JSamson7

My vote would have to be McTorry. Most physically gifted wrestler ever out of TN

Sorry, but that year they would have gotten hammered by either Melrose, Riverdale, Pearl Cohn, or Maryville. Especially Pearl, that team would have destroyed Trousdale. John Henderson, Reggie Ridley, Santonio Beard, etc, etc, etc... It would have been so bad they would have been forced to look at insituting the mercy rule much almost a decade sooner than they did... Wouldn't be surprised if they hung 100 on them

For all of you coaches (both professional & part time), here is a good story as well as a product you guys should check out. You may have heard that UT hired a new special teams coach who used to coach at UNC & the Buffalo Bills. In between coaching for the Tar Heels & the NFL, he developed a Play Book app for the iPad. According to the site, 1stDown Technologies works for all levels of coaching looking to gain an advantage in the profession. Instead of carrying around laminted cards & having folders all over the place, the app allow users to have access to a ton of play & schemes right at their fingertips. Per the web page... "The mission is to help coaches at all levels spend more time developing football players and less time consumed with designing plays. The vision is to provide an application that organizes passing game ideas in a manner that saves coaches their most valuable commodity - time." From experience the free download is pretty cool & works well, but for any coach out there I can definitely see this thing helping take you to the next level & being a must have! http://firstdownapp.com/

Are you talking about Charles McTorry? I wasn't sure what his career record was, but I know at least 3 of those career losses came to Marquis(sp?) Nelson out of Memphis Kirby. If I'm not mistaken, Nelson beat Charles 3 times McTorry's Jr. year.

McTorry is probably the most physically gifted wresler to ever come out of TN in my opinion. Good guy too, had the pleasure of wrestling with him at a few Freestyle tournaments & hanging out with the other PAL guys from the Nashville area way back when. Wish he would have joined my class at UTC instead of going to Nebraska though, but I doubt you could find anyone as dominant in TN as he was that year...

They were good, but the 1998 team is definitely the best hands down.

That's what I was thinking... Shouldn't have he gone to Pearl from the get go though? Just wondering...

Swipes, BIGANUT74 is just stupid & we'll have to accept it. I just posted FACTS for him & his argument was I had none. I DID live in Nashville, have a ton of friends & teammates who went through the private system, & yet he still says I don't have any facts. They may not give all of them full rides, but trust me they get something to come there. As a matter of fact, I talked to one today at lunch who's related to Rico Watson out of Ensworth. He said knows FOR A FACT that Rico was recruited to Ensworth & Corn was as well. Both of them played for his son's Jr. Pro teams in Murfreesboro growing up & Ensworth was currently after another relative of his from Blackman. I will say this though, I'm not going to fault a kid for wanting to go to a private school even if meant making a few sacrifices to make it happen. Most of them agreed that their public schools weren't as "safe" so to speak as Maryville or Alcoa but if they were they probably would have stuck closer to home.

FACTS ARE that there are private schools are already in the public division, but since they recruit they have what's called a "multiplier", ask your "coach friend" about that one. FACTS ARE BA has lost more championships than they've have won against public schools. Close to 60% of the time a public school was the one beating them on the field. FACT IS YES that they have lower enrollment #'s becasue they're a private school, but a majority of the student bodies there wouldn't be zoned for that school if they were in the public system. You say you're family is zoned for Hillsboro & you sent them private. I can believe that, wouldn't blame you at all. 3 of my best friends (all former D1 athletes) played for & were recruited to Father Ryan. 2 of them lived in Paragon Mills close to Harding Place & the other all the way out in Wilson County. None of them sure would have been zoned for Father Ryan, but 90% of the kids at Maryville & Alcoa are at least zoned for those 2 schools. The ones who aren't in the city at least live in the same county & 9 times out of 10 live closer to the city school than the others anyway. All of you guys should be giving thanks to McCallie for wrestling recruiting as well as BA for football recruiting & THAT'S A FACT. The backbreaker was McCallie's violation causing a delay of the 1995 TSSAA State wrestling tournament. That screw up directly affected more schools than any previous violation in the history of the TSSAA & led the drum beat for splitting the systems altogether. It led to more resentment between the schools, watered down the public division cutting out at least 2-3 good programs for each sport, & usually gave the private schools a sorry excuse of a champion who faced only a handful of worthy challengers to the title. Face it though, private schools always have & always will recruit, if they wanted to be under the same system they could man up & follow Knox Catholic & CAK's lead, & NONE OF THE SCHOOLS (public & private) would have as many titles as they have now. All it takes is simple math to figure that one out.

You're exactly right. It's not like Ensworth can't pull a Knox Catholic & decide to play in D1 for a change. CAK moved took the multiplier & move on to D1 too, but schools like Brentwood Academy & McCallie are the reasons why TSSAA split the whole system up in the 1st place. You could go on & on about this public vs private BS. I hear it all the time with private school friends who went to schools like Father Ryan, Baylor, CBHS in Memphis, all over. Comparitively speaking, the only school with a lengthy tradition like a Maryville & or Alcoa would be Brentwood Academy. Baylor's rarely won it, Ensworth hasn't been around long enough to be considered, & MBA's run seemed to fizzle out now that Ensworth's the big dog in D2. Regardless, even though the claim can be made that Brentwood Academy has been to more championship games than everyone, they've lost more than everyone too & still haven't won as many as Maryville or Alcoa. The records they currently have against each other (Maryville vs Private Schools & Alcoa vs Private Schools) is in Maryville & Alcoa's favor. I think it would come out that way now given they played every year. With all of that being said, there's still no way Bowers is as good a coach as Quarles. Bowers will always have the easier path to a state title & still won't win near as many as GQ will win when all is said & done.

Big props to my former UTC teammate, Coach Eslinger! To steal a line from Coach Leen, Heath is actually "turning the corner" as opposed to just talking about it... lol

I've been working behind the scenes with Karla & David Douglas on establishing a scholarship fund for students of Maryville High School in Aaron's name. Aaron was a friend of mine & after attending his funeral I approached Karla about the idea & they were all for it! The family has been speaking with the current administration & the initial feedback is there will be 2 scholarships set up in his name. One will be for athletics of course, but the other will be for drama/art students as Aaron was very involved in the arts himself. That being the case, I'm working with Karla on raising funds for these awards & the plan is to have them in place for this year's Senior class to be awarded at May's graduation ceremony. The criteria for the recipients will be established in the coming weeks & these grants will go to both athletic & non athletic students at Maryville looking to continue their education in college. Any feedback on helping establish guidelines for the awards & donations towards this fund is greatly appreciated.

Trousdale County has had some impressive years, but mentioning them amongst the best teams ever is a farce. They would get squashed by a number of other great teams if they weren't playing in the lowest classification in the state. For that matter, Any teams in 1A or 2A shouldn't even be mentioned. Does that take away from their success, no... However, lumping them in with "best teams" all time is ridiculous.

Any measureables on him? Size, speed, etc...

I didn't get to see him play against Maryville this year, but I assume a number of you guys did. Is this a good pick up for UT?? Hopefully he turns out better than a former LC great (Travis Cozart) & the guy from Loudon Fulmer signed a few years ago...

Seriously... to MLREB

We'll see. Maybe he'll turn out better than that other kid from HC whom a lot of other coaches thought was good too... Teague anyone?

Quarles would win hands down. If he had Alcoa's talent, it would really be sick what he could do. As far as your point on Rankin beating Quarles more than any other coach, you're partially right. Rankin would be tied at 2 wins with the coach from Knox Central (Helton) & the coach from Morristown West (not sure of his name).

Now that's the type of feedback I'm talking about. I knew there were tournaments like the one you mentioned, but I didn't know anyting else about them. Before the Frank Mir-Roy Nelson fight in UFC a few months ago, they showed footage of the 2 squaring off in a grappling match with Nelson coming out on top. Obviously it was different in the UFC bout.

I'm saying he's not better that Guillermo. Who won the AAA Mr. Football Lineman award again?? Oh yeah, Guillermo did thank you. And don't act like I'm the only one who offers up opinions on here & come up with something original...

AMEN on Sharp! I also think they missed the boat on Tyson & Warren out of Alcoa last year. Tyson especially, he is a blocking machine at FB.

Good points.. I'll always chose wrestling over MMA b/c it was/has been my 1st love so to speak. It does offer the best base from which to work with in MMA, but I think all kids should try to learn as many disciplines as they can. Like a lot kids I took karate (Isshin-ryū to be exact) early & didn't get into wrestling until later in school. Wrestling taught me better body control & how to use it in other sports (football, soccer). Striking is a different animal, but learning how to strike & having wrestling skills is much easier that knowing how to strike & learning wrestling skills. No question

It would be very cool. I didn't think about the breaking limbs part, but I did factor in if a head gear would affect chokes at all. I know there are different grappling tournaments out there that are run like a wrestling tournament. I've never been to one, but I would be interested to see what kind of rules they have in place. It would be interesting to see a dual meet too if MMA was a part of high school sports. There was one fight federation that had actual team competitions like dual meets, but I can't remember the name of the league...

With the success of wrestlers in the world of MMA, I've often day dreamed if there would be any chance of amateur MMA making it in high school athletics one day?? I think it could be "do-able" given the fact that my parents' high school had amateur boxers back in the day (early 70's to be exact). I'll have to go back in their year book to make sure boxing was sanctioned by the school as an official sport, but they were 2 boxers featured in their annual none the less. That said, I think that it could possibly be done if A: headgears were used just like they are in amateur boxing, B: the MMA season didn't take away from the existing high school wrestling season, & C: all 50 states officially sanctioned MMA as a legitimate sport. I was lucky enough to be wrestling in high school when a future MMA great out of Memphis (Quinton Jackson) wrestled for Raleigh-Egypt. A future teammate of mine at UTC (Brian Provezano) beat "Rampage" in the 2nd round at the state tournament that year, but imagine what kind of following MMA would have if you could follow fighters like you do other athletes in different sports...