Reduction of weights argument

[Recon]

From an article at Wissports.net written in April 2013 concerning WIAA sports participation:

"One sport that perhaps surprisingly hasn't seen a large-scale decrease in participation numbers is wrestling. Some have pointed to the sport as dwindling, but while the overall number of teams has gone down by 20, the overall participation has been largely unchanged from the 2002-03 numbers. There was a drop of 535 participants from 2010-11 to 2011-12 however."

http://www.wissports.net/news_article/show/248455

The data by year

Year             # of schools    # participants   participants/school
2011/2012    335                7399                22.1
2010/2011    334                7934                23.8
2009/2010    339                7684                22.7
2008/2009    342                8337                24.4
2007/2008    344                7749                22.5
2006/2007    344                7781                22.6
2005/2006    344                7529                21.9
2004/2005    349                7436                21.3
2003/2004    348                7288                20.9
2002/2003    355                7368                20.8

*  I can't tell from the article whether the term "school" is interchangeable with the term "team."

[Jim Rockford]

I honestly think that adding a weight class in the upper weights was just ridiculous.  The heavier weights are spread thin and the level of competitions is sometimes pretty brutal.  If you are thinking about cutting weight classes just go back to how it was in the 70's or 80's.  The light weights and middle weights are where most of the wrestlers fall into place so why would we replace a weight class in the middle weights for the heavier weights?

[Ghetto]

The numbers above show the issue almost better than anything that I have produced. No we haven't dropped in numbers, but the numbers have always been bad!! We are in a holding pattern where we barely can fill a team.

We have 14 weights. Average participation per school is 22. The stars have to perfectly align to fill all 14 weights. I am also going to guess that they take these participation numbers from the body fat test before the season starts. If so, the kids per team is far less than that. There are teams who body fat test kids who never find their way into the practice room. One example that comes directly to mind is Tosa. They body fat tested 47. They had 19 kids at the end of the season.

When we wrestled Cedarburg, they had three JV kids. We had two. No JV matches were wrestled. When we wrestled Port, we had two JV matches. Unless all three of us have large numbers of kids coming in, we are going to be FFing weights. Port returns 6 kids from the roster they had at conference. We have 10. Cedarburg has 10 as well.

[DocWrestling]

Lets use common sense.  There is no way the average wrestling roster in Wisconsin amongst all divisions is 22.

[aarons23]

The numbers above show the issue almost better than anything that I have produced. No we haven't dropped in numbers, but the numbers have always been bad!! We are in a holding pattern where we barely can fill a team.

We have 14 weights. Average participation per school is 22. The stars have to perfectly align to fill all 14 weights. I am also going to guess that they take these participation numbers from the body fat test before the season starts. If so, the kids per team is far less than that. There are teams who body fat test kids who never find their way into the practice room. One example that comes directly to mind is Tosa. They body fat tested 47. They had 19 kids at the end of the season.

When we wrestled Cedarburg, they had three JV kids. We had two. No JV matches were wrestled. When we wrestled Port, we had two JV matches. Unless all three of us have large numbers of kids coming in, we are going to be FFing weights. Port returns 6 kids from the roster they had at conference. We have 10. Cedarburg has 10 as well.

port has 8 returning guys and it wasn't our lack of JV that we only had two jv matches.

[ramjet]

The numbers above show the issue almost better than anything that I have produced. No we haven't dropped in numbers, but the numbers have always been bad!! We are in a holding pattern where we barely can fill a team.

We have 14 weights. Average participation per school is 22. The stars have to perfectly align to fill all 14 weights. I am also going to guess that they take these participation numbers from the body fat test before the season starts. If so, the kids per team is far less than that. There are teams who body fat test kids who never find their way into the practice room. One example that comes directly to mind is Tosa. They body fat tested 47. They had 19 kids at the end of the season.

When we wrestled Cedarburg, they had three JV kids. We had two. No JV matches were wrestled. When we wrestled Port, we had two JV matches. Unless all three of us have large numbers of kids coming in, we are going to be FFing weights. Port returns 6 kids from the roster they had at conference. We have 10. Cedarburg has 10 as well.

port has 8 returning guys and it wasn't our lack of JV that we only had two jv matches.

Why only two Aaron?

Lack of JV hurts this sport as much maybe more than anything.

Parents would be more engaged with more JV opportunities.
JV and less killed wrestlers would have some success that may keep them on the team.
More JV wrestling may stop the idea that they have to be on Varsity because they are seeing success and have opportunity to wrestle as much.
8th inclusion would really help with JV numbers and allow you groom those wrestlers for varsity.

[MHSfan]

To all the guys who think we need to recruit more. That the guys that want to reduce are not doing enough to promote the sport or not trying hard enough to fill our teams. We had 25 kids on our roster {and were missing 3 weights, we filled them but with kids who didn't belong in them}  our school has an enrollment of 586 1/2 or 293 would be male. 8.5% of the males in our school wrestled. Not to pick on anyone inparticular but Port Washington has 931 1/2 or 465 are males 8.5% of the males would be 39 Ports roster is 33 or 7% of its males. Its not lack of recruiting its the number of kids available. It is very hard to have a 14 man roster and improve younger wrestlers by sending them to JV and Freshman events at the same time when you have a pool of 293.

[aarons23]

If it were lack of available....how do you account for Colemans, Random Lakes and Stratford doing it?  Maybe some don't need to recruit more....but to recruit better....and yes we also need to do a better job in Port also. 

[Ghetto]

The numbers above show the issue almost better than anything that I have produced. No we haven't dropped in numbers, but the numbers have always been bad!! We are in a holding pattern where we barely can fill a team.

We have 14 weights. Average participation per school is 22. The stars have to perfectly align to fill all 14 weights. I am also going to guess that they take these participation numbers from the body fat test before the season starts. If so, the kids per team is far less than that. There are teams who body fat test kids who never find their way into the practice room. One example that comes directly to mind is Tosa. They body fat tested 47. They had 19 kids at the end of the season.

When we wrestled Cedarburg, they had three JV kids. We had two. No JV matches were wrestled. When we wrestled Port, we had two JV matches. Unless all three of us have large numbers of kids coming in, we are going to be FFing weights. Port returns 6 kids from the roster they had at conference. We have 10. Cedarburg has 10 as well.

port has 8 returning guys and it wasn't our lack of JV that we only had two jv matches.

Pretty sure you guys weighed in 19 guys vs. us. I'm not blaming Port for the lack of matches. We have a numbers problem. I'd say 19 kids is also a problem.

[aarons23]

Pretty sure you did line ups prior to us even coming so I don't believe we made all jvs weigh in.  If you looked at the bleachers next to the wrestlers bench...all those boys dressed nicely were wrestlers.   How many jv's did we have at your JV tournament? 

I do believe we will have a numbers problem the next two years.....we need to recruit better! We shouldn't be proposing to cut the number of weight classes.

[aarons23]

Looking at skin folds for the North Shore ....  Cedarburg had 25, Whitefish bay had 23 and Port had 33...... It appears part of the problem is retaining them.  How many wrestlers did Cedarburg and Whitefish bay end up with.  We lost at least 7. 

[neutral]

Let's also please not base everything around what's happening in the North Shore Conference ... or any other conference (for that matter).

If you think the stars have to align to fill 14 weight classes - imagine how much more they will have to align to fill 13 classes ... competitively (rather than just with somebody).

If (over a period of time) the vast majority of schools can't fill the same weight class ... and if the quality of wrestling is significantly substandard to the rest of the weight classes - perhaps an argument could be made against the validity of that weight class - but the only places I see anything even approaching that are the top 2-3 weight classes ... and they have a right to participate as well.

[BIEBS]

I recruit like mad....Kids just don't want to come out because its too many weekends(all day)....Dec through the end of Feb....6 days a week.  Then throw in the fact that its the toughest sport to be in.

How does lowering the weights from 14-12 change that fact that kids are sick of wrestling every weekend?  Maintaining weight?  Keeping their skin healthy?  Having one day off a week? 

We need to change the way we present the sport.   I am dropping at least two weekend tournaments and adding Friday night duels.  The result has been positive so far to our members and we hope to add more kids because of it.

JauguarWrestler has some great ideas also....this non-sense of dropping from 14-12 is idiotic.   And who the inappropriate term3 compares football and basketball to wrestling?!

[Ghetto]

I recruit like crazy too.

Our kids, for the most part, don't cut weight.

We schedule our tournaments so they get time off when the doldrums of January come around. Our JV kids get tons of time off during the holidays.

We bodyfatted 21 kids really. One is a coach, and another is a diver who happened to come out for the one day we fatted, then went back to diving when his mom wouldn't let him wrestle. We ended with 16. Lost 5 to quitting for a variety of reasons. Five quitting is the most we've had in ages.

[aarons23]

I recruit like crazy too.

Our kids, for the most part, don't cut weight.

We schedule our tournaments so they get time off when the doldrums of January come around. Our JV kids get tons of time off during the holidays.

Ghetto...I have to ask you this because I don't know....how do you recruit at Whitefish Bay when you work in MPS?  It has to be a pretty big obstical  in recruiting if you can only get face to face with a small percentage of students.  Again...I don't know the answer to this which is why I am asking.....do you have any coaches on staff that work in the middle school? Or high school?