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Facenthecrowd, You should probably only throw stones when you have a clue. As someone who was on the search and hiring committee, I can assure you it was very much a national search. There were coaches considered from OH, PA, TX, MO, and a few other states and that doesn't even get into those we really couldn't consider due to the fact that they didn't fit the teaching opening available. While Derek may not have the pop behind his name or former school that would seem to get you excited, we certainly feel he is the right fit for CBHS. From an outside perspective, I can't tell you how many folks within the wrestling community have reached out and told us what an excellent hire they think Derek is. That said, I couldn't be happier with the hire of Derek Harrison to come in and lead the program. Derek is absolutely a great fit for the CBHS program in terms of leadership style, culture, attitude, goals, teaching fit, etc. and I look forward to being able to continue to work with him. Derek doesn't need (and I am sure doesn't want) me to extol his virtues here so I won't bother. He and John Michael Simpson create a great, complimentary nucleus to build the rest of their staff around. I am sure Derek will have some input on the kids program, not sure that it needs much of a ramping up though! That program has been plenty successful and appears to be poised to continue to do so. However, always open to your feedback on what you think we could do better... should be interesting. Probably important to keep in mind that the TWF's focus really isn't youth wrestling, it is spring and summer freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling. They have chosen to leave the youth wrestling stewardship in TN to the TNAAU.

Clearly he was referring to me... I occupy both spots.

Buckeyeintn, Not sure that I follow you here... which of the major national folkstyle events that this post was about (Beast of the East, Powerade, Walsh Ironman, etc.) require a qualifying event during the folkstyle season? I am not aware of any.

WrestlingGod, You are aware that TN teams can compete in those tournaments if they get the invitation correct? The only limitations for TN teams comes in the form # of dates / tournaments and one major travel restriction. That travel restriction limits each TN team to one trip outside of the state borders that is in excess of a certain amount of miles round-trip. I want to say it was 300 miles one-way but I can't remember now off the top of my head as it has been a while since I had to dig into that rule. Heck, the TSSAA has even let teams use a straight line as the crow flies measurement over mileage on roads in the past. What that ultimately means is that any TN team with the a)wrestlers to get themselves invites and b)funds to make the trips, can do so. However, they can only do one such trip which probably is plenty for most of TN. Just wanted you to be aware that the opportunity is there.

The one bit of good news is that (from my estimation) the relative level of quality of competition has increased in the SoCon from what it was back when UTC was rather dominant. What I mean by that is the following: 1) Even in the recent history of UTC dominating the conference, the conference winners were not earning a lot of AA honors or necessarily making deep runs into the NCAA tournament consistently. Yes they happened but I think that they were the exception rather than the rule. 2) There are now several other teams in the conference that are producing wrestlers at the level mentioned above. Gardner-Webb, Campbell, Appalchian State, and possibly others are now consistently producing wrestlers on the level that UTC used to be the only team consistently producing. By that I mean wrestlers who can make a good run at NCAA's. That said, it doesn't necessarily mean good things for UTC. What I see is that the rest of the conference is catching up to where they used to be. Of course the old adage that a rising tide raises all ships can apply here. It means that the kids UTC produces who can win the SoCon are that much more prepared for the tougher matches at the NCAA tournament. I doubt that there are too many coming out of the conference that I would pick with a high likelihood to make the blood round at NCAA's but I sure hope there are... it is good for wrestling in the general region if there are. Echoing Maj's point, not sure what the expectation from the leadership at UTC is of the program... being dominant in the conference has gotten tougher but that doesn't mean they shouldn't necessarily be striving for it. Will they put the resources in play to make that happen? Are they hoping to be a "player" in the conference and still pull the occasional AA?

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.

Not planning on sending anyone and honestly not planning on supporting the organization.

Marathon, I think the answers on Simpson and King above were pretty spot on but I don't know on those kids myself. Regarding Brackett, the simple answer is he didn't apply to enter the tournament. CBHS really doesn't make a big deal out of prep nationals like some of the other DII schools and Tommy in particular is I am sure ready to focus on Greco.

Looks like Duhm and Hooker both made it through and will place.

Congrats to the placers that I am aware of so far. Gabriel Elkin - MBA - 120 - consi's - will place top 8 Raymond Eason - Father Ryan - 126 - consi's - will place top 8 (eliminated Michael Elkin in round to palce) Brock Herring - McCallie - 132 - consi's - will place top 8 Trevor Brown - CBHS - 138 - consi's - will place top 8 Bryce Wittman - MBA - 145 - consi's - will place top 8 Mason Reiniche - Baylor - 152 - champ semi's - will place top 6 Ethan Dendy - McCallie - 152 - champ semi's - will place top 6 Khamari Whimper - Baylor - 170 - champ semi's - will place top 6 River Henry - McCallie - 285 - champ semi's - will place top 6 As I type this Judah Duhm and George Hooker still need to wrestle their round to place matches.

Pretty sure we just saw one between Elkin and Eason in the round to place as well!

Congrats to Mason Reiniche for a big win over #1 seed Julian Ramirez of Blair Academy in the quarter-finals. Mason scored a TD in the last 2-3 seconds to take the lead. The call was then waved off and then finally awarded after more discussion. Very big win for him as I believer Ramirez is a pretty consistent top 10 in the nation ranked kid. He and Ethan Dendy are both in the semi-finals now.

Nothing too shocking here really. Dayne has been with Wave Wrestling from the start and is focused on wrestling so CBHS is the obvious choice. His older brother Tate was also a Wave Wrestling product but ended up at Bolton for a few reasons, particularly because he wanted to play baseball as well and that would have been tough for him at CBHS.

I say as soon as the folkstyle state tournament is done it is time to switch! But that is just me and I prefer the international styles over folkstyle almost any day. We typically give our guys about a two week break after the season wraps and then start getting back on the mat with a freestyle / greco focus. However, it will depend a lot on what your program thinks is important... do you have a bunch of kids or coaches that think attending some of the post-season folkstyle events are important? If so then your folkstyle practices might go on a lot longer. Look at the tournament dates for some of the "major" folkstyle national tournaments: USAW - Cedar Falls, IA - 3/31 - 4/2 AAU Elementary Duals - Kingsport, TN - 4/8 AAU middle and Frosh / Soph duals - Des Moines, IA - 4/15 Flonationals - Indiana, PA - 4/15 If you wait until you get through with those then you miss a ton of practice time. What TWF hopes to been one of their premier events, the Best of the Best Duals, is already on 4/8 and their state tournament is on 4/29. Are you going to practice those styles for less than a month before you get to state? It is all about what your program values. Which, if you ask me,a big component of should be what your kids want. I know most of our kids can't wait to get into freestyle and Greco-Roman by the time folkstyle season ends. Our folkstyle season is long and most are ready for a change if they are going to continue wrestling rather than switching to another sport.

Pretty sure his intent for this thread was people to post actual upsets and not predicted ones.

If there is demand I would be more than happy to do it. Not normally a ton of guys looking for that.

Haven't set a date yet but we will host a tournament st CBHS this year. Not sure if the Nailen will happen or not. Don't believe it was held last season.

This will be one of the more fun years for the duals (killing me that I won't be there for it). Feels like all four of the major teams have a legitimate shot to win it this year. Ultimately it is going to be each time looking to minimize bonus points against their role-players and maximize them from their stars. The state championship could be won or lost by a coin flip determining who has to show at which weight first, I think many are that close. If any teams come out with just a little extra they are likely to be the one to win it.

It is a tough spot with 3 very good wrestlers between two weights with Dendy, Reiniche, and Nicholson. Then again, winning a state title shouldn't be easy.

I remember them meeting at Dixie Nationals a couple of years back (would have been 2014 I think). I want to say Cooper Flynn won a close one. That was a loaded bracket as Zeke Escalera (several TN folks saw him at FR) was in there and also Dayne Dalrymple as well. Whitworth beat Dalrymple in the 5th place match if I remember right. One of the younger Dendy's may have even been in there. That bracket was actually won by a Texas kid who has recently made noise by the name of Ferrarri (spelling?)... it was absolutely loaded (and lots of TN connections). Not sure if they have met since then. I am sure someone could check their TrackWrestling profiles but I remembered that instance since I watched most of that bracket play out.

I doubt we see any on pin-TN. They haven't been touched this season and the early ones lacked a fair bit of research. Love Hamm but do t think he is really interested in doing DII rankings.

Science Hill rattles off 3 pins to take the dual against Arlington 44-27.

Blackman defeats Bartlett 39-39 on tiebreak criteria. Two matches left in Science Hill vs Arlington and SH has a 5 point lead. They use state 5th ranked Arthur James at 152 where a win would seal the dual.

Over in the 4th place pool with one match remaining Bartlett leads Blackman by 6. I haven't looked to see who would win on criteria if Blackman get the fall. Science Hill and Arlington are locked in a very back and forth dual with lots of close matches. Currently 4 matches left are Science Hill leads by 2.

Science Hill and Bartlett about to wrestle for the Championship in Pool C. Arlington and Blackman about to wrestle for the Championship in Pool B.