mat73557

In California, boys wrestling participation numbers are at their lowest point in about 20 years. *source - High School Participation Survey Archive

I love this post with so much of my heart.

The more the merrier. Bigger is better. From what I can see, most of the coaches who want to do away with 106 and see less weight classes are from smaller locales and struggling to fill weights. We always have small guys in my area. I rarely ever see a forfeit at 106 when big school competes with big school. What we really need to do is attract more kids to wrestling. Worrying about seeing only the best match ups and forcing the top guys to compete in the same weight class sounds appealing to a lot of you, but its small minded thinking in my opinion and a quick means to an end for the growth and traction that HS wrestling has gained in recent years. Those top guys are going to compete anyway. As already stated, most kids don't win state in wrestling. Most don't even get a state medal. We need to stop trying to fix boring duals by reducing the # of weight classes. Fix that problem by growing our kids clubs and increasing the number of wrestling participants.

That doesn't water anything down at all. The same kid who is gonna get beat at Howard High School probably gets beat at state. BUT he at least gets to be a state qualifier for his school. Which in turn helps the school program gain traction in their efforts to grow and become more mainstream. Likewise, and more impactful, the same team that is going to get beat at the sectional duals gets beat at state - BUT, at least their program and ALL of their kids get to experience going to the state tournament, which again, helps bring notoriety and attention to wrestling in schools where we need to see growth.

Our goal should be to GROW wrestling. You grow wrestling by increasing participation, which increases exposure, which increases interest which further fuels participation. The more kids who get to experience the state tournament the better. Take our boys section for example. All the kids from Franklin Co, McMinn Co, Riverdale, LaVergne, and Rockvale whose parents drove them to Chattanooga saw their seasons end at Howard High School. No pomp and circumstance at all in any of these sectional tournaments. Its just like a normal day. I bet those car rides home were full or great memories of the sport and of the season and I bet those parents cant wait to do it again next year </sarcasm>. We can and should do better to reward as many kids and parents as possible. This is not an easy sport to participate in.

I said it a long time ago. Cutting back the number of teams who make it to state duals is bad for the sport And cutting back the numbers of kids who make it to individual state is bad as well.

Blackman High School in Murfreesboro, TN is seeking a Head Wrestling Coach. Blackman is a AA program in TN (Large School – Public) with a rich history of tradition and success. *Region Dual Champions 2008, 2009, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023 *Region Traditional Champs, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2023 *8 State Champions in the last 8 years – 30 State medalists during that time. Blackman’s feeder program, the Blackman Wrestling Club is the reigning back-to-back TNAAU State Champions (2022 and 2023). Blackman Middle School’s program is the 2023 CTWC Conference Champion (26 Teams). This program is solid. The high school program enjoys strong support from the administration and local community. Murfreesboro is close to Nashville and consistently ranked one of the best places to live in the USA. Blackman is consistently a Top 10 program in the State of Tennessee. Interested parties submit your resume to Athletic Director - Scott Lawless - l[email protected] www(dot).blackmanwrestling(dot)com

If he wanted to stay, he would have.

I thought we only cared about D1 wrestlers around here....smh. Sammy is a stud!! Chase Brown too!

We tried bro. Hats off to Belcher and crew.

I like the guys on CoachT who do what they say they're gonna do.

The Blackman school zone is small to begin with and there is a ton of commercial real estate in the Blackman zone. So not much available housing compared to Oakland, Riverdale or Rockvale.

Still not enough time to be certain that the KID is ok. I've been on both sides of this and I can tell you only one thing. If you don't want to get DQd, don't hit illegal moves.

The rule is in place to protect kids. I saw the video and Griggs clearly hit his head hard and both officials agreed immediately that the return was illegal. Injury time is only 1.5 minutes. There is no way to be sure that a 16-17 year old kid is ok during that short window of time,. especially when trying to evaluate a possible head injury. It doesn't make the kid a chickens**t or a coward at all. Its a good rule.

Blackman band was waaaay better back when we had Karaoke Girl....and the rock band.