive wins by forfeit I would say.
I miss the days when it was a big deal to be varsity or for an underclassmen to "start" on jv and there were enough jv wrestlers to actually keep a team score. It's all relative. Yes, more opportunities to wrestle varsity but everything has been watered down. And yes, I'd say many state champions are "less worthy" than if we had fewer weight classes. I'm not oing to say that any particular wrestler is "unworthy" but Id be much more excited if we had 12 state champions (more competitive matches) than the 42 we currently have . Not advocating to go that far but something in that direction at least.
You imagine some kind of Armageddon in this scenario. This idea is simply silly. I and others schedule lots of matches in addition to the conference schedule. There is no logical reason to think any team would dissolve because of this.
Quote from: neutral on December 19, 2021, 08:23:31 AM
Quote from: MNbadger on December 17, 2021, 01:50:57 PM
As I said before, I would prefer to get out of our conference schedule. Then I could schedule a few single duals with like competition and wrestle in individual tournaments on Saturdays.
I agree with almost everything you post on this subject ... except this. For some teams ... scheduling would be a nightmare - and possibly unfilled schedules and possibly/likely the dissolution of teams.
[/quote]
Quote from: MNbadger on December 19, 2021, 01:23:26 PM
Sorry, you are WAY off base here. Wrestling gets better and better each here. My dad used to tell me the state champs of his day would have been section winners at best in my day.
More weight classes makes for more participation. Size differential is a big thing. We all have or have had kids that have to "wrestle up". It might be because their parents won't let them drop or they are "tweezers" who can't beat the wrestler at their weight. They struggle. The narrower weight jumps in high school make this better. This is why you rarely see college wrestlers bump up. There comes a point where in a match, the size differential tells no matter how good or talented the wrestler is who is wrestling up.
As far as wishing for the "old days" for participation it has been mentioned the same is true in other sports. The truth is I don't think kids think about forfeits at all, at least not in regard to a match being a "joke" in any way.Quote from: Army Ant on December 19, 2021, 10:48:28 AM
Quote from: neutral on December 19, 2021, 08:14:59 AM
Quote from: Army Ant on December 18, 2021, 02:24:48 PM
I don't see how more weight classes encourages more participation. I think a lot of kids look at all the forfeits in the average dual meet and see the sport as more of a joke. School's getting a lot of wins just by inserting live bodies into whatever classes the can. It's an embarrassing aspect of the sport (even though the sport is great overall).
It doesn't ... it provides opportunities to wrestle. Opportunities to wrestle aid retention.
Again - if you can provide the name of any unworthy state champions, at any weight class(es), with any consistency, in any division ... then we have a place to start talking about reducing weight classes.
More opportunities for receive wins by forfeit I would say.
I miss the days when it was a big deal to be varsity or for an underclassmen to "start" on jv and there were enough jv wrestlers to actually keep a team score. It's all relative. Yes, more opportunities to wrestle varsity but everything has been watered down. And yes, I'd say many state champions are "less worthy" than if we had fewer weight classes. I'm not oing to say that any particular wrestler is "unworthy" but Id be much more excited if we had 12 state champions (more competitive matches) than the 42 we currently have . Not advocating to go that far but something in that direction at least.
Data indicates otherwise since participation has dropped as we've added weight classes.
The top wrestlers are better than the top wrestlers a few decades ago. More training opportunities and more kids training year round. In fact, I never even heard of any of these academies back in the 80s. It isn't because of all these extra forfeits and byes.
The average team a few decades ago (imo) was much better though than the average team nowadays. Not just because of forfeits but also many more inexperienced kids and underclassmen in varsity lineups today. Most teams today don't even have any of these elite wrestlers anyway.
You are misreading the data. Wrestling has been the fifth most popular sport for high school males for all of my life(I am an old fellow). Participation is down in many if not most sports. I iterated this very thing in previous posts.
The thing is with wrestling it is based on weight. We need to keep these opportunities for those individuals. The key here is too stop the obsession and insistence that duals are the primary format.
Ok. None of us know for sure how the wt classes are impacting participation. Let's get that straight. I'll admit for myself at least that this is all just my opinion.
Re: tournaments, even these have been impacted. Very few 8- team tournaments w traditional brackets anymore. You go to 8-team conference and regional tournaments and often see weight classes w just a few kids. We've probably all seen 1 kid in a weight class in recent years at a conference or regional tournament.
I am not being a smart Alec here.....so what?
Small brackets happen in every single club wrestling tournament there is.....so what?
Some tournaments are tougher than others too....so what?
No change in any number of weight classes reduces opportunities unless you think wrestling JV is not an opportunity. The only way that opportunities are cut are when a team is cut or a co-op is created. In another viewpoint I could say though that more weight classes decreases opportunities. How many time does it happen where one team has a forfeit at one weight class and the other team forfeits the next weight class. Both wrestlers lost an opportunity to wrestle that might have been a match with fewer weight classes.
Coaches must know that wrestling JV is still an opportunity to wrestle. Look at the Fond du Lac Invitational from yesterday and look at the varsity roster numbers. This is a rare tournament that has both a varsity and JV division in the same gym at the same team. This means coaches can choose which division to enter their wrestlers. Many teams could "fill" more varsity weight classes but chose to put their wrestlers in the JV division because that is what was better for them.
Which one offers more "opportunities"? Have a 14 weight class varsity dual and 6 exhibition matches or 10 weight class varsity and JV duals.
Like it or not, kids want to participate on the varsity team. I can tell you from personal experience many student athletes choose to opt out rather than be on JV. This is my experience coaching three sports for nearly all of my career. We have some that know and accept that they need to pay their dues on JV but particularly 10-11-12 graders often opt out rather than be on JV.
As far as your scenario of the consecutive forfeits this is again a product of a dual format. Next we will have folks complaint about strategic forfeits again which are never going away as long as we measure success by winning or losing duals.
Quote from: DocWrestling on December 19, 2021, 06:03:49 PM
No change in any number of weight classes reduces opportunities unless you think wrestling JV is not an opportunity. The only way that opportunities are cut are when a team is cut or a co-op is created. In another viewpoint I could say though that more weight classes decreases opportunities. How many time does it happen where one team has a forfeit at one weight class and the other team forfeits the next weight class. Both wrestlers lost an opportunity to wrestle that might have been a match with fewer weight classes.
Coaches must know that wrestling JV is still an opportunity to wrestle. Look at the Fond du Lac Invitational from yesterday and look at the varsity roster numbers. This is a rare tournament that has both a varsity and JV division in the same gym at the same team. This means coaches can choose which division to enter their wrestlers. Many teams could "fill" more varsity weight classes but chose to put their wrestlers in the JV division because that is what was better for them.
Which one offers more "opportunities"? Have a 14 weight class varsity dual and 6 exhibition matches or 10 weight class varsity and JV duals.
I know it is a philosophical question but maybe one of the reasons wrestling and all sports are declining is because of that attitude that it is varsity of nothing.
At our high school it is very hard to make varsity in almost all sports except wrestling. Because beginners can be varsity I have not seen more kids participate.
I guess I am too old and made assumptions that kids wanted to be wrestlers because it was the toughest sport mentally and physically and you had to beat someone one on one to make varsity. It was not a coaches decision. That pride seems to be missing now. Something earned rather than given.
I don't disagree with you at all with this post. But as you said it is a reality of the times.
Quote from: DocWrestling on December 19, 2021, 08:22:04 PM
I know it is a philosophical question but maybe one of the reasons wrestling and all sports are declining is because of that attitude that it is varsity of nothing.
At our high school it is very hard to make varsity in almost all sports except wrestling. Because beginners can be varsity I have not seen more kids participate.
I guess I am too old and made assumptions that kids wanted to be wrestlers because it was the toughest sport mentally and physically and you had to beat someone one on one to make varsity. It was not a coaches decision. That pride seems to be missing now. Something earned rather than given.
Data for 12/18 weekend: Eleven in-state individual tournaments. 182 teams participating x 14 weights = 2548 possible wrestlers. Actual wrestlers was 1575. That equals 61%, or an average across all teams of 8.6 wrestlers per participating team.
How full was each weight class?
106 - 48%
113 - 41%
120 - 56%
126 - 53%
132 - 66%
138 - 68%
145 - 70%
152 - 70%
160 - 73%
182 - 62%
195 - 55%
220 - 65%
285 - 65%
So if you apply the data the way you are arguing for we should have 8 weight classes, correct?
again, my question for your data is SO WHAT? I am not being a smart Alec here. The whole issue disappears when you stop being so concerned about duals. If we simply decided to make duals secondary(kind of like track, tennis, CC, etc.) the problem doesn't exist.
Quote from: Handles II on December 21, 2021, 10:50:48 AM
Data for 12/18 weekend: Eleven in-state individual tournaments. 182 teams participating x 14 weights = 2548 possible wrestlers. Actual wrestlers was 1575. That equals 61%, or an average across all teams of 8.6 wrestlers per participating team.
How full was each weight class?
106 - 48%
113 - 41%
120 - 56%
126 - 53%
132 - 66%
138 - 68%
145 - 70%
152 - 70%
160 - 73%
182 - 62%
195 - 55%
220 - 65%
285 - 65%
Quote from: Handles II on December 21, 2021, 10:50:48 AM
Data for 12/18 weekend: Eleven in-state individual tournaments. 182 teams participating x 14 weights = 2548 possible wrestlers. Actual wrestlers was 1575. That equals 61%, or an average across all teams of 8.6 wrestlers per participating team.
How full was each weight class?
106 - 48%
113 - 41%
120 - 56%
126 - 53%
132 - 66%
138 - 68%
145 - 70%
152 - 70%
160 - 73%
182 - 62%
195 - 55%
220 - 65%
285 - 65%
What skews this number too is some teams will not bring their fringe JV/Varsity wrestlers to the Fond du Lac tournament or the E.H. Stech to avoid them getting beat up at these events. Instead they will leave that weight class open. There were a handful of teams that did this last weekend at Fond du Lac.
Last Saturday we wrestled in an individual tournament. We are a program that is rebuilding/struggling. We had 19 wrestlers in the room last night. Too many are first year kids, many first year athletes(never did a sport before). I have a handful of legit kids(a relative term in our conference and section). We finished 7th out of 11 teams. We missed 6th place by one point, 5th place by 13 points. We wrestled ok. Overall, we had a good day, the wrestlers had a good day. In a dual format we would likely beat the teams below us and get crushed by those above us. If we were in a dual format, there would have been the forfeits you are unhappy with. Some brackets were four man or five man round robin, some were full 8 man brackets. There were mostly full bleachers with enthusiastic fans, including one team from WI (they might have had the biggest contingent of fans in fact). The crowd got loud when there were close matches, just like always.
A really successful day if you look at it as a whole. All the kids got three matches or more. In a dual format this would have been an ugly thing in my opinion.
Wrestling is at it's heart an individual sports, always will be. It has nothing to do with too many weight classes. Additionally, in this tourney, the lowest numbers were in the heavier weight classes. Retraction will ALWAYS skew the weights heavier, it always has.
This tournament also had a JV portion where all the wrestlers got 2-3 matches each.
The obsession with duals makes for a solution looking for a problem. This is something that happens in wrestling more than any other sport. For some reason we are cannibalistic. Another example is the issue of weight maintenance and certification.
Quote from: MNbadger on December 21, 2021, 10:58:04 AM
So if you apply the data the way you are arguing for we should have 8 weight classes, correct?
again, my question for your data is SO WHAT? I am not being a smart Alec here. The whole issue disappears when you stop being so concerned about duals. If we simply decided to make duals secondary(kind of like track, tennis, CC, etc.) the problem doesn't exist.Quote from: Handles II on December 21, 2021, 10:50:48 AM
Data for 12/18 weekend: Eleven in-state individual tournaments. 182 teams participating x 14 weights = 2548 possible wrestlers. Actual wrestlers was 1575. That equals 61%, or an average across all teams of 8.6 wrestlers per participating team.
How full was each weight class?
106 - 48%
113 - 41%
120 - 56%
126 - 53%
132 - 66%
138 - 68%
145 - 70%
152 - 70%
160 - 73%
182 - 62%
195 - 55%
220 - 65%
285 - 65%
The NFHS has identified that 14 weight classes are not ideal for all states, and thus have given states options for the future. Several states were already using different weight classes and/or fewer weight classes because of their own data on their wrestling programs. Therefore,
this current data is very relevant to that current issue. Your idea of eliminating duals is quite unrealistic at this point and in no way would address the 14 weight issue that schools are having even AT individual tournaments. I can't imagine teams having, in theory, one, maybe, two home events per year, individual tournaments, and that being a satisfactory way to bring wrestling and non-wrestling spectators to our sport. As you know, for the most part, only direct family or hard-core fans attend individual tournaments. People really don't want to sit on bleachers in a gym for 8 hours, even some that REALLY like wrestling. Maybe when collegiate wrestling gets rid of duals, your dream might start to come true, but I can't see that happening.
Tigerking: I'm aware of what you are saying, but in direct opposition there are tournaments letting schools wrestle more than one wrestler per weight class, and schools that throw in JV guys to "get experience" so it pretty much evens out if you look big picture.
Quote from: Handles II on December 22, 2021, 10:57:26 AM
Quote from: MNbadger on December 21, 2021, 10:58:04 AM
So if you apply the data the way you are arguing for we should have 8 weight classes, correct?
again, my question for your data is SO WHAT? I am not being a smart Alec here. The whole issue disappears when you stop being so concerned about duals. If we simply decided to make duals secondary(kind of like track, tennis, CC, etc.) the problem doesn't exist.Quote from: Handles II on December 21, 2021, 10:50:48 AM
Data for 12/18 weekend: Eleven in-state individual tournaments. 182 teams participating x 14 weights = 2548 possible wrestlers. Actual wrestlers was 1575. That equals 61%, or an average across all teams of 8.6 wrestlers per participating team.
How full was each weight class?
106 - 48%
113 - 41%
120 - 56%
126 - 53%
132 - 66%
138 - 68%
145 - 70%
152 - 70%
160 - 73%
182 - 62%
195 - 55%
220 - 65%
285 - 65%
The NFHS has identified that 14 weight classes are not ideal for all states, and thus have given states options for the future. Several states were already using different weight classes and/or fewer weight classes because of their own data on their wrestling programs. Therefore, this current data is very relevant to that current issue.
Your idea of eliminating duals is quite unrealistic at this point and in no way would address the 14 weight issue that schools are having even AT individual tournaments. I can't imagine teams having, in theory, one, maybe, two home events per year, individual tournaments, and that being a satisfactory way to bring wrestling and non-wrestling spectators to our sport. As you know, for the most part, only direct family or hard-core fans attend individual tournaments. People really don't want to sit on bleachers in a gym for 8 hours, even some that REALLY like wrestling. Maybe when collegiate wrestling gets rid of duals, your dream might start to come true, but I can't see that happening.
Tigerking: I'm aware of what you are saying, but in direct opposition there are tournaments letting schools wrestle more than one wrestler per weight class, and schools that throw in JV guys to "get experience" so it pretty much evens out if you look big picture.
He didn't say eliminate duals, so you wasted a whole paragraph on nothing. Yet you haven't addressed his or many others premise of not focusing on duals and focus on individuals.
Quote from: wrastle63 on December 22, 2021, 12:28:42 PM
Quote from: Handles II on December 22, 2021, 10:57:26 AM
Quote from: MNbadger on December 21, 2021, 10:58:04 AM
So if you apply the data the way you are arguing for we should have 8 weight classes, correct?
again, my question for your data is SO WHAT? I am not being a smart Alec here. The whole issue disappears when you stop being so concerned about duals. If we simply decided to make duals secondary(kind of like track, tennis, CC, etc.) the problem doesn't exist.Quote from: Handles II on December 21, 2021, 10:50:48 AM
Data for 12/18 weekend: Eleven in-state individual tournaments. 182 teams participating x 14 weights = 2548 possible wrestlers. Actual wrestlers was 1575. That equals 61%, or an average across all teams of 8.6 wrestlers per participating team.
How full was each weight class?
106 - 48%
113 - 41%
120 - 56%
126 - 53%
132 - 66%
138 - 68%
145 - 70%
152 - 70%
160 - 73%
182 - 62%
195 - 55%
220 - 65%
285 - 65%
The NFHS has identified that 14 weight classes are not ideal for all states, and thus have given states options for the future. Several states were already using different weight classes and/or fewer weight classes because of their own data on their wrestling programs. Therefore, this current data is very relevant to that current issue.
Your idea of eliminating duals is quite unrealistic at this point and in no way would address the 14 weight issue that schools are having even AT individual tournaments. I can't imagine teams having, in theory, one, maybe, two home events per year, individual tournaments, and that being a satisfactory way to bring wrestling and non-wrestling spectators to our sport. As you know, for the most part, only direct family or hard-core fans attend individual tournaments. People really don't want to sit on bleachers in a gym for 8 hours, even some that REALLY like wrestling. Maybe when collegiate wrestling gets rid of duals, your dream might start to come true, but I can't see that happening.
Tigerking: I'm aware of what you are saying, but in direct opposition there are tournaments letting schools wrestle more than one wrestler per weight class, and schools that throw in JV guys to "get experience" so it pretty much evens out if you look big picture.
He didn't say eliminate duals, so you wasted a whole paragraph on nothing. Yet you haven't addressed his or many others premise of not focusing on duals and focus on individuals.
Well if we aren't eliminating them, then we are still having them. If we are having them, then they will still be the draw for wrestling and casual spectators, including administration and school board members, that make decisions on what to keep or what to cut. Additionally, changing the number of weight classes IS happening, so my data is relevant, and his idea is mostly moot.
I NEVER suggested eliminating duals.
Like it or not, we are never going to draw the "casual fans" you imagine.
I am over sixty years old. There was never a time when "casual fans" attended wrestling meets.
Every area has certain rivalries and competitive meets at certain times. The reality is that the fans at those are diehard wrestling people as well.
I watched part of a varsity basketball game last night at my school(2400 students 9-12). The majority of the fans were parents. The parent fans dwarfed the student section which was minuscule.
And I ask again why are you not proposing we go to 8 weight classes if you are wanting to apply your data as you proposed( you stated that in your data the average team size was 8.6)?
Our our high school team is really hurting for numbers and is at the bottom of our conference this year. Yet our home duals draw well more than parents. Wrestling fans, teachers , students, and past alumni show up. We have youth and middle school night which draw in even more. Not like it was when we were more successful but if duals were not the focus of our wrestling program I am not sure we would ever bring together our entire wrestling community. I can't imagine losing more home events.
You talk often about recruiting kids. To recruit kids you need the support of parents. Parents and new wrestlers can understand and follow a dual and learn wrestling better than at an individual tournament.
Besides the most successful wrestlers that want the challenge, most wrestlers like the duals better than getting up early on Saturday morning and spending 10 hours gone to wrestle 3 matches.
Let me make up a number... Probably only 10% of varsity wrestlers are going to win a medal at an individual tournament. Kids are wrestling for themselves. So many more ways to measure success for an average wrestler in a dual and more likely to stay in the sport.
I am the opposite of you guys. I think we need more duals to save the sport. We need middle school duals and we need JV duals. Just matching individuals up and wrestling is not the fun a lot of wrestlers are looking for. This past weekend at our tournament we had many kids that only had one match or went 0-2 and they were asked if they wanted to wrestle again against another 0-2 wrestler and they declined.
Team duals give kids multiple ways to win and/or help the team. I think coaches should even invent there own 10 weight classes ahead of time based upon their wrestlers and then battle it out. Kids would have more fun and that is what saves wrestling
Again-You promote duals as the savior of HS wrestling, yet use tournament #'s as justification for reduction of weight classes. You and Ghetto in the past have admitted that your numbers may not be the most reliable yet keep hammering away on here as if these #s are gospel. For example, our school had 12 versus 14 at last weeks tournament due to 2 last minute scratches due to family issue and illness. This time of year every team has last minute scratches for tons of reasons and often (like in our case) have kids to backfill but just can't due to time/weight constraints.
I believe that wrestling #'s from year to year in the state of overall participation are static and nationwide actually increasing. Yet at the same time almost all other sports are declining, some big time.
To me, reduction of weight classes is a huge change especially when small changes to increase participation are not being done on a consistent basis both from a statewide or individual school standpoint. In our area the schools that have the large decline in #s or long term low participation are much the fault of their own. Not the parents, not the kids. You will never convince me this is some systemic, state wide issue.
I don't care about sickness, grades, etc.
You need to have a system or format that allows teams to compete at the varsity level AND should have numbers that allow a back-up.
We just wrestle kids that weigh the right amount. That is what wrestling is now. Less and less varsity spots are earned or won and developing wrestlers is less. Spots are just give now.
The numbers provided are just filling weight classes. They do not even take into account the talent that we used to associate with varsity wrestling.
I 100% stand by the numbers I've put out there.
If it were one year, or even five, I'd be less confident, but it's going on 17 years now, and the numbers get worse, not better.
The most recent #'s I can find are from this article from the WIAA in 2018-2019 participation #'s. So, the year before COVID I believe.
https://www.wiaawi.org/News/News-Article/wisconsin-ranks-14th-in-hs-sports-participation
Cut/pasted for those that prefer cliff notes version:
"Four of the top 10 boys sports registered increases in participation, topped by track and field with an additional 5,257 participants. Other top 10 boys sports that added participants last year were soccer (2,715), wrestling (1,877) and tennis (1,163). Among girls top 10 sports, volleyball was the front-runner with an additional 6,225 participants, followed by soccer (3,623) and lacrosse (3,164). "
I believe the phrase is confirmation bias. You seek out flawed #'s to fit your opinion. Trackwrestling is not accurate (Doc just railed on that on another post), coaches can't stay on top of it, and so many other variables as to why kids don't participate in certain weekends. Fact is, per this article by the WIAA--participation in wrestling has grown. This is even with new factors like new sports (Lacrosse, powerlifting, etc.) and the preference for single sport athletes.
Stand by your #'s all you want. Until you stop looking at tournaments #'s as your standard, you are wrong. Even if it was needed cutting weight classes is not the answer. So many more things to do first to affect change if it is so important.
Track wrestling is a huge pain in the you know where. I have an assistant who is the ULTIMATE
in tech geeks. He has regular, continual trouble with it and he is not the only one of my coaching counterparts having same. If I had to do this track stuff myself, I would cease coaching yesterday.
It does NOTHING to make kids better wrestlers, or me a better coach, or make my work load lighter. Seeding meetings for tournaments are maybe 15 minutes faster at the most on any given Saturday. With glitch that won't allow kids to be entered, they can't be entered into the tournament which is nightmare that usually ends in a kid getting done a disservice.
Quote from: asdf on December 23, 2021, 12:13:03 PM
The most recent #'s I can find are from this article from the WIAA in 2018-2019 participation #'s. So, the year before COVID I believe.
https://www.wiaawi.org/News/News-Article/wisconsin-ranks-14th-in-hs-sports-participation
Cut/pasted for those that prefer cliff notes version:
"Four of the top 10 boys sports registered increases in participation, topped by track and field with an additional 5,257 participants. Other top 10 boys sports that added participants last year were soccer (2,715), wrestling (1,877) and tennis (1,163). Among girls top 10 sports, volleyball was the front-runner with an additional 6,225 participants, followed by soccer (3,623) and lacrosse (3,164). "
I believe the phrase is confirmation bias. You seek out flawed #'s to fit your opinion. Trackwrestling is not accurate (Doc just railed on that on another post), coaches can't stay on top of it, and so many other variables as to why kids don't participate in certain weekends. Fact is, per this article by the WIAA--participation in wrestling has grown. This is even with new factors like new sports (Lacrosse, powerlifting, etc.) and the preference for single sport athletes.
Stand by your #'s all you want. Until you stop looking at tournaments #'s as your standard, you are wrong. Even if it was needed cutting weight classes is not the answer. So many more things to do first to affect change if it is so important.
In terms of wrestling numbers though trackwrestling is the only accurate number. By my understanding every wrestler has to have fat test data entered on trackwrestling to be eligible.
Nobody has more of a self interest in reporting higher numbers than the WIAA and I would guess they get their numbers from schools on who might have shown interest. Maybe they all did not get fat tested?
I am not sure what numbers are correct but I would trust trackwrestling numbers over the WIAA in this instance. And we also know that a lot of the kids that fat tested did not even end up wrestling or quit early
Not accurate for our team......
Quote from: DocWrestling on December 23, 2021, 12:54:05 PM
In terms of wrestling numbers though trackwrestling is the only accurate number. By my understanding every wrestler has to have fat test data entered on trackwrestling to be eligible.
Nobody has more of a self interest in reporting higher numbers than the WIAA and I would guess they get their numbers from schools on who might have shown interest. Maybe they all did not get fat tested?
I am not sure what numbers are correct but I would trust trackwrestling numbers over the WIAA in this instance. And we also know that a lot of the kids that fat tested did not even end up wrestling or quit early
Quote from: DocWrestling on December 23, 2021, 12:54:05 PM
In terms of wrestling numbers though trackwrestling is the only accurate number. By my understanding every wrestler has to have fat test data entered on trackwrestling to be eligible.
Nobody has more of a self interest in reporting higher numbers than the WIAA and I would guess they get their numbers from schools on who might have shown interest. Maybe they all did not get fat tested?
I am not sure what numbers are correct but I would trust trackwrestling numbers over the WIAA in this instance. And we also know that a lot of the kids that fat tested did not even end up wrestling or quit early
I jump on this forum the once a year when this comes up. It gets more fanciful and lacking of basic logic every time, so good luck, I'm out. I mean seriously you have right in front of you the WIAA stating participation 2018-2019 #'s are up in wrestling, but you think it is the schools lying to the WIAA who also are lying out of self interest? Maybe the best answer is the easiest answer---that the WIAA has better access to facts then 2-3 Forum warriors that by their own admission have self interest conflicts (how many years did you state Doc that you went without a 106er, 10 years you stated I think). Doc on the other post about rankings talks about the unreliable nature of track, but yet for this subject it is the gold standard instead of the WIAA. C'mon. Instead of this crud every year we should be having posts on what to do to build on these gains, not knock it down.
Quote from: asdf on December 23, 2021, 03:27:51 PM
Quote from: DocWrestling on December 23, 2021, 12:54:05 PM
In terms of wrestling numbers though trackwrestling is the only accurate number. By my understanding every wrestler has to have fat test data entered on trackwrestling to be eligible.
Nobody has more of a self interest in reporting higher numbers than the WIAA and I would guess they get their numbers from schools on who might have shown interest. Maybe they all did not get fat tested?
I am not sure what numbers are correct but I would trust trackwrestling numbers over the WIAA in this instance. And we also know that a lot of the kids that fat tested did not even end up wrestling or quit early
I jump on this forum the once a year when this comes up. It gets more fanciful and lacking of basic logic every time, so good luck, I'm out. I mean seriously you have right in front of you the WIAA stating participation 2018-2019 #'s are up in wrestling, but you think it is the schools lying to the WIAA who also are lying out of self interest? Maybe the best answer is the easiest answer---that the WIAA has better access to facts then 2-3 Forum warriors that by their own admission have self interest conflicts (how many years did you state Doc that you went without a 106er, 10 years you stated I think). Doc on the other post about rankings talks about the unreliable nature of track, but yet for this subject it is the gold standard instead of the WIAA. C'mon. Instead of this crud every year we should be having posts on what to do to build on these gains, not knock it down.
Exactly. Way more important things to talk about to grow our sport in WI besides cutting weight classes.
I'm all for having discussions about building programs. I am now convinced that it revolves around having people in the building that can recruit. That's 1, 1a and 1b.
Does anyone have contacts at the new Flo/Trackwrestling? I used to email Justin Tritz every year and he would get me the raw data of bodyfat tests from Wisconsin each year. I was unable to do so in 2021. Here are the number of bodyfat tests in Wisconsin from the past few years:
Kids Tested
2011-2012 8946
2012-2013 8985
2013-2014 8797
2014-2015 8357
2015-2016 8007
2016-2017 7737
2017-2018 7698
2018-2019 7543
2019-2020 7950
Total 74020
The tournament data that I use is from Regionals. I do that for a few reasons:
1. We can go back all the way to 2005
2. Every team wrestles that weekend
3. Of all the weekends in the year, this is the one where MORE kids will be wrestling than any other. If anything, using this date skews the data on the opposite side of the argument.
Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you enjoy your time with your families and Santa is good to you.
Quote from: wrastle63 on December 23, 2021, 03:45:31 PM
Quote from: asdf on December 23, 2021, 03:27:51 PM
Quote from: DocWrestling on December 23, 2021, 12:54:05 PM
In terms of wrestling numbers though trackwrestling is the only accurate number. By my understanding every wrestler has to have fat test data entered on trackwrestling to be eligible.
Nobody has more of a self interest in reporting higher numbers than the WIAA and I would guess they get their numbers from schools on who might have shown interest. Maybe they all did not get fat tested?
I am not sure what numbers are correct but I would trust trackwrestling numbers over the WIAA in this instance. And we also know that a lot of the kids that fat tested did not even end up wrestling or quit early
I jump on this forum the once a year when this comes up. It gets more fanciful and lacking of basic logic every time, so good luck, I'm out. I mean seriously you have right in front of you the WIAA stating participation 2018-2019 #'s are up in wrestling, but you think it is the schools lying to the WIAA who also are lying out of self interest? Maybe the best answer is the easiest answer---that the WIAA has better access to facts then 2-3 Forum warriors that by their own admission have self interest conflicts (how many years did you state Doc that you went without a 106er, 10 years you stated I think). Doc on the other post about rankings talks about the unreliable nature of track, but yet for this subject it is the gold standard instead of the WIAA. C'mon. Instead of this crud every year we should be having posts on what to do to build on these gains, not knock it down.
Exactly. Way more important things to talk about to grow our sport in WI besides cutting weight classes.
Currently the NFHS has offered change in weight classes for states, that's why this is important to look at. The NFHS goes off of recommendations from their Regional Reps. The Regional Reps have been crunching these same numbers for the past several years. Conclusion? Most schools in many states can't support 14 weight classes, thus a change is available. If it's really obvious that the numbers are doing well, then there isn't reason to change.
Minnesota's allowance of capable Jr High athletes to participate is an interesting concept, and I think at least helps their state wrestling program to competitive success. While I used to think it was silly, I've really warmed up to the idea. Being from Western Wisconsin, we spent much if not most of our youth wrestling weekends over in Minnesota (my now 11th grade son has always been very light and we got MUCH better competition over there). I don't have the numbers, but anecdotally their rosters and tourneys are certainly more full as a rule than here in WI, especially in the lower weights. Too bad WIAA doesn't allow the same.
I'm not a diehard in keeping 14 weights- heck NCAA has only 10. My issue is that the immediate response is to eliminate/consolidate the lower weights. There are many, many great 106 and 113 pounders around the state. My son's experience in wrestling has always been colored with being outsized. As a Junior, he finally has "grown into" his weight class at 106 to where he is for once one of the bigger, stronger wrestlers. If weights started at say 115, he (and a significant number of other kids) would still be too outsized to be competitive at the highest levels. Remember that most sports are highly "discriminatory" against the smaller kids- wrestling has always been different. Some kids don't hit their growth spurts until their Sophomore/Junior years. I can't imagine those kids sticking around until they do grow into the lower weights. The Minnesota rule allows those lower weights to be filled while the Freshmen and Sophomores are waiting for their growth spurt.
Also, I found the stats by weight class interesting. Although 106 and 113 had lower % participation than most weights, it was not skewed nearly as much as I would have thought. The lack of participation numbers were for the most part spread out over the majority of weight classes. I can't remember what the weight class recommendations are for 12 and 13 class spreads, but perhaps it would be best to slightly spread most classes and perhaps raise the lowest weights by only a couple of pounds. (e.g. 108, 115, 122, 130, 138, etc.). Feel free to critique or share better ideas.
Effective July 1 2023
Boys
12 weights 108/116/ 124/ 131/ 138/ 145/ 152/ 160/170/190/215/285
13 weights 107/114/121/127/133/139/145/ 152/ 160/172/189/215/285
14 weights 106/113/120/126/132/138/144/150/157/165/175/190/215/285
The other major NFHS rule change was to allow a 6th match (not including forfeits) in a day for state qualifying tournaments. This should allow the coaches association to consider super regionals and/or super sectionals since all wrestling could be completed in one day instead of a Friday evening and Saturday.
Anyone want to guess if this happens in the next two years?
Quote from: Numbers on December 26, 2021, 07:57:40 PM
Effective July 1 2023
Boys
12 weights 108/116/ 124/ 131/ 138/ 145/ 152/ 160/170/190/215/285
13 weights 107/114/121/127/133/139/145/ 152/ 160/172/189/215/285
14 weights 106/113/120/126/132/138/144/150/157/165/175/190/215/285
The difference in 170/172 and 190/189 between 12 and 13 weight classes is baffling since the 3 weight classes before and two after are all exactly the same? Any chance this gets cleaned up at the national level this Spring?
I personally think that the highest any weight class before 285 should be 200. 215 and 285 is too much when so many kids fit middle weights.
I still cannot believe that college does not have 215 but if they do not then why would high school when you are looking at reducing weights.
BIG tournaments, BIG numbers- best of the year. Didn't have time to break it down by weight classes but....
183 teams participated in indy tournaments and scrambles (scrambles often had teams bringing more than 14 wrestlers) and including the females in the Women's Bi-State showcase.
2562 available slots for wrestlers based on # of teams participating. We filled 1793. That breaks down to 9.7 wrestlers per team.
On The Water tournament had 63 teams. None of the teams entered 14 wrestlers.
Obviously there is a high demand, we need more opportunities available.
Maybe less weight classes along with allowing 7th and 8th graders to compete could increase participation and fill more weights.
NCAA has 10 weight classes. I can't think of a sport where we have more spots on high school teams than we do on college teams. We don't have 15 man football teams for big high schools just to have them play 11 man football in college.
Just to get this out there. Less weight classes doesn't mean less opportunities. Everyone is allowed to compete for a varsity spot. Competition in a wrestling room is a real thing. We don't make basketball teams bigger to increase opportunities. 5 people on the court per team, with kids competing to get one of those 5 spots.
Anyway let the fight continue.... Teams filled with kids on varsity who have nobody at the same weight competing for the varsity spot is the equivalent to giving each kid a participation trophy. Congrats for coming out here is your Letter!
Comparisons to basketball or other sports are invalid as they do not have the limitation of weight classes.
Quote from: Hillbilly on January 08, 2022, 06:36:58 PM
On The Water tournament had 63 teams. None of the teams entered 14 wrestlers.
Obviously there is a high demand, we need more opportunities available.
Maybe less weight classes along with allowing 7th and 8th graders to compete could increase participation and fill more weights.
NCAA has 10 weight classes. I can't think of a sport where we have more spots on high school teams than we do on college teams. We don't have 15 man football teams for big high schools just to have them play 11 man football in college.
Just to get this out there. Less weight classes doesn't mean less opportunities. Everyone is allowed to compete for a varsity spot. Competition in a wrestling room is a real thing. We don't make basketball teams bigger to increase opportunities. 5 people on the court per team, with kids competing to get one of those 5 spots.
Anyway let the fight continue.... Teams filled with kids on varsity who have nobody at the same weight competing for the varsity spot is the equivalent to giving each kid a participation trophy. Congrats for coming out here is your Letter!
https://www.trackwrestling.com/predefinedtournaments/MainFrame.jsp?newSession=false&TIM=1641739824335&pageName=%2Fpredefinedtournaments%2FTournamentTeams.jsp&twSessionId=rzidwjhqgc
A great day of wrestling. Lots of competition, lots of cheering fans. Wrestlers had good and bad days as it should be. See the teams and numbers....... Let's suppose we made this a dual tournament or a series of tris or double duals or whatever. This would have been uninspiring in contrast to the day where people cheered for their wrestlers and those from other teams for times when it helped their team's score.
Let's suppose you hold this as a series of tris or double duals with 12 weights. The results and entertainment level would be the same as with 14 weights or any number of weight classes (neither
would be as exciting as the Saturday individual format).
If you retract, you cut down our ability to recruit especially the lighter weights. Again I ask you to look at the CDC charts for high school aged boys. On Saturday more a than a few of the wrestlers were small for 103.
We have no such complaints in regard to club wrestling where weights are numerous and close together. The issues disappear if you get away from the emphasis on duals.
Thanks for listening.
I see Montini Catholic in IL only brought 6 to Cheesehead. Crazy to see one the best programs in the nation fall tough times, maybe they need to co-op or talk to the state about reducing classes. Or maybe a tournament is just a moment in time and brief snapshot of a team. So many variables why a team may or may not bring kids to a tournament, but unfortunately it doesn't fit a few peoples narrative here.
I was at a JV tournament yesterday. Kids left to go to the tournament at 7am, got home at 6pm. Wrestling didn't start til nearly 11am, some kids first match wasn't til past 1pm. Tournaments like these drive kids out of the sport so much more then a dual with an extra forfeit. It is just to hard for a few here to come up with better solutions.
Boring duals is so far down the priority list.
Quote from: Hillbilly on January 08, 2022, 06:36:58 PM
On The Water tournament had 63 teams. None of the teams entered 14 wrestlers.
Obviously there is a high demand, we need more opportunities available.
Maybe less weight classes along with allowing 7th and 8th graders to compete could increase participation and fill more weights.
NCAA has 10 weight classes. I can't think of a sport where we have more spots on high school teams than we do on college teams. We don't have 15 man football teams for big high schools just to have them play 11 man football in college.
Just to get this out there. Less weight classes doesn't mean less opportunities. Everyone is allowed to compete for a varsity spot. Competition in a wrestling room is a real thing. We don't make basketball teams bigger to increase opportunities. 5 people on the court per team, with kids competing to get one of those 5 spots.
Anyway let the fight continue.... Teams filled with kids on varsity who have nobody at the same weight competing for the varsity spot is the equivalent to giving each kid a participation trophy. Congrats for coming out here is your Letter!
Do you know why no teams had 14 wrestlers or just making comments without any knowledge?
We could have had 14 had all went well...unfortunately because of injury, grades and Covid protocol we had 9. Basically the same story for many of the teams. I'm not saying most of the teams fill 14 weights but there were a lot of kids out. Also, plenty of teams don't bring the kids that won't compete well and send them to a jv tournament down the line.
Still better than tris and quads on a school night getting home late........
Quote from: asdf on January 09, 2022, 11:55:57 AM
I see Montini Catholic in IL only brought 6 to Cheesehead. Crazy to see one the best programs in the nation fall tough times, maybe they need to co-op or talk to the state about reducing classes. Or maybe a tournament is just a moment in time and brief snapshot of a team. So many variables why a team may or may not bring kids to a tournament, but unfortunately it doesn't fit a few peoples narrative here.
I was at a JV tournament yesterday. Kids left to go to the tournament at 7am, got home at 6pm. Wrestling didn't start til nearly 11am, some kids first match wasn't til past 1pm. Tournaments like these drive kids out of the sport so much more then a dual with an extra forfeit. It is just to hard for a few here to come up with better solutions.
Boring duals is so far down the priority list.
1/8/22 Our biggest weekend of the year. More teams participated in more tournaments than in previous weekends. This one is interesting because of the JV Challenge tournaments throughout the state (those weren't counted in the totals). Obviously some kids on some teams fit the description of "varsity fill-ins" and therefore went to a JV tournament rather than going to a varsity tournament if their team was attending one. Therefore this weekend should have numbers that are a bit more true to how many "varsity ready" wrestlers we have vs wrestling varsity simply because there's nobody else available. Illness was one extenuating circumstance this weekend for a variety of teams. There may have been JV kids who normally might have "filled in" for a sick varsity wrestler, that chose rather to attend their JV challenge tournament. I'm only speculating of course. A trend is showing up that also appeared in my data from 6 years ago and from Regional data previously. The 113 lb weight class once again seems to be the least populated weight with only 42% of teams having a 113.
218 teams participated in in-state Varsity tournaments this weekend creating slots for up to 3,052 wrestlers. 1845 wrestlers competed, which equates to 60%, or 8.4 wrestlers per team.
106 - 55%
113 - 42%
120 - 54%
126 - 60%
132 - 54%
138 - 65%
145 - 72%
152 - 74%
160 - 65%
170 - 67%
182 - 58%
195 - 60%
220 - 67%
285 - 57%
Weekend of 1/15: A pretty large shift in the types of tournaments this weekend. More scrambles, and more Invites letting teams bring extra wrestlers. Likely kids who coaches are willing to let them get their feet wet for some varsity action. Quite a few weight classes had several more wrestlers in them than the total number of teams. It's a good way to help fill brackets and get some additional experience before JV State, ect. Kudos to host teams letting this happen, in general there isn't much of a downside. But in this exercise it does skew the "Varsity" numbers a bit, but meh, it all comes out in the wash anyway. 113 again was the least filled weight class. 145/152 were the most filled at 80% each.
We had 157 teams participating (in state) for a total of 2,198 possible wrestlers. There were 1429 actual wrestlers filling 65% of the spots or 9.1 wrestlers per team on average
106 - 55%
113 - 52%
120 - 59%
126 - 60%
132 - 66%
138 - 74%
145 - 80%
152 - 80%
160 - 73%
170 - 66%
182 - 59%
195 - 62%
220 - 66%
285 - 58%
Quote from: Handles II on January 18, 2022, 09:23:32 AM
Weekend of 1/15: A pretty large shift in the types of tournaments this weekend. More scrambles, and more Invites letting teams bring extra wrestlers. Likely kids who coaches are willing to let them get their feet wet for some varsity action. Quite a few weight classes had several more wrestlers in them than the total number of teams. It's a good way to help fill brackets and get some additional experience before JV State, ect. Kudos to host teams letting this happen, in general there isn't much of a downside. But in this exercise it does skew the "Varsity" numbers a bit, but meh, it all comes out in the wash anyway. 113 again was the least filled weight class. 145/152 were the most filled at 80% each.
We had 157 teams participating (in state) for a total of 2,198 possible wrestlers. There were 1429 actual wrestlers filling 65% of the spots or 9.1 wrestlers per team on average
106 - 55%
113 - 52%
120 - 59%
126 - 60%
132 - 66%
138 - 74%
145 - 80%
152 - 80%
160 - 73%
170 - 66%
182 - 59%
195 - 62%
220 - 66%
285 - 58%
Obviously I don't agree with your proposal of moving to 10 weights. Although you keep seeing that 113 is the lowest % weight class. I try and make small changes that make big impacts in work, etc. What do you think is the smallest change we could make that would make a big impact? 10 weights is very polarizing for a lot of the wrestling community, but maybe there is a small change that would make a big difference.
Quote from: wrastle63 on January 18, 2022, 10:48:06 AM
Quote from: Handles II on January 18, 2022, 09:23:32 AM
Weekend of 1/15: A pretty large shift in the types of tournaments this weekend. More scrambles, and more Invites letting teams bring extra wrestlers. Likely kids who coaches are willing to let them get their feet wet for some varsity action. Quite a few weight classes had several more wrestlers in them than the total number of teams. It's a good way to help fill brackets and get some additional experience before JV State, ect. Kudos to host teams letting this happen, in general there isn't much of a downside. But in this exercise it does skew the "Varsity" numbers a bit, but meh, it all comes out in the wash anyway. 113 again was the least filled weight class. 145/152 were the most filled at 80% each.
We had 157 teams participating (in state) for a total of 2,198 possible wrestlers. There were 1429 actual wrestlers filling 65% of the spots or 9.1 wrestlers per team on average
106 - 55%
113 - 52%
120 - 59%
126 - 60%
132 - 66%
138 - 74%
145 - 80%
152 - 80%
160 - 73%
170 - 66%
182 - 59%
195 - 62%
220 - 66%
285 - 58%
Obviously I don't agree with your proposal of moving to 10 weights. Although you keep seeing that 113 is the lowest % weight class. I try and make small changes that make big impacts in work, etc. What do you think is the smallest change we could make that would make a big impact? 10 weights is very polarizing for a lot of the wrestling community, but maybe there is a small change that would make a big difference.
All of it is a bit polarizing. Any data or discussion sends people into a tailspin.
I can't remember who said this years ago, but it's my favorite idea regarding weights.
Name them, like boxing or other sports do. Whether it is 12, 13, or 14, allow the actual weight classes to be determined by actual bodfat data, and go from there. Maybe adjust the weights every 5? years or so? If every state used trackwrestling as a data hub for bodyfat tests, we'd have a huge sample size to pull from.
Quote from: wrastle63 on January 18, 2022, 10:48:06 AM
Quote from: Handles II on January 18, 2022, 09:23:32 AM
Weekend of 1/15: A pretty large shift in the types of tournaments this weekend. More scrambles, and more Invites letting teams bring extra wrestlers. Likely kids who coaches are willing to let them get their feet wet for some varsity action. Quite a few weight classes had several more wrestlers in them than the total number of teams. It's a good way to help fill brackets and get some additional experience before JV State, ect. Kudos to host teams letting this happen, in general there isn't much of a downside. But in this exercise it does skew the "Varsity" numbers a bit, but meh, it all comes out in the wash anyway. 113 again was the least filled weight class. 145/152 were the most filled at 80% each.
We had 157 teams participating (in state) for a total of 2,198 possible wrestlers. There were 1429 actual wrestlers filling 65% of the spots or 9.1 wrestlers per team on average
106 - 55%
113 - 52%
120 - 59%
126 - 60%
132 - 66%
138 - 74%
145 - 80%
152 - 80%
160 - 73%
170 - 66%
182 - 59%
195 - 62%
220 - 66%
285 - 58%
Obviously I don't agree with your proposal of moving to 10 weights. Although you keep seeing that 113 is the lowest % weight class. I try and make small changes that make big impacts in work, etc. What do you think is the smallest change we could make that would make a big impact? 10 weights is very polarizing for a lot of the wrestling community, but maybe there is a small change that would make a big difference.
Can you show us where I ever once said going to 10 weights is what I am proposing? Didn't think so. The NFHS has proposed 14, 13, 12, starting for the 23-24 season. That's why I'm doing all of this work, so we can see our numbers and make hopefully a decision based on data rather than emotions.
Quote from: Ghetto on January 18, 2022, 12:14:18 PM
Quote from: wrastle63 on January 18, 2022, 10:48:06 AM
Quote from: Handles II on January 18, 2022, 09:23:32 AM
Weekend of 1/15: A pretty large shift in the types of tournaments this weekend. More scrambles, and more Invites letting teams bring extra wrestlers. Likely kids who coaches are willing to let them get their feet wet for some varsity action. Quite a few weight classes had several more wrestlers in them than the total number of teams. It's a good way to help fill brackets and get some additional experience before JV State, ect. Kudos to host teams letting this happen, in general there isn't much of a downside. But in this exercise it does skew the "Varsity" numbers a bit, but meh, it all comes out in the wash anyway. 113 again was the least filled weight class. 145/152 were the most filled at 80% each.
We had 157 teams participating (in state) for a total of 2,198 possible wrestlers. There were 1429 actual wrestlers filling 65% of the spots or 9.1 wrestlers per team on average
106 - 55%
113 - 52%
120 - 59%
126 - 60%
132 - 66%
138 - 74%
145 - 80%
152 - 80%
160 - 73%
170 - 66%
182 - 59%
195 - 62%
220 - 66%
285 - 58%
Obviously I don't agree with your proposal of moving to 10 weights. Although you keep seeing that 113 is the lowest % weight class. I try and make small changes that make big impacts in work, etc. What do you think is the smallest change we could make that would make a big impact? 10 weights is very polarizing for a lot of the wrestling community, but maybe there is a small change that would make a big difference.
All of it is a bit polarizing. Any data or discussion sends people into a tailspin.
I can't remember who said this years ago, but it's my favorite idea regarding weights.
Name them, like boxing or other sports do. Whether it is 12, 13, or 14, allow the actual weight classes to be determined by actual bodfat data, and go from there. Maybe adjust the weights every 5? years or so? If every state used trackwrestling as a data hub for bodyfat tests, we'd have a huge sample size to pull from.
That's not a bad idea. It would probably have to go off of at least some kind of average/trends, maybe 3 years worth of data and then at least a year's notice of any changes. Though to be honest, as a coach, I'm not a huge fan of constantly moving weight classes, simply because I can't remember them! ;D
Quote from: Handles II on January 10, 2022, 10:32:13 AM
218 teams participated in in-state Varsity tournaments this weekend creating slots for up to 3,052 wrestlers. 1845 wrestlers competed, which equates to 60%, or 8.4 wrestlers per team.
106 - 55%
113 - 42%
120 - 54%
126 - 60%
132 - 54%
138 - 65%
145 - 72%
152 - 74%
160 - 65%
170 - 67%
182 - 58%
195 - 60%
220 - 67%
285 - 57%
Not a single weight that even hits 75% filled. That is after a bunch of coops in the state already. When over a third of the state weights are vacant, wrestling has a problem. How do kids even find good partners in practice?
The sad part is even moving to 12 weights will only increase the percentage about 10%.
I'm not saying that the numbers shouldn't be reduced......However, we need to remember that this year can't be used as a measuring stick. Last years "pandemic" resulted in a lot of teams not being able to recruit new underclassmen to the sport. In addition, this year every team is decimated with sickness. Whether its COVID, the flu or whatever label you want to use, it's going through rooms like never before. Just food for thought
Quote from: Wrath on January 18, 2022, 01:55:02 PM
I'm not saying that the numbers shouldn't be reduced......However, we need to remember that this year can't be used as a measuring stick. Last years "pandemic" resulted in a lot of teams not being able to recruit new underclassmen to the sport. In addition, this year every team is decimated with sickness. Whether its COVID, the flu or whatever label you want to use, it's going through rooms like never before. Just food for thought
This year's numbers are extremely similar to those of the past 6 years. Covid may have made a difference in overall team numbers, but as far as "Varsity" participation, it's nearly identical to other years. And the decision to change weights is after next year. So this year's data should be looked at because what you said might be true, fewer kids were recruited last year and this year, thus in another year our numbers might be even lower.
I rarely post and understand that many teams, mine included, are forfeiting weight classes. Getting rid of spots, however, is only going to hurt kids. It will not help some of our smaller athletes and it will not make our sport more attractive to athletes who have not participated before. I am not arguing with the data, I just don't see how cutting the number of weight classes is going to improve anything but the percentage of spots filled in a dual.
Ernie Millard
Quote from: Ernie1964 on January 19, 2022, 02:35:16 PM
I rarely post and understand that many teams, mine included, are forfeiting weight classes. Getting rid of spots, however, is only going to hurt kids. It will not help some of our smaller athletes and it will not make our sport more attractive to athletes who have not participated before. I am not arguing with the data, I just don't see how cutting the number of weight classes is going to improve anything but the percentage of spots filled in a dual.
Ernie Millard
Hello Ernie,
I am sorry, but I whole heartedly disagree with your logic on this point. As has been mentioned earlier in this thread, because of the existence of JV and freshman level competition, limitations on weight classes likely pushes less-competitive wrestlers into those (arguably more appropriate) venues for competition. Opportunities to wrestle are there, but not for everyone just because they go out for the team. Wrestling on the JV should be no shame for virtually any kid, with rare exceptions. And if it is, then I think we have exposed a broader social issue here, e.g., "If I can't play with the big boys then I won't play at all." The implication is that I shouldn't have to "earn the opportunity" but rather, it should be given to me - there should be a spot on arsity waiting for me if I want it.
The downside (in my opinion) of relatively more weight classes is that is undercuts the rational for having dual meets because teams with a bigger body count, as opposed to concentrated talent in a smaller number of weights, gain an advantage in the dual meet score setting. I have less of a problem with more weights when it comes to tournaments, but if duals are going to remain a part of high school wrestling, more weights is a drag on the system.
IMO, this debate the forum is having is more about societal attitudes than it is about opportunities for a kid to get on the mat.
If we are going to have data driven conversations over reductions in weight classes, which is more than ok, then we also need to analyze the data and understand which forfeits are because of a lack of wrestlers, and which are because of injury or avoiding a really good wrestler to get a matchup you think you can win. We then need to have data driven conversations over what the weight classes should be. It's illogical to say "we need to reduce weight classes because of data" and also say "we need to keep 106 where it is because I know some studs that were at 106" or "I know some studs at 220 that would have been at a severe disadvantage if we dropped that weight class to 200". First the studs who were at 106 would be fine at say 110, or where the data says the bottom weight class should be, and the non studs as already pointed out can have JV opportunities, and the same for the studs at 220. If you have data driven conversations about weight classes, I think you will find that based on the relatively normal distribution of wrestler weights, you need to have weight classes closer together in the middle weights and stretched out at the extremes if you really want to reduce forfeits. Then you need to have data driven conversations around the actual impact of reduced weight classes on the number of forfeits and the number of matches wrestled, because it's going to impact both. You will have fewer forfeits, but you will also have fewer matches wrestled, and I'm guessing the reduction on average will be similar. You will have duals that end up with more forfeits as kids stack up at a weight class because the classes moved and one of them doesn't far test for the weight class below their old one. I did a little forecasting based on one teams schedule a couple years ago where they typically had 12 weight classes, went through the entire season results and estimated the reduction in forfeits and reduction in matches per dual. I had to use the MWC results for current weight classes and estimate where they would be as that's all I have access to. What I found with my estimates in that one season with that one team was that forfeits would have been down approximately 1 forfeit per dual. Matches wrestled would have also been down approximately 1 per dual. There were duals where there would have been more forfeits than with 14 weight classes, and there were duals where there would have been more matches wrestled, but the average was a reduction of 1 forfeit and 1 match wrestled. Obviously those numbers are going to vary per team, and that only counts the forfeits that are a result of nobody at a weight class because that's the only forfeit that reducing weight classes will have a significant impact on. For larger schools with full lineups, that reduction in forfeits will be closer to 0, and the reduction in matches wrestled be closer to 2, and for smaller schools the opposite, though it's going to be really hard to get the reduction in forfeits close to 2 because every team has a different roster make up and has holes at different spots, so approaching the max of 2 reduced forfeits is going to be rare. I'm guessing that if we crunch the data across the entire state, that the reduction in matches wrestled will be greater than the reduction in forfeits. The impact on the number of matches wrestled and the length of a dual between 2 teams with a handful of wrestlers each is going to be negligible because the odds of the new weight classes lining up with their rosters in a way that creates matchups that didn't exist before is low. I'm nit opposed to reducing weight classes, but I would like to see the data. I don't want to just see a data driven argument about the number of forfeits, and an emotionaly driven argument about the number of weight classes being the answer. It's not "simple math". It's closer to graduate level statistics than it is simple math. Argue for the weight classes with the data, with the bell curve, with standard deviations, and with forecasted dual meet results based on data driven weight class choices. Start the argument with data, finish it with data.
Quote from: ChargerDad on January 21, 2022, 06:47:21 AM
If we are going to have data driven conversations over reductions in weight classes, which is more than ok, then we also need to analyze the data and understand which forfeits are because of a lack of wrestlers, and which are because of injury or avoiding a really good wrestler to get a matchup you think you can win. We then need to have data driven conversations over what the weight classes should be. It's illogical to say "we need to reduce weight classes because of data" and also say "we need to keep 106 where it is because I know some studs that were at 106" or "I know some studs at 220 that would have been at a severe disadvantage if we dropped that weight class to 200". First the studs who were at 106 would be fine at say 110, or where the data says the bottom weight class should be, and the non studs as already pointed out can have JV opportunities, and the same for the studs at 220. If you have data driven conversations about weight classes, I think you will find that based on the relatively normal distribution of wrestler weights, you need to have weight classes closer together in the middle weights and stretched out at the extremes if you really want to reduce forfeits. Then you need to have data driven conversations around the actual impact of reduced weight classes on the number of forfeits and the number of matches wrestled, because it's going to impact both. You will have fewer forfeits, but you will also have fewer matches wrestled, and I'm guessing the reduction on average will be similar. You will have duals that end up with more forfeits as kids stack up at a weight class because the classes moved and one of them doesn't far test for the weight class below their old one. I did a little forecasting based on one teams schedule a couple years ago where they typically had 12 weight classes, went through the entire season results and estimated the reduction in forfeits and reduction in matches per dual. I had to use the MWC results for current weight classes and estimate where they would be as that's all I have access to. What I found with my estimates in that one season with that one team was that forfeits would have been down approximately 1 forfeit per dual. Matches wrestled would have also been down approximately 1 per dual. There were duals where there would have been more forfeits than with 14 weight classes, and there were duals where there would have been more matches wrestled, but the average was a reduction of 1 forfeit and 1 match wrestled. Obviously those numbers are going to vary per team, and that only counts the forfeits that are a result of nobody at a weight class because that's the only forfeit that reducing weight classes will have a significant impact on. For larger schools with full lineups, that reduction in forfeits will be closer to 0, and the reduction in matches wrestled be closer to 2, and for smaller schools the opposite, though it's going to be really hard to get the reduction in forfeits close to 2 because every team has a different roster make up and has holes at different spots, so approaching the max of 2 reduced forfeits is going to be rare. I'm guessing that if we crunch the data across the entire state, that the reduction in matches wrestled will be greater than the reduction in forfeits. The impact on the number of matches wrestled and the length of a dual between 2 teams with a handful of wrestlers each is going to be negligible because the odds of the new weight classes lining up with their rosters in a way that creates matchups that didn't exist before is low. I'm nit opposed to reducing weight classes, but I would like to see the data. I don't want to just see a data driven argument about the number of forfeits, and an emotionaly driven argument about the number of weight classes being the answer. It's not "simple math". It's closer to graduate level statistics than it is simple math. Argue for the weight classes with the data, with the bell curve, with standard deviations, and with forecasted dual meet results based on data driven weight class choices. Start the argument with data, finish it with data.
No you have to use the data to go with whatever position you hold and what you think we should do as a state! lol
1) # of Weight classes for duals and tournaments does not need to be the same
2) JV weight classes do not have to be the same as varsity weight classes and probably should not be as they are typically younger
3) A successful format for duals is one that sets up for teams to have increased chance of having 2 kids at each weight class. Using injury or covid excuses and teams with no back ups shows the system is not set up for success.
4) Going to 12 of 13 weight classes is going to change very little. Move to 10 weight classes. Each dual has a varsity and JV dual of hopefully 20 matches plus exhibitions. Have 14 weight classes at tournaments
5) Need to wrestle more post-match exhibitions after the dual. Give kids 2 matches even if it matches up a 138lb varsity wrestler with the 132 lb varsity wrestler of the other team in a post match exhibition match.
6) I would have middle school coincide right along with high school and they wrestle on extra mat(s) at duals also. Have weight classes and duals with the middle schools also and then exhibition matches. All coaches and wrestlers working together. You could even convince me to allow 8th graders to wrestle varsity and 7th graders to wrestle JV if needed. This would create a nice crowd with multiple matches going on at once.
Doc.......are we forgetting that we are not binded to the oldn7 and 7 rule. Get 4 teams in the gym and most every kid should get 1 or 2 matches. No need for exhibitions because what do they really do, pride but for the most part kids want their matches to count.
I say 13 weight classes like some states are doing but we need to be careful with the weight we drop. Data is saying that maybe combine the 3 smaller classes into 2 classes.
Quote from: DocWrestling on January 21, 2022, 10:00:47 AM
1) # of Weight classes for duals and tournaments does not need to be the same
2) JV weight classes do not have to be the same as varsity weight classes and probably should not be as they are typically younger
3) A successful format for duals is one that sets up for teams to have increased chance of having 2 kids at each weight class. Using injury or covid excuses and teams with no back ups shows the system is not set up for success.
4) Going to 12 of 13 weight classes is going to change very little. Move to 10 weight classes. Each dual has a varsity and JV dual of hopefully 20 matches plus exhibitions. Have 14 weight classes at tournaments
5) Need to wrestle more post-match exhibitions after the dual. Give kids 2 matches even if it matches up a 138lb varsity wrestler with the 132 lb varsity wrestler of the other team in a post match exhibition match.
6) I would have middle school coincide right along with high school and they wrestle on extra mat(s) at duals also. Have weight classes and duals with the middle schools also and then exhibition matches. All coaches and wrestlers working together. You could even convince me to allow 8th graders to wrestle varsity and 7th graders to wrestle JV if needed. This would create a nice crowd with multiple matches going on at once.
Amen. Is there a rule that we have to have the same number of weight classes for duals and individual tournaments? I would be perfectly fine if we go to 10 weights for duals, but keep 14 for tournaments. It solves both problems. Gives the kids the opportunities to be at their optimal weight, doesn't cut kids from being sectional and state qualifiers, and still makes duals better product.
Charger,
All of your points are valid, and have been discussed. Here's the deal, the NFHS Representatives are not discussing why team A forfeits the 113 weight class sometimes and other times they forfeit 120. The NFHS isn't asking if kids are injured or recovering. That's too individualized. They have been looking at a huge pile of data from multiple Regions/States over the past several years. They are looking at percentages of teams that can fill 14, 13, or 12 weight classes, and in a slightly lesser amount, which weight classes have the most/fewest percentage of participants through all of those totals.
You've seen their proposed weight classes for each option (posted in this thread). They aren't very bell curved in my opinion, or as much as probably both of us and others feel they should be, but neither are the college weights for that matter. They might also be looking at the realization that JV/Frosh participation is a real and acceptable option for those who aren't in the Varsity line up just as it is in other sports they oversee.
The reality is that each state's Athletics Board (or similar) will need to make decisions to stay the course or change after the end of next season. In some states, this might be done with coaches/Coaches Association input. It won't be input from parents, fans, or wrestlers or those saying "I know a kid...". They will use numbers and percentages of the data, and any voting input they choose to use. I'm trying to provide information either for awareness of coaches who might vote on the decision, or perhaps to give some perspective to those who have always been around teams full or mostly full, or those who have always been around teams that are far less than full, what the numbers are really doing throughout our state.
Quote from: littleguy301 on January 21, 2022, 10:11:44 AM
Doc.......are we forgetting that we are not binded to the oldn7 and 7 rule. Get 4 teams in the gym and most every kid should get 1 or 2 matches. No need for exhibitions because what do they really do, pride but for the most part kids want their matches to count.
I say 13 weight classes like some states are doing but we need to be careful with the weight we drop. Data is saying that maybe combine the 3 smaller classes into 2 classes.
I like the idea of tris and quads but they also eliminate a lot of opportunities for teams to wrestle in their home gym
Quote from: DocWrestling on January 21, 2022, 10:48:05 AM
Quote from: littleguy301 on January 21, 2022, 10:11:44 AM
Doc.......are we forgetting that we are not binded to the oldn7 and 7 rule. Get 4 teams in the gym and most every kid should get 1 or 2 matches. No need for exhibitions because what do they really do, pride but for the most part kids want their matches to count.
I say 13 weight classes like some states are doing but we need to be careful with the weight we drop. Data is saying that maybe combine the 3 smaller classes into 2 classes.
I like the idea of tris and quads but they also eliminate a lot of opportunities for teams to wrestle in their home gym
Be pro active and not a problem with home meets. Our school was going to have 4 home meets this year but we ended up with 2. So your right next year on the old guidelines we were to have 3 but now looking at 4. Have to plan and get get into the school calendar early. Might have to do a Tuesday night, Friday night, Saturday morning or whatever works to get in some tris or quads. Also make it an event, might be some work to do by all but.....
Like I said I would go to 13 but that is about the end of it for me. I don't like the idea of taking anything away from kids. Not sure what the answer is. Maybe up as simple as up the pay to get more coaches back into wrestling.
Quote from: littleguy301 on January 21, 2022, 12:25:52 PM
Quote from: DocWrestling on January 21, 2022, 10:48:05 AM
Quote from: littleguy301 on January 21, 2022, 10:11:44 AM
Doc.......are we forgetting that we are not binded to the oldn7 and 7 rule. Get 4 teams in the gym and most every kid should get 1 or 2 matches. No need for exhibitions because what do they really do, pride but for the most part kids want their matches to count.
I say 13 weight classes like some states are doing but we need to be careful with the weight we drop. Data is saying that maybe combine the 3 smaller classes into 2 classes.
I like the idea of tris and quads but they also eliminate a lot of opportunities for teams to wrestle in their home gym
Be pro active and not a problem with home meets. Our school was going to have 4 home meets this year but we ended up with 2. So your right next year on the old guidelines we were to have 3 but now looking at 4. Have to plan and get get into the school calendar early. Might have to do a Tuesday night, Friday night, Saturday morning or whatever works to get in some tris or quads. Also make it an event, might be some work to do by all but.....
The quads this year have been great!!! It hides somewhat the forfeits and gets a lot of good match ups for the wrestlers and the fans!!
Conferences! Bragging rights! Most teams looked to fill as many weights as they could so some JV kids were given their "shot". Fyi, I only did conferences of the 2/5 weekend, not the weekend before. Time and energy were the main influencers, but like with all of these weekends, things tend to average out similarly.
220 teams participated with room for 3,080 wrestlers to participate. 2,201 wrestlers did participate and wrestled their hearts out. That equates to 10.001 varsity wrestlers per team.
106 - 57%
113 - 61%
120 - 70%
126 - 67%
132 - 74%
138 - 79%
145 - 79%
152 - 71%
160 - 79%
170 - 72%
182 - 71%
195 - 66%
220 - 70%
285 - 74%
In looking at last week's conference tournaments , the Southeast Conference has 8 teams. The smallest 4 teams had 9,9,2, and 0 wrestlers on their rosters. No teams had a full team.There was a weight class that had 3 wrestlers in it. The winner had 2 byes and championship match. Some conferences don't have a conference tournament. Maybe it's time to rethink some of these conference tournaments. Use dual meets to determine a conference champion and open up another date for an individual tournament. At least the kids would get some valuable mat time. Just a thought.
Quote from: knighthead on February 08, 2022, 10:52:24 AM
In looking at last week's conference tournaments , the Southeast Conference has 8 teams. The smallest 4 teams had 9,9,2, and 0 wrestlers on their rosters. No teams had a full team.There was a weight class that had 3 wrestlers in it. The winner had 2 byes and championship match. Some conferences don't have a conference tournament. Maybe it's time to rethink some of these conference tournaments. Use dual meets to determine a conference champion and open up another date for an individual tournament. At least the kids would get some valuable mat time. Just a thought.
I agree. Loooong ago (early '80's) our Conference Tourney was a BIG deal. However, there were some big differences compared to today. First, back then more of the teams had full rosters (nevermind the discussion of weight classes, there were more wrestlers per team and more evenly divided between biggest and smallest rosters). Also, for most teams, there were fewer and smaller tournaments throughout the season. We had maybe two or three 8 team and one 12-16 team tourneys. After mostly wrestling duals, an individual tournament was exciting. Now, tourneys (especially large ones) are more plentiful. At least in our conference, the energy and excitement just isn't there like it used to be. Plus, brackets are often not filled, some with three or four wrestlers. In our particular case, our regional is almost a repeat of conference tourney (includes all but 2 conference teams, add just 1 team from outside conference). So many if not most matches from last Saturday will be repeated this Saturday. Since wrestlers are focused on State Championship Series, much of the meaning is lost from conference tourney. Maybe others have differing thoughts, but I agree that this past weekend could be utilized in better ways- perhaps out of conference/division quads or tourneys. This could offer more kids more matches (against non-regional opponents if desired) to warm up for regionals.
Quote from: drbrad on February 08, 2022, 11:53:39 AM
Quote from: knighthead on February 08, 2022, 10:52:24 AM
In looking at last week's conference tournaments , the Southeast Conference has 8 teams. The smallest 4 teams had 9,9,2, and 0 wrestlers on their rosters. No teams had a full team.There was a weight class that had 3 wrestlers in it. The winner had 2 byes and championship match. Some conferences don't have a conference tournament. Maybe it's time to rethink some of these conference tournaments. Use dual meets to determine a conference champion and open up another date for an individual tournament. At least the kids would get some valuable mat time. Just a thought.
I agree. Loooong ago (early '80's) our Conference Tourney was a BIG deal. However, there were some big differences compared to today. First, back then more of the teams had full rosters (nevermind the discussion of weight classes, there were more wrestlers per team and more evenly divided between biggest and smallest rosters). Also, for most teams, there were fewer and smaller tournaments throughout the season. We had maybe two or three 8 team and one 12-16 team tourneys. After mostly wrestling duals, an individual tournament was exciting. Now, tourneys (especially large ones) are more plentiful. At least in our conference, the energy and excitement just isn't there like it used to be. Plus, brackets are often not filled, some with three or four wrestlers. In our particular case, our regional is almost a repeat of conference tourney (includes all but 2 conference teams, add just 1 team from outside conference). So many if not most matches from last Saturday will be repeated this Saturday. Since wrestlers are focused on State Championship Series, much of the meaning is lost from conference tourney. Maybe others have differing thoughts, but I agree that this past weekend could be utilized in better ways- perhaps out of conference/division quads or tourneys. This could offer more kids more matches (against non-regional opponents if desired) to warm up for regionals.
If conferences would combine to make, say, the Woodland/Southeast tournament, there would at least be 16 teams to pick from. As most conferences are 8ish teams, there could be 16 man scramble brackets that could allow for more wrestling.
Quote from: Ghetto on February 08, 2022, 01:30:28 PM
Quote from: drbrad on February 08, 2022, 11:53:39 AM
Quote from: knighthead on February 08, 2022, 10:52:24 AM
In looking at last week's conference tournaments , the Southeast Conference has 8 teams. The smallest 4 teams had 9,9,2, and 0 wrestlers on their rosters. No teams had a full team.There was a weight class that had 3 wrestlers in it. The winner had 2 byes and championship match. Some conferences don't have a conference tournament. Maybe it's time to rethink some of these conference tournaments. Use dual meets to determine a conference champion and open up another date for an individual tournament. At least the kids would get some valuable mat time. Just a thought.
I agree. Loooong ago (early '80's) our Conference Tourney was a BIG deal. However, there were some big differences compared to today. First, back then more of the teams had full rosters (nevermind the discussion of weight classes, there were more wrestlers per team and more evenly divided between biggest and smallest rosters). Also, for most teams, there were fewer and smaller tournaments throughout the season. We had maybe two or three 8 team and one 12-16 team tourneys. After mostly wrestling duals, an individual tournament was exciting. Now, tourneys (especially large ones) are more plentiful. At least in our conference, the energy and excitement just isn't there like it used to be. Plus, brackets are often not filled, some with three or four wrestlers. In our particular case, our regional is almost a repeat of conference tourney (includes all but 2 conference teams, add just 1 team from outside conference). So many if not most matches from last Saturday will be repeated this Saturday. Since wrestlers are focused on State Championship Series, much of the meaning is lost from conference tourney. Maybe others have differing thoughts, but I agree that this past weekend could be utilized in better ways- perhaps out of conference/division quads or tourneys. This could offer more kids more matches (against non-regional opponents if desired) to warm up for regionals.
If conferences would combine to make, say, the Woodland/Southeast tournament, there would at least be 16 teams to pick from. As most conferences are 8ish teams, there could be 16 man scramble brackets that could allow for more wrestling.
That's an interesting option. Wrestlers would all get more than 1 or 2 matches, more competitive brackets. Also, because of more teams/bracket this would reduce likelihood of duplicating upcoming regionals matches.
I totally agree with the last two posts. The first conference tournament I coached in was 77-78. Yes , those conference tournaments were brutal and then wrestling almost all of the same teams the next two weeks was ridiculous. Look back in the archives to the 1996 Conference tournament , 15 teams , 47 state qualifiers. Fortunately, wrestling had a real advocate in those days , the legendary AD at South Milwaukee HS Jim Teff who lobbied the WIAA to break up the regional and sectional tournaments to not be a repeat of the conference tournament. It wasn't perfect, but it sure helped. Combining the a Woodland and SEC makes total sense. We don't need drastic changes, but as a fan I would like to see a full day of wrestling with complete brackets. Thanks for the great ideas!
I think it would be even more fun to rotate the conferences you combine with. Maybe the SEC could combine with the FVA so it was completely different matches than regionals or sectionals. Could even help with seeding for the state tournament.
Host it one year at an FVA school, the next year at and SEC school. Every other year the team has a longer ride.
Finding new opponents is more fun and would help with new state seeding. These tournaments then should give announce based on results who was the top conference! Kids wrestling for themselves, their team, and representing their conference.
Awesome, love these ideas! Keep 'em coming , let's improve wrestling as a spectator sport. And then the crazy part is the WIAA takes over the regional and sectional tournaments, raises the admission price to see your kid wrestle one match.
Let's make a thread about possible changes to Conference tournaments. I'd like this one to not get too far off track. Most certainly filling an average of 10 out of 14 weight classes is the heart of conference tournament dilemmas. But those other changes (which I'm in favor of discussing) could be done on a different thread in addition to looking at the data of our current weight classes.