YOUTHCOACH16

The Chattanooga area hasnt set our schedule yet. We have to wait until all the middle school and high school schedules are finalized so we know which gyms are available.

Yes, it would be nice and also help to make our state better if there was one unified middle school league. In some areas we actually go backwards with middle school wrestling due to restrictions placed upon the wrestlers and teams by their leagues. These kids now wrestling at the youth level have opportunities to wrestle in 7-8 open tournaments, 4 top 100 tournaments with the best kids in the state and then a regional and a true state championship. They are wrestling in 40+ matches a season and more if they chose to wrestle in national level tournaments and duals. Then these same kids get into middle school and now have a 6 week season and 2 tournaments and get 12-14 matches if they are lucky. To answer your second question, yes, we are having a state duals the day after the individual state tournament for the middle school age group as well this year. Its been proposed to also have a duals tournament the next day after every top 100 tournament at the same location. This will be club teams and not all star teams is my understanding.

We would love for that to happen but the problem is there are too many middle school leagues in Tennessee. It would be impossible to accommodate all of them. The Hamilton County league doesn't even start until mid January and gets over the week before our Aau regionals so all of those kids miss most of the Aau tournaments except for the early ones. We feel its better to offer tournaments the entire time from Dec until March so that everyone has an opportunity to compete at some point. A lot of middle schools wrestle their season through the Aau. This way they can compete in many more tournaments and have the freedom to wrestle whenever and wherever they want.

I cant speak for other schools but I can tell you Baylor doesnt go out and recruit. I say this from experience as a father with a young wrestler and as a club co0ach with multiple studs every year.When you say "those" schools who are you refering to? If you are saying you have talked to Baylors coaches and they tell you they recruit then you my friend are what I would call a liar. As I stated previously, no past Baylor coaches could have even told you who was in our practice room and certainly not who was in another programs room. Our current coaches also do not keep up with youth wrestling in the least bit. They coach the kids that are enrolled at baylor and dont concern themselves with others. In fact based on my personal experience baylor was the only serious wrestling school that did not contact me in some fashion and that includes public schools that dont "recruit" supposedly. My youth club parents ask me all the time, "when is Baylor going to contact us "and I explain that it doesnt work that way. On the contrary other schools, and believe it or not its mostly the public schools contact my kids all the time. Now its obvious which side Im on so why dont you share with us your identity and maybe I will give you some examples of your school recruiting.

There is a HUGE misconception that these wrestlers are being recruited and given "full rides". I know it doesnt matter what myself or anyone else says we cant change public perception. I will state the facts and you can believe them or not. Baylor does not recruit anyone. Period. All of the wrestlers that came from other programs left their previous programs and then contacted Baylor. Of all the kids listed in previous posts half of them are paying full tuition. The ones that arent paying full tuition are paying a substantial amount that their parents have to sacrifice in order to give their kids this opportunity. There isnt one single kid on a "free ride" or even close to it. Baylor isnt a win at all cost type of program no matter what you may think. There are many kids who will win the public school state this year and in up coming years that applied to Baylor and were not accepted or couldnt afford it even with financial aide. I will not name any kids but there are several current wrestlers from Chattanooga, Knoxville and Nashville that applied after being enrolled in other high schools that were not accpeted or their parents couldnt swing the costs. Look at the drop off from the feeder youth team and the middle school team and that should prove that Baylor isnt just taking kids who can wrestle. I get asked all the time by other coaches where my red raider club kids go and why they arent on the middle school team. The answer is they apply but dont get accepted or cant afford it. The coaches always look at me funny and ask why Baylor doesnt give them scholarships and I have to explain that due to popular belief it doesnt really work that way. These kids work their butts off not only in the wrestling room but in the class room and its belittling their efforts to just assume they win because they are at Baylor. They deal with a grueling wrestling schedule, 3 hours a day of homework and studying outside the classroom and a pretty intense practice schedule in additon to required public service and many other requirments. Their parents sacrifice a lot for their kids to go there and NOTHING is given to them. The only un-fair advantage Baylor has is their facilies, campus, educational opprotunities and dedication and quality of coaches. McCallie, Soddy, Cleveland, Father Ryan, Cbhs, all have advantages that attract wrestlers. Should Cleveland get rid of its awesome coaching staff and feeder program because its an advantage over other schools who arent as succesful? Should Soddy tell their passionate fans to not come to matches because its an advantage? Should McCallie tell Gordon Connell to forget half of his wrestling knowledge because he knows more than other coaches? Should Father Ryan discontinue their Nashville Catholic feeder program because its too good? All top notch programs have something that is advantageos and thats why kids want to go there. Good programs and schools dont have to recruit and its always been that way. Houston, Tate, Murphy and Brunner all came to Baylor because it was what they felt was best for them. Baylor didnt recruit them in any shape form or fashion. Money wasnt a deciding factor as most of these kids are paying full tuition or very subnstantial amounts. Those are the facts.

mocs2011, you are missing the point. Baylor does not go out and recruit these kids. The parents contact Baylor because they want whats best for their kids. Is Baylor supposed to turn them down because they have won wrestling matches? Should Soddy , Cleveland, McCallie turn away kids who want to go to their schools because of the wrestling programs?

I normally wouldnt post on something like this but for the average reader they would read your post and think Baylor is cheating. I will give a breakdown of each kid you mentioned.Im not sure what you are considering transfers but I will clarify each kid you listed. Baylor is a private school with no elementary school so all 1,000 or more students "transfered" at some point just like all students at 90% of all private schools in Tn. Murphy- Never attended McCallie high school. Came to Baylor as an 8th grader. His older brother was already attending Baylor. Im not sure what their reason was but Im pretty certain Pat Murphy did what he thought was best for his son and wouldnt let anyone sway his decesion. Powell- Caleb is from Chattanooga and has been at Baylor since the 6th grade. He wrestled for me in Harrison and then came to the Red Raiders club when I swapped over. His parents wanted the best education and wrestling program for him and they felt that was Baylor. They contacted Baylors admissions office and went through all the proper procedures. Holloway- Holloway didnt transfer from another high school. He came to Baylor in the 8th grade. His parents wanted the best education and wrestling program for their son and felt that Baylor was his best fit. Cole had always wanted to go to Baylor and he told me so as a young 4th and 5th grader on Team Tn. Canada- Calebs parents wanted the best education and wrestling program for their son. They contacted Baylor and went through the process. He never attended any other high school. Brunner- Brandon did switch schools after his 9th grade year. He actually applied while in junior high well before turning into the stud he is today. He was accepted but decided to attend Tullahoma due to loyalties to the coaches and friends. After his 9th grade year he decided he wanted to wrestle a more competetive schedule and get the best education he could. His father contacted Baylor and they went through the admissions process again. Robinson- Tate has transfered from cbhs for his own personal reasons.. Baylor did not contact him and try and sway them to come to Baylor. He had already left Cbhs before his family contacted Baylor. Sutherland- not (southerland). Never attended Central high school. He has been at Baylor since the 6th grade he just sat out a bit with some injuries. I contacted Baylor when Blake was in the 5th grade and went through the process because I wanted him to receive the best possible education. I wasnt worried about the wrestling because I would make sure he got what henneded nio matter where he attended.In fact Baylor was about the only school, private or public that didnt contact me trying to get him to come their school. Clements- Houston left McCallie for his own personal reasons and then contacted Baylor about swapping over. As far as recruiting goes I can assure you 100% that any student athlete that has enrolled at Baylor has approached Baylor first. Baylor is very strict on their admissions process and many great wrestlers arent accepted or their parents cant afford the tuition. As far as Nashville Catholic building their team from the ground up I agree thats commendable. I can assure you I would like nothing more than the kids I coach to go to Baylor as my youth team has won the state in every age group since Ive been at Baylor. Sadly, many kids do not qualify or cant afford it so dont think for a minute Baylor is lowering their standards or making exceptions for athletes. In fact there are many kids starting at the top wrestling schools all over town that have came through our youth program but did not get accepted to Baylor. The previous coaches at Baylor coached whoever showed up in their room. They never attended any youth tournaments to "spot" talent or anything of that nature. They couldnt have told you one kids name on our own club team. The fact of the matter is top wrestling programs recruit themselves. Its that simple. How many parents moved to Soddy or Cleveland to wrestle because they wanted the best for their children? There are about 6-7 on Soddys team and Clevelands that came over from another area of town after elementary school so their kids can have the best opportunity to succeed. Did they recruit them? Are they cheating? No, the parents made a decesion as to their kids futures and the parents at Baylor merely did the same.

Gage Richmond is just a junior this year.

Almost all Chattanooga middle school dont even start until January.

What part of the state will you be located in? The Tn schedule will be posted on Tnyouthwrestling.com. You can check out last years schedule on the website to get an idea of what will be offered. You can also contact your region rep to go to their meetings regarding scheduling.

The elementary team did finish 5th which is our best showing ever. We ended up 5-3 overall but the three losses were to the number 1,2,3 teams. We beat the number 4,6,9,13,17 th place teams. Individual medalist were as follows: Gold medal at 8-0, Michael kramer and Noah Evans, Silver medalist at 7-1 Mikey Thompson and Keenan Sloan ,Bronze medalist at 6-2, Bentley Ellison, Noah Horst, Caleb Chopane, and one copper medalist at 5-3 Ty Holland. This was a huge achievement for these kids as they wrestled against 6 top 10 teams. Below is a link to a highlight video coach Boskin put together. http://www.youtube.com/watch?&gl=US&hl=en&client=mv-google&v=GaXwPUpPWDY&nomobile=1 I think the middle school team finished 13th in Iowa at the middle school national duals. I only know a few of the individual medalist results. Michael Murphy was 7-0, Tucker Russo was 7-1, Trey Chalifoux 7-1 Tristen Blansit 4-2.

UPDATE!!! TN defeats minion black for the first time ever!!! 45-36. Now we are in the championship semi finals against 9 time defending national champion Iowa Black!

RD 4 - Tn 74 GA Chaos 9. Now starting the Gold Bracket against Minion Black which is GA's #1 team and three seed.

Update: Rd 1 TN came out flat and lost to Illinois 64-30. TN got caught in a few scrambles and pinned early in the dual meet. IL is probably a top 3 team but we could have wrestled better. RD2- TN beat Iowa gold 62-27! The team wrestled with more intensity! This is only the second time we have ever beaten Iowa gold with the other win being by only 8 PTs. Iowa gold is all their state runner ups. HUGE WIN for TN by a large margin. WE WRESTLED TOUGH IN ALL 19 WEIGHT CLASSES. RD 3 - TN Picked up where they left off last night with another big time win over Team Indiana 63-27 ! I couldn't be more proud of the boys. One win away from being in the gold bracket and a top 8 finish!

Howard Langford- Cleveland Michael keefe-Ringgold Ga Matt Keller x2 - Bradley

ok, you say we dont listen? you think we should move the tournament to memphis? Do you remember the tournament a few years back at Dickson? There was nobody there because it was too far from the rest of the states population. I am all for the Memphis region growing and I love the competition. But unfortunately moving the tournament to Memphis would be the worst decision ever made. It is too far for the rest of the state and would affect the numbers tremendously. Is that fair to Memphis? no its not and I certainly understand their gripe about having to travel. But the fact is we have to look at whats best for the state. Do we make the majority travel all the way across the state to memphis or should Memphis travel since they would be the smallest number? The reason we dont hold the tournament in Kingsport is because of the very same reason. Kingsport has the best venue to hold the tournament and everyone knows that but then we would be making everyone travel all the way to across the state. How many Memphis people would show up if the tournament was in kingsport? The tournament needs to be in nashville or Chattanooga or Crossville for logistical purposes.

You obviously have some kind of resentment and or inferiority complex. You claim you have made suggestions that fall on deaf ears. Well fact number one is you did not come to the open meeting where all of this was discussed. If you were not there to discuss the issues or ideas you have then how did you communicate your ideas? Secondly, do you realize we had a two day tournament the last few years and the reason we changed it was because all we heard was everyone wants a one day tournament so they dont have to travel two weekends, they dont have to get hotels, we dont lose kids to baseball, they dont miss the ncaa's. See we tried to meet everyones needs but yet again thats not good enough. The truth of the matter is there are thousands of people to consider in the state and while we cant make everyone happy we try to meet the needs of the majority. Based on the posts it looks like you are definitely in the minority. We will continue to meet the needs of the majority and not the minority and thats all we can do. You act like someone is trying to exclude you. please understand this. WE ARE BEGGING FOR VOLUNTEERS. WE DONT WANT TO DO IT ALL OURSELVES. PLEASE..PLEASE BE A PART OF THE SOLUTION AND NOT THE PROBLEM. There is your open invitation, until you step up and get involved instead of criticizing everyone anonymously you cant be taken seriously. If you dont like the way your region rep runs things all you have to do is run against him. The coaches in your area can vote you onto the board if they think you are a better candidate. We do not hand pick our board members. Your group of peers does.

Im sorry he had one fo your own guys first round. That should not have happened. Track tried to work with us and allowed the regions that did not post their results online to send a spread sheet of their regions results. They were going to download this information into their system and it was supposed to seperate everyone but unfortunatley it did not work. In Fact it messed everyones up. We were not even able to run the brackets until 700 that morning. Once we saw them we scrambled to seperate the number ones and seperate teamates. I tried to seperate regions next but time caught up with us and we couldnt get it all done. As far as him being seeded in the middle that was not any kind of reflection on him. Because there were 5 region champs it seprated region champs, runner ups, then teamates. There was no way to go in and actually research everyone and see who the true number one guy was. So in essence there were 5 1 seeds, 5 two seeds, ectt... You can look at Tarons placing in the bracket and see he was in about the same spot just on the opposite side of the bracket. So in essence it did seperate the best kids pretty much correctly they just werent placed in the tradional places in the bracket that we are accustomed to the number 1,2,3,4 seeds going. It was more like a basketball bracket where you have multiple #1 seeds from regionals

Ben, thank you for all you do as well. Good points on on the smaller weight classes wrestling first. We did have the smaller weight classes wrestling without having to wait. There were only a few round robin brackets and they were done hours before the larger ones. It could have been done even better but we had originally planned on showcasing the finals like many parents have requested. Once we determined it wasnt feasible due to time constraints it was too late to go back and renumber the bouts. We simply didnt have enough manpower to go through all the matches and do it manually. As far as the 45 minute rule we dont use that in youth wrestling. When I say some of the kids were wrestling back to back I mean that almost literally. At the end of the day i had kids wrestling 2-3 matches in 20 minute time frames. We simply cant make them go any faster.

Thanks for the feedback. We had actually planned on showcasing hte finals but do to time constraints we were forced to scrap that idea. The tournament simply grew to large for us to make last minute adjustments. Thats a risk you take with open tournaments with the deadline to sign up just a day away from the start of the tournament. I personally like the open tournament. My opionion is the bigger the better but we will have to weigh some serious options for next year.1) We will have to go back to a two day tournament. 2) Make the younger wrestlers qualify for the tournament or 3) find a larger venue which they arent many of that are centrally located for the state. Please share your thoughts with your region directors so they can provide feedback at our annual meeting.

Congratulations to Dustin! Even though he beat one of mine in the semi's and another in the finals I have to give credit where credit is due. He wrestled a great tournament in an absolutley loaded weight class.

Thanks Td. There are differing opinions on the tournament being an open tournament or a qualified event. They have always kept it an open tournament trying to get as many kids as possible be a part of the event and create some enthusiasm. I agree with you though. I think we have grown so large its time to make it a qualified event. Your exactly right about making it a whole lot easier to prepare for.

I probably shouldn't reply to this right now but sometimes a person can only take so much. I just got home a few hours ago from Crossville as we held the first ever youth state duals tournament today. After today, coaching my kids on Saturday and staying up the entire night Friday trying to get the brackets lined up Im more than a little tired. I will try to not let my frustration with your post show. First and foremost I would like to thank all of the people who pitched in together on Friday night and Saturday to make sure we even had a state tournament. The person that was supposed to run the tournament couldn't at the last minute. His replacement had something come up at the last minute and he had to back out so a handful of people did the absolute best job possible under the circumstances. Then to make matters worse we had huge problems with track wrestling that are too in depth to even go into on here. This is an open youth tournament. Not a high school tournament with 14 weight classes and only one wrestler per school so its impossible to make them perfect. Sometimes due to seeding criteria you will have kids form the same tea on the same side of the bracket, same regions on the same side of the bracket ectt.. I will attempt to address all of your comments. 1) I do not think the tournament was a debacle at all. In fact, considering it was the largest one day tournament in the history of Tennessee I think it went amazingly well. The reason it was made into a one day tournament is because that is what most people in the state have been wanting for years. So while it wasn't up to your standards it was one of the biggest requests we have had. The reason being is because a lot of coaches are very dedicated and the season is very long and grueling for them. They are tired and dont want to continue into the spring. We lose kids every year due to baseball and we wanted the kids to be able to wrestle in the state and not miss baseball. Also the Ncaa tournament is coming up and we have had a huge number of kids,coaches, refs, and parents beg us to not have the state on the same weekend as the ncaa's so we tried to accommodate everyone. Your comment about the decision being based on financial reasoning couldn't be more wrong. The Aau would have made almost double the money if the tournament was two separate weekends. A large number of parents have more than one wrestler. Separating it into two tournaments means more parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, ectt.. paying gate fee's, concessions, ectt.. 2) The tournament was not ran inconsistently at all. It was as consistent as possible. There was the smallest amount of dead-time on mats as I have ever seen at a tournament. Most 3 mat 250 kids tournament I have been to in the last 10 years have had more dead-time than what we had saturday. There was some dead-time at the end of the tournament as the weight classes finished up but we moved as many as possible to other mats. You cant move everyone to other mats due to the kids wrestling back to back to back. Sometimes you just have to leave the kids on their mats so they get a few minutes break. There were no bracketing issues, wrong wrestlers wrestling, refs missing or table workers not at their tables causing delays. The only delays at all were due to injuries or kids not showing up on their mat at their scheduled time. Considering this was a 10 mat 750 kid tournament that is amazing. Im not sure if anyone had to wait until 6 p.m. for their first match but I will explain to you how large tournaments work. The computer divides all the entries evenly and assigns them to mats. The larger weight classes will wrestle first and sometimes even go through a second round before the smaller ones do. Its done this way to space out the break time needed at the end for the larger weights. When you have this many kids in a tournament sometimes it may take a while to get to your first match if you are in an 8 man bracket and there are two 32 man brackets on your mat also. 3) Im not sure how you dont see that Tennessee is improving? I could write a book on how much its improved. 1. Our wrestlers are getting better and better as evidenced by their national level experiences. 2. We have doubled in size in just a few years and have grown more than any state in the country on a percentage level . 3. We are doing things never done before in Tennessee like the top 100 belt series creating larger more competitive tournaments which gets the wrestlers competing against each other across the state multiple times a year instead of just once at the state. 4. We are keeping up with team points and awarding team championships to create even more enthusiasm for the kids. 4. Our website and face book page have helped improve communication and information tremendously. I only wish my son who is now in high school had the opportunities these kids today have through the Aau. I can assure its light years better than what we have ever had. By your comment of "puppet masters" it leads me to think you have a personal issue with Team Tennessee or one of its VOLUNTEERS. The people running things are some of the best people I have ever known and I can assure their hearts are in the right place. I am not only honored to work with them but also to call them my friends. So until you roll up your sleeves and put in 1/4 of the time and effort they do then you shouldn't belittle people who are trying to do the best they can for our sport and kids. 5. Did you happen to see the first place plaques with a slot for the kids bracket , picture and medal? Thats pretty impressive and the kids will treasure that for a lifetime. 4) Stone Memorial was awarded the state tournament for multiple reasons. They are big enough to host the tournament on one day and because coach Parker and his staff do an extremely good job of making it as fan friendly as possible. There were 96 teams present and I dont know how many coaches but they went above and beyond trying to take care of everyone. They fed several hundred coaches, refs and workers better than most 250 people tournaments. It was amazing to say the least. You claim you know of all these places that can host a tournament this large? Well, my suggestion would be for somebody to come to the state meeting and put in your proposal. Before you blast Team Tn and Stone Memorial you should realize that only 2 teams even requested the state tournament this year. Stone Memorial and McCallie were the only two willing to step up to the plate .So for all the other options out there it might help if someone would actually propose them because we arent psychic. 5) As far as crowding, no seating, and hot temperatures. Yes, it was all those things. When people agree to host a tournament like this almost a year in advance they have no idea how many people are going to show up. In fact we didn't know until Thursday night at midnight when registration was closed online. I guess putting the tournament on one day did increase numbers like we had hoped. Ive ben to every tournament location in Tennessee the last 10 years and I haven't been to one that wasn't crowded. Im not sure what suggestions you have made that have fallen on deaf ears since you are posting on a public forum under a screen name. I can assure you were are always looking for ways to improve and we will never settle for mediocrity. If you have valid suggestions and not ulterior motives then the best way to show your sincere hopes would be to actually come to a meeting where we discuss things. I can tell you this. Not one person from the public even showed up at this years meting so that tells me in itself that you arent all that concerned. But if you do have some ideas or questions fell free to contact me directly and maybe we can get you on board to help out. Michael Sutherland Aau Region 3 Director Red Raiders Coach 423 580 2739 msutherland16@aol.com region 3 representative

Thanks for posting coach and explaining your side of the argument. I was not involved in your situation as I am from the south (chattanooga). We were trying to be fair to everyone both out of state and in state and that is why we came up with the rules for participation. Hopefully we can get all the bugs worked out of this scenario and you guys can compete with us in the future. The 45 lber you wanted to wrestle again is one of mine. He actually got beat this weekend for the fist time by a Georgia wrestler. My kids parents werent happy about it at first until I explained to them that we are trying to promote the sport, expand the opportunities for our kids in Tn so we arent wrestling the same kids all the time, and in the long run make our wrestlers better by having more tough matches. Even though my wrestler lost to an out of state kid he is better for having had that tougher match.

More kids competing in your tournaments raises the numbers and level of competition. It doesnt matter if the kid from Ringgold wrestles for Hcwc or if Ringgold signs up as a Tennessee club. The end result is the same and that is the Ringgold wrestler is wretling in the Tn state tournament and not Georgias. The kids had to chose which state they were going to compete in for post season. The only kids who did not meet the criteria were a couple from ky and they are not being allowed to participate. The 4th place kids from those regions have been notified and will be attending the state tournament. This rule was voted on and approved by every single region in the state of Tn so we are arguing over something that is not going to change for this season anyway. Lets focus our efforts on pre-paring our kids for the tournament and make it as positive of an experience as possible for everyone involved.