Reduction of weights argument

[ramjet]

12 weights is reasonable I like Docs weight idea except I would add 110 and 215-220.

Here me out 14 based on stats is too many but you want to consider the small guys then at the high end you have place for those that are little small to wrestle a 250+ guy.

Of course this is all just fun to talk about it will not happen so Aaron take it easy it's just banter.  

Your the only with your panties in a bundle.  I'm not worried because the WIAA isn't making any changes anytime soon.

Boxers actually and not pink like yours.

[DocWrestling]

I agree with everything mantywrestler says.  I am not against the little guy.  I am just against the ends of the bell curve.  There is no need for 220.  Yes it will hurt a few kids at each end of the spectrum.  I do see the argument that the real small guys really only can compete in wrestling as they are too small in other sports.  There is no great answer but I do believe that if you did what mantywrestler states it would be a huge boost.

I do think there are too many matches now and some coaches seemed to have the proper system to get their teams to peak at the right time.  We also have a lack of coaches and many of these same ideas would draw more coaches in or keep more coaches.

[ramjet]

It's just so sad for me to read all the posts wanting g to get rid of 106. What are guys like me suppose to do if we like wrestling? I was 85# as a freshman, 90# as a sophomore. Defending 2 time freestyle champ and a good wrestler. It could not make varsity because I was too small. Wrestled at 112 as a senior but actually weighed I. At 109 for my 5th place match. 7# under what I could have weighed. Raise the lowest weight another 3# from there and I may have never made it there.

Now how many would never see a varsity match, not because they ae not good enough but be ause they are just too small for 115. Doc, easy for you to say. What did you wrestle at? Your like 200# plus now. Easy for all you it guys to say the lowest weight should be moved up, you had all kinds of splats to compete in.

I would have loved to play football but was too small. Also too small for baseball. Just got over powered.

There are a lot of forfeits at 285# why doing you guys suggest getting rid of 285 and or 220?

Issue is and has always been participation. We have it here in Manitowoc in all sports now. We DO have kids who could wrestle at 106 in our school but they don't wrestle for various reasons. We need to get those guys involved. A lot of it goes back to the youth programs. The better youth programs somehow always seem to fill all weight classes on the high school team.

I suggest that successful programs share what works with the other schools around them. A rising tide lifts all boats.

Mat side weighing to make excessive cutting less attractive.

Uniform update. Wrestlers get it but a lot if kids are not fond of the singlet. Combat shorts and compression tops would be more attractive to many youth.

Kids tournaments need to GET PARENTS IN THE STANDS! 1 coach per corner MAX. Fans a can film or cheer from the stands. You would never see a mom or dad half way in the lane screaming SHOOT during a basketball game.

Shorter season. Start after thanksgiving. 5 tournament max with   Additional match per day(6). 10 duals with maybe 2 per week at times. Would also help with excessive cutting because it would be too hard to yo-yo.

Mirror college weights with 106 112 and 119. Makes 13 weights and a tie breaker. Hilt in. 197 is good enough for college it should be good enough for high school.

Just some thoughts.

Jack,

So the numbers in your area are down is this directly related to issues you outlined here?

Or is more related to the changing culture?

I have no issue with what you are suggesting and agree with all of it.

In fact mat side weighing are one thing I think would make the most dramatic change to this sport.

I even am changing my mind on the uniform thing as I saw enough C&B white Singlets this weekend to last me lifetime.

But how do feel about the lack of JV emphasis in this State and does the need to push kids ahead faster than they may be equipped to handle for the sake of filling varsity weights add to the failure of retaining many underclass man?

The WWF birth year model in my mind is one of the best models I really cannot find fault at with it and considering the use in youth and FS and Greco is very successful.  I mention this because of my feelings about the lack of JV at all divisions in High School Wrestling.

[jaguarwrestler]

Boowrestle....yes it is.  The Wiaa season should be shortened.  The open tournaments can continue and kids can still choose whether to attend open tournaments and events.  But go ahead...keep arguing about 12 or 14.  Nobody ever said wrestling fans were the brightest bunch.

I don't think the season is too long, but I do think we have way too many tournaments...we are talking about 8 or 9 weekends over 3 months including a weekend over Christmas break, depending on you and your team... any reason they need to wrestle 55 matches a year? What is wrong to going back to 35-40?

[ramjet]

Boowrestle....yes it is.  The Wiaa season should be shortened.  The open tournaments can continue and kids can still choose whether to attend open tournaments and events.  But go ahead...keep arguing about 12 or 14.  Nobody ever said wrestling fans were the brightest bunch.

I don't think the season is too long, but I do think we have way too many tournaments...we are talking about 8 or 9 weekends over 3 months including a weekend over Christmas break, depending on you and your team... any reason they need to wrestle 55 matches a year? What is wrong to going back to 35-40?

I know of several teams that do not require tournaments but do require you be there for dual meets.

[jaguarwrestler]

Lets Take D3

Eliminate 2 weight classes.
But allow 3 Places from each Regional compete at the Sectional that adds 6 more kids from each Regional than today.
Then Allow 4 places each weight from each Sectional qualify for State.

2 Weight classes would eliminate the 6 wrestlers from each Sectional for the State Tournament as it is today But do as suggested above and you actually will qualify 6 plus 6 more so more wrestlers could go to the State Tournament from each Sectional.

4 kids at each weight go to state in D3? Are you serious? You want a bunch of kids with .500 records or below to qualify? I thought your against everyone getting a trophy

[switch_it]

Do a little research before bashing D3.  For example, the 4th place finishers records at each weight class at the Bonduel Sectional...

23-10
28-13
35-8
33-9
29-12
19-13
33-9
26-5
27-14
31-5
7-5
29-10
39-5
17-8

Doesn't look like ANY below .500 wrestlers.  Many of them are state caliber wrestlers but won't get the chance to compete this week.  

[ramjet]

Lets Take D3

Eliminate 2 weight classes.
But allow 3 Places from each Regional compete at the Sectional that adds 6 more kids from each Regional than today.
Then Allow 4 places each weight from each Sectional qualify for State.

2 Weight classes would eliminate the 6 wrestlers from each Sectional for the State Tournament as it is today But do as suggested above and you actually will qualify 6 plus 6 more so more wrestlers could go to the State Tournament from each Sectional.

4 kids at each weight go to state in D3? Are you serious? You want a bunch of kids with .500 records or below to qualify? I thought your against everyone getting a trophy

Just making suggestions to offer a solution to the "leaving kids out" argument.

For conversations sake whats your suggestion?

Leave as is there is no issue?

Ummm switch_it just proved you wrong and if some of the weights were combined that number may even improve to a greater degree.

[jaguarwrestler]

eliminating 2 weights...

makes the top teams even stronger

slightly helps the teams that can only field 11-12 if it eliminates weight they can't fill

does nothing to help the teams that field 10 or less to be more competitive... unless giving up 12 points is a good thing... and that is if one of their 10 wrestlers weights doesn't get cut or then they would be down to 9 kids and giving up 18 in a dual.

so your helping maybe 30% of the teams in the state? is it worth it?

you want more kids to go out and stay out? get rid of regionals... have a super sectional... each team bring 2 per weight that gives a 32 man bracket... very few would bring 2 so you probably only have a handful of matches in the first round. Bring the top 3 from each weight to state. Gives every JV a chance at state so it keeps them around when they are stuck behind a string of studs in their team's lineup

have less duals and more triple duals on thrusday... or have 4 teams and they wrestle on 2 mats Team A vs B, Team C vs D... wrestling at school A, the next week they wrestle at school B and B takes on C while A takes in D... or whatever, point is figure out a way to have more than 1 dual at one school per night instead of a team traveling to have 7 matches 4 FF's and 3 double FF's

have duals before a college dual, example... on a Friday night have a dual in the Feildhouse before a UW dual... or at any college in the state. Bring in more fans, lets the kids wrestle on a big stage.

have less tournaments

with these ideas... kids would have to make weight less often, give more JV an opportunity to compete on the biggest stage, get more fans in the stands and give more matches on a Thursday/Friday night

[jaguarwrestler]

Do a little research before bashing D3.  For example, the 4th place finishers records at each weight class at the Bonduel Sectional...

23-10
28-13
35-8
33-9
29-12
19-13
33-9
26-5
27-14
31-5
7-5
29-10
39-5
17-8

Doesn't look like ANY below .500 wrestlers.  Many of them are state caliber wrestlers but won't get the chance to compete this week.  

I have done my research, you would have plenty with losing records and very close to .500... that is who you want at state? 7-5 and 19-13 are kids we want at state?

Indepedence, 24-19, 19-21

Necedah, 27-23, 15-21

Cedar Grove, 24-19

that is 7 wrestlers in 4 sectionals that have losing or just above losing records... that would all have made it to state.... after losing 2 matches at Sectionals.... If you lose twice in an 8 man bracket, not sure you should be wrestling at state.

[Ghetto]

Ghetto....do the sport a favor and actually ask kids why they don't join wrestling.  That would be an eye opening study for everyone....guarantee you they will not say anything about 14 or 12 weight classes.

I have asked kids within my school. Of course they dont' say anything about weight classes. That makes no sense.

There are a million reasons why. We are also fighting hockey and skiing in our school in addition to the normal excuses.

I dispute that we are hurting that many kids. We had 13 kids at regionals. Two of them were 0-0, and one of those kids would never have wrestled if we didn't think we were close to winning a regional title. For every injury or grade issue (really, grade issues? No one fails anymore) there are almost an equal amount of kids who get bumped up just for regionals.

One year I took the teams with 13 and 14 kids on the regional roster and took out the 0-0 kids and the ones who had a .201 record or less. I think there were 69 kids in the entire state that would theoretically be bumped out of the state tournament.

Large successful teams have reserve teams that go to varsity tournaments. Heck, we even bump some JV kids up when we can to varsity tournaments. The losing opportunities argument no longer holds water, especially with the new challenge series introduced by the WWCA.

We will support the challenge series, though we will likely only send one or two kids to it. The $110 is a big steep for two kids who likely won't be able to go to "state" but I appreciate the efforts of those guys, and support their efforts.

[Ghetto]

I'm pretty sure that I'll never get this to even come to a vote but I continue to push, because I think in general, its also good for our sport.

Newsflash: Teams like mine, who are not challenging the Kaukauna's and Rapids, Merrill's and Milton's DON'T CARE about those teams. We don't care about beating them. What we care about is beating Homestead in front of our home crowd so we can generate more interest in our program. We might be able to overcome a FF or two, but when we are down 24-0 before it starts, it's a tough sell. Winning creates buzz, which creates more interest in the program.

I think over the long haul that we'd be helping more than 30%. You just made that number up, so there's no evidence either way.

With WIAA rules, we can't double dual unless we drop a tournament.

Many of us are old enough to have wrestled with 12 weights. Would you say there are more numbers now that we have more weight classes? I can't say for sure if we had less weights we'd have more kids, but the numbers continue to fall. "More opportunities" isn't working either. It is time to try something new.

[kluevercoach]

I want to make sure everyone understands that the cost for the Regional event for JV is $10 per wrestler with a max of $100 for the team. Ghetto your cost would be $20 for your two wrestlers.

[aarons23]

Ghetto....do the sport a favor and actually ask kids why they don't join wrestling.  That would be an eye opening study for everyone....guarantee you they will not say anything about 14 or 12 weight classes.

I have asked kids within my school. Of course they dont' say anything about weight classes. That makes no sense.

There are a million reasons why. We are also fighting hockey and skiing in our school in addition to the normal excuses.

I dispute that we are hurting that many kids. We had 13 kids at regionals. Two of them were 0-0, and one of those kids would never have wrestled if we didn't think we were close to winning a regional title. For every injury or grade issue (really, grade issues? No one fails anymore) there are almost an equal amount of kids who get bumped up just for regionals.

One year I took the teams with 13 and 14 kids on the regional roster and took out the 0-0 kids and the ones who had a .201 record or less. I think there were 69 kids in the entire state that would theoretically be bumped out of the state tournament.

Large successful teams have reserve teams that go to varsity tournaments. Heck, we even bump some JV kids up when we can to varsity tournaments. The losing opportunities argument no longer holds water, especially with the new challenge series introduced by the WWCA.

We will support the challenge series, though we will likely only send one or two kids to it. The $110 is a big steep for two kids who likely won't be able to go to "state" but I appreciate the efforts of those guys, and support their efforts.

Why would you only send two wrestlers.....send all your JV....that would be supporting it! 

[neutral]

Why in the friggin' world are we discussing reduction of weight classes during the week plus prior to the top wrestling events in our state!

If you can't stick to the positives of our sport over the next 12 days ... your part of the problem.

Quit with the negative waves!!