It's the thread you know you needed: 12 weights

[DarkKnight]

There were 114 teams this past season in regionals with 9 or less wrestlers. 50 in D3, 35 in D1, 29 in D2.

4 teams had one 1 wrestler
2 teams had 2 wrestlers
3 teams had 3 wrestlers
11 teams had 4 wrestlers
11 teams had 5 wrestlers
10 teams had 6 wresters
23 teams had 7 wrestlers
14 teams had 8 wrestlers
31 teams had 9 wrestlers

I think over 30 teams had 10 wrestlers entered into regionals (didnt count those teams)

If you cut to 12 weights, probably over 150 teams (out of the approx 337 teams) will still have at least 2 forfiets in their dual, with over 100 of those teams still having at least 3 forfiets.

I like 14 weights because it gives the little guys a chance (Like Rhett Koenig, Dux, and other wrestlers that were around 100lbs this past season) a chance at 106 and it gives the teams with multiple good big guys a chance to wrestle at the state tourney.

The Empey duo in Sto like the 220/285 options.

More matches to watch at state, more revenue, etc.


There is no perfect system, cutting to 12 weights will have just as many as flaws as having 14 weights.

[factfinder]

1) Numbers are u nationally because there is now wrestling in states that never had it.  Wrestling participants are going down in states that have long had wrestling but going up in states that never had wrestling
2) Minnesota only has more wrestlers because of Junior high inclusion. I am for junior high inclusion only because middle school wrestling is so messed up in this state and is the biggest problem wrestling has.  That is when we lose the most kids.  Would Wisconsin have more wrestlers than Minnesota if we had JHI.  We are also running low on coaches.  Would be nice to have all high school and middle school coaches in the same room working together
3) I am not against Co-ops but it bothers me when someone states that cutting weight classes is cutting opportunities.  If we cut 2 weight classes we are cutting 2 varsity spots but not the opportunity to wrestle.  If we cancel programs to co-op we are cutting 14 varsity spots and we are cutting wrestling opportunities because many families cannot make it work to have their kids practicing in another community.

I do believe that if you have 10 weight classes and JHI you would have very few forfeits and would likely have full JV squads for the most part.   My other point is that JV weight classes should not be the same as varsity.  They should all be maybe 5-8 lbs lighter than the varsity weight classes.  This would make JV work well with JHI.  Some teams would likely come close to filling a JV2 squad with 10 weight classes.

Then have 14 weight classes for the individual state tournament series.

Doc,
Cutting weight classes out won't stop Co-ops!!
So instead of 14 spots between a couple communities you will end up with only 12.
FYI only a couple hundred JH kids are on JV or Varsity, 85% of middle schoolers wrestle on the middle school team, a lot skin fold at the start of the year but a huge majority never wrestle on JV or Varsity.

[bigoil]

While I do believe we would see a higher quality product by reducing weight classes and perhaps allow it to flourish, I have changed my stance on supporting it.

We were 5 days away from not having a Team State championship this year and 12 days from not having an individual state tournament. We are potentially facing an upcoming season that could be postponed, canceled, or cut short if the Covid-19 persists or pops up. I can't fathom my son missing this season/opportunity. For the record, I don't think the season would be canceled but I see polls on twitter and it is like 70% predicting no NFL season or no fans.

[Ghetto]

There were 114 teams this past season in regionals with 9 or less wrestlers. 50 in D3, 35 in D1, 29 in D2.

4 teams had one 1 wrestler
2 teams had 2 wrestlers
3 teams had 3 wrestlers
11 teams had 4 wrestlers
11 teams had 5 wrestlers
10 teams had 6 wresters
23 teams had 7 wrestlers
14 teams had 8 wrestlers
31 teams had 9 wrestlers

I think over 30 teams had 10 wrestlers entered into regionals (didnt count those teams)

If you cut to 12 weights, probably over 150 teams (out of the approx 337 teams) will still have at least 2 forfiets in their dual, with over 100 of those teams still having at least 3 forfiets.

I like 14 weights because it gives the little guys a chance (Like Rhett Koenig, Dux, and other wrestlers that were around 100lbs this past season) a chance at 106 and it gives the teams with multiple good big guys a chance to wrestle at the state tourney.

The Empey duo in Sto like the 220/285 options.

More matches to watch at state, more revenue, etc.


There is no perfect system, cutting to 12 weights will have just as many as flaws as having 14 weights.

If there were 12 weights, teams with 8 or more would have a chance at duals.

We had a 98 pound weight class when there were 12 weights back in the day. While I don't want to see the lowest weight to go much higher, even if there were 14 weights, the data says it should go up.

[Ghetto]

I've never liked letting facts get in the way of a good story. But with that said, I have a collection of all of the dual meet programs and tournament programs throughout the 1980s and 1990s and so on that Division 1 Hudson High School was in. 
If you wanted to truly know how full rosters were with the teams at say the 1987 New Richmond Invite or a typical dual between Hudson and Menomonie in 1991 or the Division 1 Regional 1 in Sectional A in 1985, I could tell you.

Hint- the family with the last name Forfeit must have been Catholic. 

Unfortunately, we will all be dead before I get back into my office.

I'd be interested in that data.

Uh, what?

[DarkKnight]

Agree, in a dual of 12 weights, and a team brings 10 competitive wrestlers, now they have a decent shot at winning the dual. It would definitely make more duals interesting.

A team like Arrowhead had state participants at 138, 145, 152, 160, 170, 182, and 195... with a former state qualifier as a 160lb backup... if they had to go PIAA's proposed weights, you're essentially losing the 182 and readjusting 95 to 90, and 220 to 215. Arrowhead would still have lost to Muk, but it would have been a little closer. The 182lb champ Diel probably would have been 190, though I am not sure what his normal weight has been.

I'm definitely not a fan of the 170 to 190 jump. or the decrease for the individual portion. or taking out the little guys... but a decrease for team portion, I could see that being a fun thing to try.

[MNbadger]

To me this data shows the starting weight should go down.
[https://www.cdc.gov/growthcharts/data/set1clinical/cj41c021.pdfquote author=Ghetto link=topic=56002.msg654107#msg654107 date=1586036515]

There were 114 teams this past season in regionals with 9 or less wrestlers. 50 in D3, 35 in D1, 29 in D2.

4 teams had one 1 wrestler
2 teams had 2 wrestlers
3 teams had 3 wrestlers
11 teams had 4 wrestlers
11 teams had 5 wrestlers
10 teams had 6 wresters
23 teams had 7 wrestlers
14 teams had 8 wrestlers
31 teams had 9 wrestlers

I think over 30 teams had 10 wrestlers entered into regionals (didnt count those teams)

If you cut to 12 weights, probably over 150 teams (out of the approx 337 teams) will still have at least 2 forfiets in their dual, with over 100 of those teams still having at least 3 forfiets.

I like 14 weights because it gives the little guys a chance (Like Rhett Koenig, Dux, and other wrestlers that were around 100lbs this past season) a chance at 106 and it gives the teams with multiple good big guys a chance to wrestle at the state tourney.

The Empey duo in Sto like the 220/285 options.

More matches to watch at state, more revenue, etc.


There is no perfect system, cutting to 12 weights will have just as many as flaws as having 14 weights.

If there were 12 weights, teams with 8 or more would have a chance at duals.

We had a 98 pound weight class when there were 12 weights back in the day. While I don't want to see the lowest weight to go much higher, even if there were 14 weights, the data says it should go up.
[/quote]

[Ghetto]

Wrestling data does not show this.

[MNbadger]

With all due respect Ghetto, I do not understand your point here.  I do not want to go through all the arguments about size of wrestlers.  In my room we have a dearth of bigger kids.  The few we do have are to be blunt, fat.  They cannot safely compete at the weights they are at.  We talk about throwing out inexperienced kids all the time and how bad it is.  I firmly believe it is way more risky (at least in regard to physical safety) to throw out a kid who is to small for the weight rather than inexperienced.
The CDC numbers show the kids we should be recruiting.  I believe wrestling numbers will shrink in both the short term and long term if we enact retraction, especially if we move the starting weight heavier.  It might make for closer losses in duals for a time but again I think you end up with fewer wrestlers.  The data shows that when we add weights the overall number of wrestlers increases.  While I might be in the minority this means more to me than closer duals.

Wrestling data does not show this.
[/quite

[npope]

I've never liked letting facts get in the way of a good story. But with that said, I have a collection of all of the dual meet programs and tournament programs throughout the 1980s and 1990s and so on that Division 1 Hudson High School was in. 
If you wanted to truly know how full rosters were with the teams at say the 1987 New Richmond Invite or a typical dual between Hudson and Menomonie in 1991 or the Division 1 Regional 1 in Sectional A in 1985, I could tell you.

Hint- the family with the last name Forfeit must have been Catholic. 

Unfortunately, we will all be dead before I get back into my office.

While I can't dispute your details, I can tell you that in 1972 in the Middle Border conference (the one in which Hudson participated in at the time), my high school (River Falls) participated in 10 dual meets with a grand total of three forfeits (all coming during the dual with Durand). Other teams on the schedule, e.g., Spring Valley, Prescott, Mondovi, Clear Lake, Baron, etc., brought full 12 member teams (I have the dual meet lineup sheets to back that up). So again, I am not sure what you were seeing in the 1980s, but those French guys named "Forfeit" were not in the lineups that I experienced - even small schools were putting 12 guys on the mat on a regular basis. As a coach at Sheboygan Falls in the 1980s once again I saw very few forfeits in the duals we wrestled in (and the conference in which they wrestled wasn't a wrestling power house). In six years as a coach we never once forfeited a weight due to a lack of a wrestler (although we did on three occasions as a strategic maneuver). I guess my point is that I was never exposed to these supposed forfeit trends even though I was milling around the sport for the better part of one or two decades. I can't vouch for what you were seeing, but that certainly wasn't my experience.

[DarkKnight]

I understand the points of more exciting duals and agree, they'll be a few more exciting duals to follow.

But, there are already plenty of exciting of duals from the middle tier teams and upper tier teams. Duals in the CWC and plenty of other conferences have been fun to follow.

Luxemburg Casco vs WT and Denmark and others are always fun.

Top teams like Kaukauna, Stoughton, Mukwonoga, Coleman, Stratford, Ellsworth, etc, will still handle much of their competition if we drop to 12 weights. They have their share of interesting duals in the current 14 weight format also.

[DarkKnight]

If the NFHS goes with 12 and we end up going 12 sometime in the future, it definitely would be okay to try it.  A little change wouldn't hurt much and could help.

[Ghetto]

With all due respect Ghetto, I do not understand your point here.  I do not want to go through all the arguments about size of wrestlers.  In my room we have a dearth of bigger kids.  The few we do have are to be blunt, fat.  They cannot safely compete at the weights they are at.  We talk about throwing out inexperienced kids all the time and how bad it is.  I firmly believe it is way more risky (at least in regard to physical safety) to throw out a kid who is to small for the weight rather than inexperienced.
The CDC numbers show the kids we should be recruiting.  I believe wrestling numbers will shrink in both the short term and long term if we enact retraction, especially if we move the starting weight heavier.  It might make for closer losses in duals for a time but again I think you end up with fewer wrestlers.  The data shows that when we add weights the overall number of wrestlers increases.  While I might be in the minority this means more to me than closer duals.

Wrestling data does not show this.

While the data I have is not the size of the CDC sample, it isn't small. It's 74000 body fat tests over 9 years from the state of Wisconsin. I read your post last night, and I have decided that I will try to get the data from every state I can, for as long as I can go back to create a much larger data pool.

Yes we should continue to recruit every kid of every size to be on our wrestling teams. The last thing I want personally is to move the lowest weight to a point where kids don't come out. The highest I ever wrestled in HS was 119, so I was that guy. That said, I try to keep my own personal biases out of what the data says.

Again, the data shows that we've increased less than 8000 wrestlers in the past 16 years. You could say that it has increased because of the 14 weights, or you could say that it increased because 1300 teams were created in that time.

[Chris Hansen]

I've never liked letting facts get in the way of a good story. But with that said, I have a collection of all of the dual meet programs and tournament programs throughout the 1980s and 1990s and so on that Division 1 Hudson High School was in. 
If you wanted to truly know how full rosters were with the teams at say the 1987 New Richmond Invite or a typical dual between Hudson and Menomonie in 1991 or the Division 1 Regional 1 in Sectional A in 1985, I could tell you.

Hint- the family with the last name Forfeit must have been Catholic. 

Unfortunately, we will all be dead before I get back into my office.

While I can't dispute your details, I can tell you that in 1972 in the Middle Border conference (the one in which Hudson participated in at the time), my high school (River Falls) participated in 10 dual meets with a grand total of three forfeits (all coming during the dual with Durand). Other teams on the schedule, e.g., Spring Valley, Prescott, Mondovi, Clear Lake, Baron, etc., brought full 12 member teams (I have the dual meet lineup sheets to back that up). So again, I am not sure what you were seeing in the 1980s, but those French guys named "Forfeit" were not in the lineups that I experienced - even small schools were putting 12 guys on the mat on a regular basis. As a coach at Sheboygan Falls in the 1980s once again I saw very few forfeits in the duals we wrestled in (and the conference in which they wrestled wasn't a wrestling power house). In six years as a coach we never once forfeited a weight due to a lack of a wrestler (although we did on three occasions as a strategic maneuver). I guess my point is that I was never exposed to these supposed forfeit trends even though I was milling around the sport for the better part of one or two decades. I can't vouch for what you were seeing, but that certainly wasn't my experience.

Nat -
1972, teams must have brought their A game against you guys.   
That was not the case with Hudson.
In our 1972 dual against Clear Lake, they forfeited 1 and we forfeited 1.  10 matches wrestled out of 12 weights.  That dual had 6 pins and a 22-0 decision, which I will call a pin.   
So just three "real" matches.  A 6-0 dec., a 16-3 dec., and one that doesn't list the score.  It was a snooze-fest to say the least and I'd guess it only lasted 35 min.

Then we wrestled Chippewa Falls and again, 10 of 12 matches wrestled.   This time, it was Hudson forfeiting both matches and the 10 other matches had 6 pins.
Then in 1972 we wrestled Baldwin and they gave us a forefeit.
Blair gave us 3 forfeits in 1972. 
Hudson gave a forfeit to Glenwood City, Mondovi gave Hudson a forfeit. 
I do not have any good data from the rest of the 1972 duels. Durand obviously gave Hudson probably at least 3 forfeits and we gave them probably one back. I hope fans didn't travel for that one. The rest of the duels just list the score and not a box score. It is what it is. I was born in 1972 so my memory isn't real clear.

To be clear though, I am not talking about the glory years in 1972. What I can show you, when I get back into my office, is that when I was in high school, in 1988, it was not uncommon for a Division I regional that Hudson was in to have a weight class or two with just three competitors out of the eight teams. I can show you the bracket. And I can show you the dual box scores in 1988 in which there were in the neighborhood of four forfeits.   
30 years ago, depending on where you were, things didn't look as different as we think they were. 

Was there more wrestlers? Yes. Should there have been more wrestlers? Yes.   Is it practical to believe that in 2020 we should have the same number of wrestlers as we had back then? No.   How many less wrestlers should we have today? I don't know that answer but a lot!   
That paragraph may feed into the argument that we should then have last weight classes if we have less wrestlers.   But as I pointed out, 47 years ago we had less weight classes for more wrestlers and still had forfeits.

Maybe it is a paradigm shift. Just maybe, we are not supposed to NOT have forfeits.   I have said this before. Slot the five basketball players into height increments. And every team can only one player per height class.   Wrap your mind around a sport of wrestling in which it is acceptable to not have a kid in all weight classes. The weight classes are to give the opportunity to everyone, come one come all. But a team is under no obligation to have a kid in every weight class.

Nobody is reading this anymore, because I know that you do not get more than one paragraph deep into a forum read.   So I will leave it with this. A belief that it is so incredibly obvious that we should only have 12 weight classes is the same belief of how incredibly obvious it is as to who should be president and how incredibly obvious it is as to how to handle Coronavirus. It's not as obvious as you think.

[Numbers]

With all due respect Ghetto, I do not understand your point here.  I do not want to go through all the arguments about size of wrestlers.  In my room we have a dearth of bigger kids.  The few we do have are to be blunt, fat.  They cannot safely compete at the weights they are at.  We talk about throwing out inexperienced kids all the time and how bad it is.  I firmly believe it is way more risky (at least in regard to physical safety) to throw out a kid who is to small for the weight rather than inexperienced.
The CDC numbers show the kids we should be recruiting.  I believe wrestling numbers will shrink in both the short term and long term if we enact retraction, especially if we move the starting weight heavier.  It might make for closer losses in duals for a time but again I think you end up with fewer wrestlers.  The data shows that when we add weights the overall number of wrestlers increases.  While I might be in the minority this means more to me than closer duals.

Wrestling data does not show this.

While the data I have is not the size of the CDC sample, it isn't small. It's 74000 body fat tests over 9 years from the state of Wisconsin. I read your post last night, and I have decided that I will try to get the data from every state I can, for as long as I can go back to create a much larger data pool.

Yes we should continue to recruit every kid of every size to be on our wrestling teams. The last thing I want personally is to move the lowest weight to a point where kids don't come out. The highest I ever wrestled in HS was 119, so I was that guy. That said, I try to keep my own personal biases out of what the data says.

Again, the data shows that we've increased less than 8000 wrestlers in the past 16 years. You could say that it has increased because of the 14 weights, or you could say that it increased because 1300 teams were created in that time.

My guess at least 95% of the increase is due to new schools adding programs.

I wonder if the data shows over 10,000 wrestlers on rosters of programs added in the last 16 years with traditional programs losing a few thousand in last 16 years (even with the expanded number of weight classes).