YOUTHCOACH16

Bcb, your two young Olphers both put on quite a showing at the Cougar Classic Aau tournament. Both won first place with all pins or techs. Young Murphy won the ow award basically wrestling up a weight class. The young Sutherland stretched his Cougar Classic win and unscored upon total to six years in a row. They are still awaiting their phone call for the Hooters trip. Or mayby one of the dads is.

bcb, I didnt know you lived in a two story mobile home. Where are all the kids going to sleep you have been promising room and board? Is the upstairs a bar/wrestling room?

You must not be who I think you are. Tennessee usa wrestling is growing? I thought Aau was growing and Usa was shrinking. There is no Chattanooga Leaugue this year. We have joined Aau with 100% of our teams. I think most of Nashville and all of Knoxville has. Im not even aware of any Usa youth tournaments. While we have a long way to go we are at least trying. As far as Georgia being better thats a no brainer. Atlanta alone has more kids than all of Tennessee put together. How could they not be better. Its actually amazing how well we do stack up against them. In fact our Team Tn that I have taken to the challenge cup beat them two years in a row and we got beat by them last year becasue we were strictly a Chattanooga team. With a couple of the Nashville kids we would probably had a chance of beating them yet again. Its not perfect but we are trying. As far as the middle school goes you are correct. We have certain leagues that are bound by stupid guidelines that hinder our ability to wrestle outside of our league. We need to follow suite and have all wrestling under Aau and not even join the middle school leagues that restrict what we can do.

We could end this debate very easily along with finally seeing some of these match ups we have been missing over the years. All the kids need to enter the Aau regionals and then the state. If we really pushed this it could be quite the tournament. There are no team titles to be won so it wouldnt be about which school gives financial aide and which doesnt. It would be about the wrestling. I know most of the top middle school kids are attending this year regardless of public or private school affiliation. There will be some barn burner matches. As good as some of our High schoolers are there are a whole slew of kids in the middle school and youth ranks that may end up even better. We are heading in the right direction finally. What we need is for one of you more outspoken fans of our sport to push for the kids to compete in this and lets make it a reality.

There have been some very good posts regarding this issue. The Chattanooga area for example has in the past wrestled locally under no affiliation. the more serious kids would wrestle in the Future Champions, Usa and a few would venture to the tournament of champions in ohio(aau). Things have dramatically changed in the last few years. This year I believe almost all of Nashville is Aau and all teams east of there including all of Chattanooga are Aau. This will allow us to have a real state tournament this year. It should only make our wrestling stronger in the state. That being said there are still many of us across that state that venture to Atlanta to wrestle usa and some will wrestle freestyle and the Liberty nationals under usa as well. There are numerous differences between the two but right now most serious kids are doing both. I do believe usa lost a little of the youth market except for freestyle while Aau continues to grow.

Im not sure who you are but with a name like Cup Cake you probably havent missed too many meals either. I purposely am a little overweight just to keep people fooled. When you are chisled out of granite it tends to draw too much attention.

Thats true but while there is enough quality wrestling in the Cleveland area to fill your needs I dont think there is very many all you can eat buffets. That would be rough to have to drive to Chattanooga three times a day to meet your daily calorie requirements.

The previous post was meant as a joke between two people. For those have not had the pleasure of watching any of Clevelands teams this year they are a true joy to watch. They wrestle with the heart and soul that makes our sport such a special thing. Congradulations to Cleveland middle and coach Phillips on yet another fine showing.

Stop sucking up! I guess now you are going to move the clan to Cleveland? I guess you might as well. That about the only program you guys havent wrestled with yet. Besides they only win becasue they recruit wrestlers and have a big booster. Dont you read the message boards? It doesnt have anything to do with coach Phillips or how much he gets out of his wrestlers. All that yelling and screaming is just false bravado he learned on the mean streets of Miami.

after our discussion I really thought about some of the match ups and i do agree it could be very tight. I still see the boys in the stockings prevailing but it will but much closer than my first impression. I see it 33-24 BSFB&G. I understand your fear of not wanting to go against your pal walkinvols old harrison bunch that now wrestle for the owls but surely he wont be mad since he now resides with the "beautiful people" as you like to call them.

Ha- thats pretty funny. If I didnt know you so well I would think that maybe that Bashing last night has clouded your thought process.

Dang Gary, that offer is hard to beat. Maybe we can finally learn some of that Soddy karate, although I hope Rabbitts fashion sense doesnt rub off on Blake. I dont believe I could have a son of mine wearing pink polos with the collar flipped up and shell neclaces. There are a lot of single moms in Soddy with their own 4 wheelers and bass boats. What more could anyone ask for? Seriously, congradulations to you and Campbell. He is a fine young man and I know you are proud. Im just glad he has been able to learn a little from coach E, Bcb and myself over the years. Lord knows Rabbitt didnt teach him anything.

I appreciate everyones concern over his well being. I just hope he doesnt read this because he will be asking to move in with you guys Im sure. If he chose Bcb's green team would I be allowed to partake in the pre-game strategy meetings at the secret watering holes? Maybe thats what I need to help relieve my tension. Blake is partial to coach E's bear trap and front headlock series moves though.

I wanted to touch base on the issues mentioned about or Tennessee kids being able to compete in the Dixies and other tournaments. This is especially hard on our Middle school kids in Chattanooga. It makes no sense for them not to be able to compete. Our local public school league (hcac) is especially hit hard by these restrictions due to having such a short season. They also cant compete in regional and state comepetetions unless there are huge sacrifices made in the scheduling of these events. It is really hard to accomodate them so that they can participate. We travel quite extensivley throughout the south and Chattanooga is one of the only areas where kids cant compete. One of the problems is a lot of the middle school coaches arent that involved in opur sport and they dont mind having such a short season and limited matches. Someone really needs to bring this up with the Tssaa and see if we can reach some kind of decesion that allows a little more freedom. I think the teams from around the state that have club middle school teams get a lot more competetion.

Thx, to all the coaches that helped out getting our Chattanooga team ready. Daniel Waddell, Joe Waddell, Demetrius Johnson, Ulrich Winesburgh and Israel Silva. We didnt end up quite the way we expected but the kids wrestled hard and hopefully had fun. The final tally for the Chattanooga School of wrestling. Brandon Brunner- 4th place 12 & Under 75 lbs James Westbrooks- 3rd place 12 & under 65 lbs Brock Pressley- 4th 14 & under As mentioned by raider76 we also had some kids who wrestled hard and came up one match short. I didnt get to see Michael Murphy and Jack Reynolds matches due to coaching on another mat but I understand they wrestled well. I want to give a special recognition to my son Blake Sutherland. We had very high expectations going into the tournament but his asthma really gave him fits the whole day. He won 4 in a row without giving up a point only to get caught and pinned from by a wrestler from his own state. This was his first loss to a kid his age or weight and only the second kid from Tennessee to ever score on him. I didnt take it very well and was somewhat hard on him instead of being a consoling parent like I should have. I appologize and I am always proud of you. Im not taking anything away from the other Tn wrestler who I have coached on some of our state teams in the past. You wrestled a great tournament and I was proud of your efforts as well. Also I want to recognize a couple of other of our local kids. Campell Lewis- 1st place. 14 & under. We had a blast wrestling with you for Olph this year and you deserve all the accolades you are getting. I am have been preaching to evryone what a terreffic wrestler and fine young man you are to evryone that will listen. Turbo Smith- I'm not sure what place you ended up but I know you plcaed and were wresting well. Hayden Maynor- 1st place. what a little bundle of fire

We are putting together teams to compete in the Dixie Duals in Birmongham Al. We have most of the teams set for the younger ages but are in need of high school wrestlers. We have several coaches and wrestlers who have shown an interest but I dont want to post any names until I have a chance to verify this information. If you are interested please email me at msutherland16@aol.com. This would be an excellent tune up for the kids going to Junior/senior nationals.

We are forming chattanooga teams to compete in the Dixie duals on March 23rd-24th. This would be an excellent tune up for the kids going to The nationals the nest week. Last year Tennessee didnt place in the over all scores because we didnt have a high school team entered. I have spoken to several area coaches about taking a high school division but I havent heard back yet. I am ordering uniforms tomorrow for the k-87th graders going so if anyone wants to step up and get together a high school team let me know asap. Pleae call me at 423 580 2739. Mike Sutherland

This topic has been discussed now for many years. The only people who do not want the individual state championships together are the public school coaches. Most of the fans and even wrestlers would like for the tournqment to be all together. Why cant the kids all wrestle and just keep seperate team standings for public and private schools?

You can tape anyone you want.

Eveyone needs to read their insurance policies that they get when joining usa or aau. Your primary insurance muct cover you first and theirs covers after that. You are pretty much on your own anyway

just come this weekend if you want to see girls wrestling. Some of those Soddy moms will end up on the mat wrestling the Ref or opposing coachs

The group of kids that we have that practices together are from 4 different teams. Although we all travel together out of town and practice together they are still registered under different teams. we would love to come but after talking to all the parents we agree that we would be viewed as an all star team and it wouldnt be fair to the teams bringing their regualr teams. Next year we will be better prepared and bring several Chattanooga teams. Good luck to all

We were wanting to bring a team from Chattanooga up so that Tennessee could finally get all the best kids on the Aau duals team. Our problem is that we have about 15 small programs around town and there is no way we could fill a line up even close enough to make it worth while. Most of our serious kids get together once or twice a week and practice together and we travel together out of town. I dont know that it would be fair to bring those kids up there even though there are kind of on the same team. Anyway good luck and we wish we could join you. +

Very good post. I have a son with a pretty bright future in this sport but he battles severe asthma. Anyone with any helpful suggestions please email me. What medications have you found to work the best? Have you ever used a nebulizer prior to a tough match? One thing I have noticed with my son and several of the kids I coach that suffer from asthma is that when we are at a tournament that is printing t-shirts on site there asthma episodes sky rocket. That smoke from those heat presses fills the gym and really seems to bother them.

who was the third grader and how did he do throught the tournament?