Youth State Qualifiers

21cats · March 16, 2015, 12:41:46 PM

Probably beating a dead horse on this one, but....why do we not have qualifiers that are strictly district based? Stay in your district and face the kids from your area. Would the districts be that incredibly different? Every year I'm just amazed at all the moving around people do to make the kids state tournament. Just wondering.

foose4 · March 16, 2015, 04:18:48 PM

Why do people worry about it? I always hear that youth means nothing once you get to high school. If that's the case what's the big deal, no one will care in a few years anyway.

Don't hear many people having a problem with a kid traveling for open youth tournaments but yet some do for qualifiers? Plus I don't see a very high percentage that do move around, yes some do, but most stay closer to home.

As you can tell, I really don't care where kids go for a qualifier, it's up to the kid and the parent to do what they want. Our family did both, traveled and stayed at "region" tournament, with about the same results.

madeyson · March 16, 2015, 05:09:59 PM

I don't have a strong opinion either way - at the end of the day I don't think the state placers would change a whole lot, some of the qualifiers may change a little. However - look at the numbers by qualifier - some of them have 700 and sum of them have just over 400 - definitely tougher to make it at some of the qualifiers.

ChargerDad · March 19, 2015, 07:50:04 PM

Quote from: Tews19 on March 16, 2015, 04:47:50 PM
Quote from: 21cats on March 16, 2015, 12:41:46 PM
Probably beating a dead horse on this one, but....why do we not have qualifiers that are strictly district based? Stay in your district and face the kids from your area. Would the districts be that incredibly different? Every year I'm just amazed at all the moving around people do to make the kids state tournament. Just wondering.

I have no real logical reason why WWF hasn't kept it to local regions only but I am pretty sure the SE of WI has an abundant amount of talent. Not saying the rest of the state doesn't. In several brackets last year you had the top 2 place winners from SE regional meet in the finals.

I suspect that's true for a number of qualifiers.. My son took second at state last year to the same kid he took second to at the Bay Port qualifier.. I've always been of the mindset that I'll go to the qualifier the club goes to, though if there were a number of teammates at the same weight it would make sense to split up.

Quack · March 22, 2015, 08:24:33 AM

How about this? If you are in Lodi, I believe it would be closer to go to Middleton instead of driving down to Mineral Point. Sometimes it is just closer to go outside your district.

ChargerDad · March 22, 2015, 04:24:23 PM

Quote from: Quack on March 22, 2015, 08:24:33 AM
How about this? If you are in Lodi, I believe it would be closer to go to Middleton instead of driving down to Mineral Point. Sometimes it is just closer to go outside your district.

True, We live about 1 mile across the county line in a different district from the qualifier we attended which was closer.. We went to what is technically our qualifier last year when the one we attended this year was in a different location than it was this year.. qualified in both, and the likelihood of qualifying wasn't a factor in deciding which one we attended.

BTW, below are the numbers available for yesterdays qualifiers.. Mineral Point was the only one that didn't release a wrestler list, so I had to look at every bracket and add them up, so there is room for error... Based on these numbers, with 2 of the top 3 regionals by participation numbers being "northern" qualifiers, and neither being the "northern" qualifier you would expect to be in that mix (Bay Port) and the smallest being the southern most regional, I don't think that it's logical to conclude that SE regionals have a lot more wrestling talent unless you would look at the actual brackets in the northern regionals and see if the place winners were driving from the SE regionals. I suspect we all look at the brackets we care most about and see a couple brackets dominated by our regional and think the same holds true for a larger number of brackets than is really true. Merrill numbers were up a bit from last time the qualifier was there.. some of that may have been due to the smaller regional at Wisconsin Rapids (396 wrestlers last year) where some (me included) avoided a qualifier that wasn't believed to be able to handle the number of wrestlers that Merrill had handled in the past.

River Falls - 572
Mineral Point - 554 (manually tabulated)
Merrill - 540
Middleton - 521
Lakeland - 509
Bay Port - 499
Westby - 436
Wilmot - 335

ChargerDad · March 22, 2015, 09:54:55 PM

Quote from: Tews19 on March 22, 2015, 04:35:22 PM
I did the numbers as well Chargers and we attended Wilmot. I helped coach the first session and it was obvious the numbers were low. Extremely low. I do know a large number of SE wrestlers traveled up north but to be honest I am shocked how big the numbers were for the Northern regionals. Looking forward to Friday night when my youngest will be competing.

Good luck to all wrestlers.

This year may have been a little odd with numbers.. next year everyone will run to Wilmot because of their low numbers this year:-P I think what it comes down to is that every year it's different, and every qualifier has its own stacked weight classes. Myself, I prefer to go to the regional that's most convenient, and not run all over the place trying to qualify.. We either make it or we don't.. I get clubs that have a number of kids at the same weight class and spread them out, but I want my son to have the "bring it" mentality, not that we will avoid wr wrestlers that will give us trouble.

wrestlinglife1 · March 23, 2015, 10:31:26 AM

As a Club coach I am very heavy in certain weight classes and have to send 2 to each regional at each weight class. So I get moving around. I know all clubs do it. On a personal level I have attended the same regional annually with my own kids. I would have no issues with kids being limited to attending their own Regional.
Those kids that can't make it past certain teammates go somewhere else and qualify and it is truly a special thing for them. I have many kids on the podium annually who had to travel to qualify as their partners end up on the top of the podium. This might be the highest level they reach in the sport. We have kids on our high school squads that have National titles that never get off of JV.

ChargerDad · March 23, 2015, 05:41:02 PM

Quote from: wrestlinglife1 on March 23, 2015, 10:31:26 AM
As a Club coach I am very heavy in certain weight classes and have to send 2 to each regional at each weight class. So I get moving around. I know all clubs do it. On a personal level I have attended the same regional annually with my own kids. I would have no issues with kids being limited to attending their own Regional.
Those kids that can't make it past certain teammates go somewhere else and qualify and it is truly a special thing for them. I have many kids on the podium annually who had to travel to qualify as their partners end up on the top of the podium. This might be the highest level they reach in the sport. We have kids on our high school squads that have National titles that never get off of JV.

That's understandable and a completely logical reason:-) Myself I have no problem with people who decide to chase off to another regional to try and qualify, I just choose not to do it myself:-) I would do it too if there was congestion at the club level, but at my kids weight that's unlikely...

wrestlingdad · March 23, 2015, 07:53:29 PM

Personally, i have no problem with parents traveling to other regionals. My two boys have gone to the bay port regional, which is 15 minutes from our home, every year except 1 year. The one year we traveled was my oldest son's 8th grade year. He had never qualified for youth state, always finishing 3rd in some very tough brackets. Those that know him, know how hard he works and how dedicated he is to the sport. As a parent, I wanted to give him the best opportunity to achieve his goal of qualifying for youth state, and experiencing a state tournament before he got to high school. So, we decided to travel to river valley. It was a great experience! My wife, two boys, and I had the opportunity to spend quality time as we traveled across the state, stayed in the hotel, and at the tournament. We saw a part of the state we had never been. We met wrestling families that we would not have had the chance to meet if stayed close to home. It sparked conversations and questions, things that sometimes are hard to get out of a middle school boy. In the end, he ended up qualifying for youth state that year, but the experience brought our family closer together.

wrestlinglife1 · March 24, 2015, 09:48:58 AM

Tews19: I coach Fox Valley Elite.

wrestlingdad: Your son is one of the hardest working kids in my program. It crushed me every year when he would fall short. It is great to see him get over the hump and establish his name. He is very well deserving of all of his success.

missinghome · March 24, 2015, 01:18:59 PM

Every year this question is asked. I think there are only a few reasons people travel. 1) multiple kids in the same weight from the same club 2) They think it will be easier because they have lost to everyone in there area. I loved nothing more then to see one of our kids beat someone who had drove across the state. Truth be told I think very few kids that travel have much success at the regionals because if they were good enough they would stay home. When we looked at brackets we would always say well this kid is from 200 miles away so he won't be very good.

Handles II · March 24, 2015, 03:28:18 PM

It's a run-and-hide game. Parents who do this aren't teaching their kids anything other than if something is challenging, avoid it.
Can't run-and-hide to a different sectional in high school, might as well make that point be known to your children now.
Amazing the difference in WI vs looking at youth MN registration/results... In WI it appears that being in a wrestling "school" and putting its name on the registration sheet carries more weight than your hometown or high school.
In MN it's the opposite. Virtually everyone proudly puts down their town or school, but frankly, there aren't many wrestling "schools" in MN anyway. They don't seem to need them.
Why is it such a big deal in WI? Why do parents think they must pull their kid away from their school, friends, and coaches? What is the driving force behind it?

TeamJ · March 24, 2015, 08:12:58 PM

Avoiding a wrestler is one reason to skip across the state for a regional...so is being closer to grandparents that haven't seen their grandson all year, wanting to see another part of the state, hitting an outlet mall on the way back, spreading out club talent, and a thousand other reasons.

It goes both ways--taking joy when a local kid beat a kid that traveled across the state, but be gracious when the out of towner whoops on the locals.

littleguy301 · March 25, 2015, 07:33:38 AM

Quote from: Handles II on March 24, 2015, 03:28:18 PM
It's a run-and-hide game. Parents who do this aren't teaching their kids anything other than if something is challenging, avoid it.
Can't run-and-hide to a different sectional in high school, might as well make that point be known to your children now.
Amazing the difference in WI vs looking at youth MN registration/results... In WI it appears that being in a wrestling "school" and putting its name on the registration sheet carries more weight than your hometown or high school.
In MN it's the opposite. Virtually everyone proudly puts down their town or school, but frankly, there aren't many wrestling "schools" in MN anyway. They don't seem to need them.
Why is it such a big deal in WI? Why do parents think they must pull their kid away from their school, friends, and coaches? What is the driving force behind it?

Not sure where your from but I can name 5 wrestling schools in the metro and with in 1 hour and 10 minutes from my house. Maybe not "clubs" but well known wrestlers that have open mat time at various places not to mention the UM guys that help out or put on programs. Dan Chandler, Dustin Shlatter, BRanden Paulson, Jerod Lawerence, Luke Becker and others that either run a club or put on practices at various times of the year.