TenWay State Championships

[cbg]

I don't think starting your organization off in TN by calling out Garrett House is a good way to start. Just my 2 cents.

 

Let me try to explain something; I like Garrett and agree with him on most issues.  However, Garrett is the one that said he was not going to support TNWAY so he is the one that put down the TNWAY organization not the other way around.  Let's not forget that DJT was elected president of the United States of America and he responded to most people that disagreed with him during the election.  My view is that TNWAY, AAU and TN Wrestling Federation are all about providing more wrestling opportunities to the kids from The State of Tennessee.

[WrestlingGod]

Let me try to explain something; I like Garrett and agree with him on most issues.  However, Garrett is the one that said he was not going to support TNWAY so he is the one that put down the TNWAY organization not the other way around.  Let's not forget that DJT was elected president of the United States of America and he responded to most people that disagreed with him during the election.  My view is that TNWAY, AAU and TN Wrestling Federation are all about providing more wrestling opportunities to the kids from The State of Tennessee.

Right, however, as a coach looking at which tournaments to send my kids to if I see the leader come on here and pick that fight it looks bad on that organization. Garrett can say whatever he wants, but for him to come back and take that fight looks bad on them. I'm sure there will be many many other issues that will not be favorable on them after this weekend, but hey its their first tournament in TN so that is to be expected I guess.

 

If you're comparing him to DJT, who's responses to those who disagreed with him were name calling, I'm not so sure I'd want that comparison.

[Crybabees]

Right, however, as a coach looking at which tournaments to send my kids to if I see the leader come on here and pick that fight it looks bad on that organization. Garrett can say whatever he wants, but for him to come back and take that fight looks bad on them. I'm sure there will be many many other issues that will not be favorable on them after this weekend, but hey its their first tournament in TN so that is to be expected I guess.

 

If you're comparing him to DJT, who's responses to those who disagreed with him were name calling, I'm not so sure I'd want that comparison.

[Crybabees]

Sorry didn't mean to put that on! This is the problem with tn you have too many people are threatened easily by new stuff coming in and adding to stuff like gobble calling out ghouse he was not a sweetheart with his remarks but it was not a call out at the end of the day our competition level is not where it should be in tn and anything that is adding more wrestling to tn I am for ! I spend a lot of time outside our borders and if we care about the future than a lot of people need to get off their butt and turn it up or get out of the way! Tn is behind! Period

[WrestlingGod]

Sorry didn't mean to put that on! This is the problem with tn you have too many people are threatened easily by new stuff coming in and adding to stuff like gobble calling out ghouse he was not a sweetheart with his remarks but it was not a call out at the end of the day our competition level is not where it should be in tn and anything that is adding more wrestling to tn I am for ! I spend a lot of time outside our borders and if we care about the future than a lot of people need to get off their butt and turn it up or get out of the way! Tn is behind! Period

TN can step up by sending kids to more out of state tourneys. TSSAA is doing us a disservice by not letting our kids compete at Beast of the East, POWERade, Walsh, etc the list goes on and on. Im all for competition and mat time. But adding another in state tournament isn't exactly going to turn TN into a national powerhouse. There are many other factors preventing that. 

[Crybabees]

TN can step up by sending kids to more out of state tourneys. TSSAA is doing us a disservice by not letting our kids compete at Beast of the East, POWERade, Walsh, etc the list goes on and on. Im all for competition and mat time. But adding another in state tournament isn't exactly going to turn TN into a national powerhouse. There are many other factors preventing that.

[Crybabees]

 

TN can step up by sending kids to more out of state tourneys. TSSAA is doing us a disservice by not letting our kids compete at Beast of the East, POWERade, Walsh, etc the list goes on and on. Im all for competition and mat time. But adding another in state tournament isn't exactly going to turn TN into a national powerhouse. There are many other factors preventing that.

[Crybabees]

I agree 100% and I'm not here to argue im for all kids involved it's like our focus is competing inside our borders only and too me that's SUPER SAD so with that I say anyone trying to do more is a good thing personally I think timing is bad for this tourney and I wouldn't call it st tourney our club personally is doing a lot with outta state kids at our gym and outside tn because is your serious and wanna compete you have to do it in a atmosphere where it's legit not 3 months a yr thank you all!

[JSamson7]

I agree 100% and I'm not here to argue im for all kids involved it's like our focus is competing inside our borders only and too me that's SUPER SAD so with that I say anyone trying to do more is a good thing personally I think timing is bad for this tourney and I wouldn't call it st tourney our club personally is doing a lot with outta state kids at our gym and outside tn because is your serious and wanna compete you have to do it in a atmosphere where it's legit not 3 months a yr thank you all!

So many run ons and random thoughts I don't know what to think here...

[ghouse]

So I am not sure what to think when so many people seem to be interested in my opinions / thoughts.  Unfortunately I couldn't get on here sooner and reply since I have been busy with work, family, and tending to my own wrestling matters.  However, I am going to carve out some time to talk a little about the topic now.  I doubt this will be the only bit of feedback I have to give but this will be pretty close to a full listing of my thoughts.

 

There are a lot of facets to this whole thing, however I am going to try and break down a couple of key reasons for my thoughts below.  I will try to address most of the common statements I have heard regarding TENWAY / NUWAY.  Ultimately, my major reasoning is that I believe adding another organization in TN will not benefit the state and will only hurt it in the long run.

 

I am by no means an AAU guy (or TNAAU guy), if anything I am a USA Wrestling guy but more than anything I just care about wrestling and particularly the kids that can benefit from the sport.  That is what ultimately drives my thinking.  I have been more than vocal in calling out the TNAAU in the past when I didn't feel the kids were given a fair shake but I have also volunteered my time on more than one occasion.

 

Why do we need another organization in TN?

This is the ultimate question that I can't seem to wrap my head around… I am sure someone associated with TENWAY will come in and tell me something that I don't postulate below but I am going to go ahead and lay some thoughts out for general consumption anyway.

 

First I will try and lay out a couple of the things I have heard or that have been stated here or on Facebook previously.

 

Bring in More Competition to TN

I think most anyone that has been around a while would tell you that the sanctioning organization makes little to absolutely no difference to those who wish to travel.  If anyone thinks that we can get bigger / better events and competition in the state of TN simply by sanctioning them through NUWAY / TENWAY then they really don’t understand the nature of wrestling events.  Even more established independent national level event organizations have already struggled to get traction with one event in the state of TN.  Unfortunately I think that there is a fallacy of thought going on here.

 

It doesn't matter if the event is AAU, USAW, NUWAY, or independent; those who want to travel will do so if the tournament is worth it.  Worth it will come down to several things but ultimately it usually comes down to two key factors: 1) the competition needs to be good and 2) the event needs to be run well.  Item #1 is a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy and is what really requires the work.  Once you can get good competition in then you have something you can build from.  I can promise you that I have never checked to see what organization sanctioned a tournament before traveling there if we were sure the competition was good.  I can say the same for many others I know in the travel wrestling community.

 

Eliminate Out-of-State Wrestlers

As I seem to remember this was one of the first things that the TENWAY folks were championing on the Facebook for TN Youth Wrestling.  I seem to remember them making a big deal how their first event would be a TN state tournament for TN wrestlers only.  It would seem they changed their tune on that rather quickly since I know non-TN residents competed in the tournament and that stipulation was removed from the flyer.  So was this not that important to the group?  Do they just not have a clear vision of what they want to accomplish with this organization?  Anyway not sure what to make of those claims.  I won't digress into how short-sighted, selfish, and blatantly stupid some of those desires are… that is an argument for a different time.

 

More Competitive Opportunities

Another reason that has been bandied about is that they are just trying to provide more competitive opportunities for kids in TN.  Now in general that is something I can actually get behind in theory.  However, let's think through the story there… do we really think that there aren't enough opportunities for kids to compete when we factor in TNAAU events and those in surround states that many choose to attend?  How many of you have really felt that you couldn't find enough opportunities to compete?  I know that isn't an issue that most in my club have ever experienced.  Heck, I think that we often have our kids competing too much as it is… that is once again a whole other topic that I don't have time to go into now.  Suffice it to say that there is a school of thought that believes we need to be careful how much kids compete in relation to how much they practice / learn at most of their younger ages.

 

But let's go ahead and say that we do think that more competitive options are needed in TN.  I have heard some say that they plan to run events concurrently through the TNAAU season and not attempt to compete with the TNAAU.  While that sounds just lovely, we need to think through the implications there.  Let's say TNAAU continues to run events on Saturday and TENWAY begins to run events on Sunday.  Some will say that it gives people more choices and opportunities and that can't possibly be a bad thing right?  Well I am going to go ahead and layout what I think is the most likely scenario here.  People will eventually choose between attending TNAAU events on Saturday and TENWAY events on Sunday.  Only a very small percentage of families are hardcore enough to wrestle multiple events on one weekend and even then they won't do it every weekend.  So ultimately people will need to choose between events / organizations.  That won't do anything but weaken the competition in each event.  This will carry on until one organization succeeds and another fails or we simply continue to struggle with a weakened wrestling structure in the state.

 

I have seen this state back when there were three competing organizations.  That wasn't a fun time and I hope we don't ever go back to that.  I will state that sometimes pain is necessary to grow but I am not convinced we are really at a point where that is necessary.  Ultimately this state doesn't contain enough wrestlers or volunteers to split our efforts.  We are still a small community of volunteers working to continue to grow wrestling around the state… in-fighting does little good at this stage.  A lot of progress has been made over the last decade or so in solidifying the state and improving our events.  We are a long way away from the state tournaments that didn't end until after midnight or having multiple guys claiming state championships due to multiple organizations (just look how many people complain about the TSSAA structure and that is at least with one organization).

 

I would hate to see that undone even if it was for some future good… I just think we could achieve that good (as I can only assume those pushing TENWAY have some good in mind, I would hope there aren't hidden, ulterior motives) without the damage.

 

Not Looking to Compete / Why not Work with TNAAU?

I have talked to a few others and done what I would call very cursory look into NUWAY several years ago.  I really can't see any huge differences between NUWAY and AAU from a wrestling perspective… perhaps where the money goes but I haven't really dug into that.  From my perspective USA Wrestling is the only organization where at least some portion of the profits at the organizational level get funneled back into our top level athletes (and trust me I make little comment on just how large a percentage that is).  However that is also another argument that I don't intend to get into right now either.

 

So as I sit here and think through the motivation for starting NUWAY in TN I can really only come up with one question… why not work with the TNAAU organization?  I know that they have said publicly that they are not looking to compete with TNAAU… it is hearsay on my part but I have been told that is not how some of the private conversations have gone… including with NUWAY leadership.

 

I can only assume that one of the main driving reasons for some people wanting to get TENWAY started is because they have an issue with how things have been done with / by the TNAAU.  I can get behind that… I have publicly voiced my issues in the past.  That said, the best way I can see to fix issues and move forward as a state is to work within the already existing structure to make things better.  I do believe that one of the best ways for any organization to get better is through constructive criticism.  I do believe that most of the leadership of the TNAAU believe this same thing and would welcome the feedback.  Of course, not all feedback is actually good.  Just because one person (or group of people) believe one thing, it doesn't mean it is for the best… the leadership needs to make some of those decisions based on their historical experience, perspective on health of the overall organizations, and what they think will actually benefit the full group of kids.  Of course, if you don't believe that the board members are doing those things then you still have recourse… get involved in the organization yourself.  Convince enough others that your issues are important and your views are correct and then I am sure that you can get voted in as a region director and can begin to influence the board.  The democratic process does really work there… you just have to be willing to do the work and probably get very little benefit (trust me most of the board members give far more than they could ever recoup when it comes to their efforts with TNAAU).

 

I say all of that because I believe that working within the existing organization is the best answer to help move wrestling forward in the state.  Working against each other might eventually lead to benefits for the state but there will be plenty of pain between now and then.  Why go through that when we can get the same or better results faster by working together?  If someone can convince me of the intrinsic values of NUWAY over TNAAU then feel free to have at it.  However, if I was really going to push that argument I would be making a push to get the entire state working under USA Wrestling.  I think that many of the reasons the current TNAAU leadership went with AAU back in the day have now been minimized and I could make a good argument why it would be beneficial for the state to move to USA Wrestling.  If you look around TN most of the states around us are primarily USA Wrestling and we might do better drawing competition if all the states were sanctioned similarly… of course I already made my point about people traveling regardless of the sanctioning organization earlier so the reasoning there isn't enough to make the switch… I believe it is all small reason.

 

The Folkstyle vs Freestyle Debate

Since many people view me as a USAW guy (and rightly so I do suppose) I will go ahead and touch on this (but it won't be my full thoughts).  Personally, I prefer to see folkstyle events to wrap as close to the high school state tournament as possible.  Of course when you factor in national events this moves out at least a few weeks to a month given how much later some other state tournaments end.  Having some folkstyle national events is a good thing in many ways so I won't complain about those… I have often encouraged many of our wrestlers to attend those events.

 

All of that said, I believe it is better for kids to go ahead and get converted over to freestyle and greco-roman much sooner than many do.  Of course there are lots of reasons for this from my end.  Suffice it for now to say that I think it benefits the wrestlers long-term in many ways.

 

That said, there is certainly an ever increasing trend of seeing coaches and organizations pushing folkstyle deeper and deeper into the spring and summer and cutting into the freestyle and greco-roman opportunities.  There are a  lot of reasons for this but it truly saddens me to see this trend continuing.  I don't worry too much about TENWAY in this regard because they will just be another group headed down that pathway… those that understand the benefits of the international styles will continue to do their part, regardless of what organizations like TENWAY or others do.

 

I can't tell you how many of our most successful wrestlers (and I don't care how you define success, off or on the mat, it fits either way) have commented how much they enjoyed both the international styles and the competition they found in them.  That included getting to compete against the best in the state as most of them stepped into the international styles rather than hanging around in folkstyle, the best in the SE, and the best nationally on Schoolboy, Cadet, and Junior teams or Fargo and UWW (FILA back in the day) Cadet / Junior Nationals.  Too much success and fun found in the skills and competition found in those styles.  Heck our own club has already generated one USA World Team member and I can't wait to see who our first Olympian will be!  I hope most other clubs around have kids dreaming of those goals.

 

None of that really is a driving reason for my thoughts on TENWAY.

 

Wrapping Up

So there are the majority of my thoughts.  Take them for what they are worth… simply the thoughts of one coach down in an often over-looked portion of the state who simply cares a lot about the sport and even more about the kids.  I hope none of the TNAAU leadership minds what I have stated here as I have probably overstepped by bounds since I am not a member of their leadership.  Similarly, I don't necessarily represent TWF leadership on this topic although I believe they would match many of my thoughts.  These are just my personal thoughts, and should be taken as such.  I doubt that they will have much bearing but I felt that I needed to put them out there since I have specifically been called out.  I am happy to continue this conversation here but only in a thoughtful and beneficial way.  Folks are also welcome to e-mail me as they should have no issue finding my e-mail address.  As I am sure you can tell from reading this, I have given these types of things much thought and it will take logical and fact based arguments to sway my opinion but I am always open to facts and logic.  I am sure that I have missed some of the things I meant to talk about in the process of writing this but I hope this covers the majority of it.

 

 

By the way shaner10, before you go about specifically calling me out you might want to get your facts straight… you probably have no clue what high school I attended but I assure that you were wrong in what you inferred.  Nothing I hate more than people spouting off incorrect facts.

 

You talked about events planned in Memphis in one post but just one post up from that you mentioned that you only had one event planned… seems you don't have your story quite together yet… you are still getting started to perhaps I shouldn't expect good organization yet.  Not sure who you believe you have in Memphis that is prepared to sign up to help you.

Edited March 6, 2017 by ghouse

[Hamblin]

Now that the dust has settled who can tell me which boys will represent Tennessee at the Nuway Nationals and at which weight classes will they represent?

According to nuway there are 17 weight classes at 12u to represent but at the Tenway state tournament there were only 8 weight classes. I understand the reason for bunching kids together to get matches but does this not create complications when it comes time to fill the actual weight classes for nationals? Who makes the decision now who to put where? I am sure Nuway nationals will not create new weight classes to accommodate the Tennessee state tournaments weight classes so who at Tenway gets this job and by which standards will they use to determine who actually earned what?

Edited March 7, 2017 by Hamblin

[russianbear]

Very good post ghouse. One of the better ones I've seen on CoachT.