Tronado

I bet you were watching the Beetles special over the weekend,......weren't you. Obama would make sure every one gets a medal too.. 120 is nasty!!!, Got to be focused round 1. Sweet Quarter match too. I'd like to be up there to watch that one.

It could be cause its a blind draw Rob.....I saw a lot of Soddy kids that coulda used a better draw. I know your very smart about your wrestling and very thorough on your research. Tell us where they fixed the brackets to benefit a certain team or a certain wrestler. Tennessee doesn't have a board that ranks wrestlers, its another coach or volunteer that takes the their time to do it. Also you would need all the top wrestlers to wrestle one another to properly seed a tournament or you would have to go by common opponents. But doing that wouldn't really be fair because wrestling is a match up of styles and in high school you have your take down artists, your spladle's ,cradles and head throwers. I do believe in seeding, I would prefer it be done thru an area, region and state setup like Georgia. 1A thru 3AAA in Georgia has an 8 man state championship bracket, by the time you get to that point the seeds would be a lot easier to do than seeding a 32 man bracket. I do believe you would be awesome at doing this though, your very knowledgeable in your wrestling observations.

Nice.....this is a smart guy and he gives examples.

Coach K....., are the more talented wrestlers more spread out than ever? Good Luck this weekend.

I know reft, I was playing with you and I thought you would be honest. The whole wrestling community knows Region 4 has the majority of the states best wrestling talent today and for the past few years. The future the times they may be a changing but not this weekend. Wilson Central and Ravenwood looks to be in a good spot for the tournament. A lot of Cleveland/Wilson Central match ups early and late could determine the champion. Its just unbelievable some of these changes could be pushed thru in what is an individual sport. Seperation in team sports with football that requires multiple team members to be good to have a shot at winning it all, I understand school size matters. Shoes and a mat, and you don't really have to have those and you could develop into your very own state champion in wrestling. It was a Coach driven ploy out of mediocrity, I've seen over the years some of this states best wrestlers come out of small schools. Pigeon Forge, Green Back, Notre Dame, Central has developed some awesome talent, State championship talent that didn't need a different tournament. If I had a son or daughter competing in high school wrestling it wouldn't be in 1A-AA, my feeling is you always want to wrestle and beat the best. Now your going to have 1 or 2 in D2, 1 or 2 in 1A-AA and 1 or 2 in AAA, that folks is not good. The fans and kids are getting ripped off. If your misunderstanding what I'm saying, the overall population in our state is not enough to support a competitive tournament for 3 divisions and then take into account the amount of wrestlers in our state, it makes no sense. If you look at Georgia, they have the population. Georgia also has an area tournament, region tournament and then a state tournament, those that aren't competitive are weeded out thru competition. A lot of our schools, even in AAA cant even field a full team of wrestlers. We have a couple of coaches that at least defended the actions taken with some heart felt beliefs, that we can all respect. Parents, you guys are in control. Put them where they can wrestle in the big matches, the awesome atmosphere with out of control fans. Its a gladiator sport that demands composure and in an instant you have to call on every muscle in the human body to survive or that final push for victory. Its a beautiful sport. Its the greatest sport.

I've transferred a student or two, no way in heck this happens for the majority of students. It took 3 months and appeals to get mine through, Started in August and got confirmation a week into November. Something doesn't sound right, could care less about y or that he's wrestling. Hope he does well, I think that almost all would be wondering how you can get this done in a certain time frame. A lot of parents may want to figure out how to get it done.

Reft was mocking Region 4, if my eyes aren't deceiving me, it looks like in every 1A-AA bracket a wrestler can win 1 match and be a state medalist. Who came up with this wonderful idea? If you can sit there and basically say qualifying for state out of Region 4 is a joke, what's your opinion of the A-AA state tournament. I'd like to know how it measures up to your level of standards, be honest.

The whole landscape of wrestling is changing in Tennessee. The more divisions and separation they decide to add, the worse it looks. You have 3 large schools in Chattanooga proper, Soddy Daisy, Ooltewah, and East Hamilton. In reality these 3 are on the outlines of Chattanooga city limits. When I attended Red Bank we had 1200 kids, Hixson, E.Ridge, Central all had roughly the same amount of students. Chattanooga is now the small school capital of the state. Chattanooga needs to combine a few of these small public schools and save expense, but then they would have to admit what was at fault for so many small private schools being created. Combining Red Bank and Hixson would've made the most sense. Red banks enrolment was down to 650 students at one time, not sure what it is today but they spent a lot of money building a middle school right behind the high school. Coach Hall in the paper said today that Hixson was at about 900 students. Wrestling to me will always be about an individual working his/her butt off to be the best, the size of the school has no bearing on that what so ever. Wrestling is an individual sport at its soul. Our state should go back to an all inclusive individual state wrestling championship. Growth was an excuse to get away from the few dominate programs we have in the state. Coach Newman always threw it out to the McCallie team he won state when it was combined, as I felt then and now, its not the wrestlers fault that politics and a few coaches have pushed so hard for a split that doesn't help the sport of wrestling in our state and now they have created another division for public schools. The population is not there to support it. I saw it last year and its more prevalent this year, weight classes are only going two or three deep with quality wrestlers. The competition is even more diluted this year, but that was their goal. I think Chattanooga should go to open enrollment, that would be fair to everyone. Reftn, it was bad looking at some of those brackets, I saw what you saw but the quality is there. A few kids didn't make weight from what I've read but I believe that tournament still housed some of our best talent in the state but its not the kids fault that Tssaa and some wrestling coaches have made a mockery of our sport. I guarantee that 99.9% of our states wrestlers would not have wanted a split tournament, not this year nor when the private/ public split was put on their backs. I may be proved wrong in the years down the road, the growth may come for our sport. But you can't make kids want to wrestle, its the hardest sport mentally and physically, alot of young people got better things to do with their time then go it alone on a wrestling mat and face the pressures of accepting that if you lose you only have yourself to blame. Coaches can blame school size.... or recruiting:)

The boy's and the fans deserve it to be a big show. Its the highlight of their season. A lot of hard work with blood, sweat and tears. The sacrifice made for those few minutes on the mat. Make it happen, they are worth it.

A wrestler is not seeded, he is placed. Away from other returning place winners and only if that wrestler wins his region tournament. A lot of people just need an excuse, now all these parents can feel better about themselves because their kid didn't win a state championship because of some one named Tom(Tom foolery factor) , a panel of power brokers that fix brackets, a magic bullet, on his way to victory tripped on the grassy knoll ........holy crap batman. I've looked at state brackets from Tennessee for more than 20 years, 8 for my own sons..in those 8, I never once looked at it and saw a conspiracy theory involved with brackets. We took it one match at a time and talked about what they were gonna try to do to win a wrestling match.

Campbell Lewis beat Tee Boone in the region finals his Freshman year, Tee was a senior, that loss cost him his seeding at the state and I believe a lot more because when the brackets were drawn almost all the top ranked kids in the state were in the upper bracket. Tee lost a heartbreaking second round match and was gone because of follow your man. Life isn't fair, but we try to make the best of it. Also a few years ago Cleveland won a state championship, the first year they started D. E. they had quite a few wrestlers, and a couple that got upset in first round. Cleveland doesn't win the Traditional State with out D.E., I researched it after the state tournament that year, but because they had so many young men fighting back thru conso's and winning I might add it put them over the top. Cleveland, Soddy, and Bradley were with in 6 points of each other that year. Soddy had 6 in the finals.......other years, 6 in the finals almost guaranteed a state championship.

Your right ghouse, I looked back before Mike corrected me on it and read more about what you were saying. No , im all for the just getting down to the real business at hand. No reason at all to wrestle a match that has no bearing on the state tournament, risking injury and all kinds of other things. Its all about the one tournament, so sorry for my confusion.

Ok, I understand what your saying now Mike, I looked back over what ghouse was saying also then it made sense. Many across the state have thought that the TSSAA has hamstrung wrestling fro a long time with some of their rulings.

Lets see...for decades it was a carry your man state tournament. I know of an ungodly amount of good wrestlers sent packing by that rule. But guys you know the rules when you sign up. I cant see any coach or athlete forfeiting a match just because you don't agree with something, that was in place before you got there. Rules may change in the off-season, that's one thing but a lot of this stuff has been in place for years. Heck, they only changed carry your man after years of kicking and screaming, but I don't remember a threat of forfeiting. Seems extreme and against the rule of good sportsmanship. So many things are changing its difficult to keep up with it all, so I may not know some of the new D2 rules. Wrstlinggod from what I remember D2 did take into account head to head and they used to seed, but I could be wrong.

To be honest, our wrestling community owes all you guys that gave freely of your time and money to spend teaching and molding our youth wrestlers. Xander, Youthcoach, Kevin, Rabbit, ..the one common thread thru all of them is a passion for the sport of wrestling.

You Gotta love it.....Good times. My boys still, call youthcoach.. Coach Mike and well for Kevin, they love him. Kevin created a bond with a lot of those kids, taught them to love wrestling. We called it show time. Kevin's place was the war room.

I may have said this before but my son told me during the season last year that if he had a choice who he could wrestle for other than the ones he was with, it would be Ben Smith. He loved coach Yosts practices as a 9th grader and loves the enthusiasm of Coach Philips and respects all that he ever wrestled against but he singled out Coach Morris at WV and Ben. My son is quiet and usually keeps his emotions to himself but he shook Bens hand after a match, came over to me and said" god I'd loved to have wrestled for him" I've always respected my sons thoughts, and that one will stick with me forever.

I suppose your probably right Mike, you have your finger on the pulse of it. I still believe there is a place for a Chattanooga program like we had, people don't have the money to travel all over the place and im talking depth. Something I mentioned to Coach Henry over the last couple of years was that sometimes it may not be good to have such dominate classes of kids back to back, your taking 8 years where Soddy had some of the top talent in the state. We had kids that could start for most other programs sitting on the sides and some eventually quit the sport. Now I look and the depth is gone and I don't see where the next batch is going to fill those shoes. Maybe they are there, and im way out of the loop. I was keeping up with you guys on one page on track and flipping to mine on another......over 25 matches this year and ive only got to watch on video feed.....im hurting:) You need me to show your kids a headthrow...LOL

My bad coyote, worth the money to watch but people were screaming to separate them too. Ive always been for our states best wrestlers to ...........wrestle. You kinda feel cheated as a fan. I know plenty of young men that could go toe to toe with wrestlers from a larger school or a more funded school but in the name of fairness? More happy folks what we need or coaches feeling like their time is not going to waste by never winning.....our state sorry to say doesn't have the depth to need all these divisions. Anyway its done. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Your right about everything you just stated but I'll do you one better. The depth of Chattanooga wrestling is not good and when they wanted to drop the Chattanooga youth wrestling program I stated then that will help a few but for rural places like Soddy, you will kill our depth. I told this to my good friend MIKE SUTHERLAND...., and its happening. Poor folks barely got enough money to put food on the table, they cant run all over the state taking their kids to tournaments...all I heard was growth, I said your crazy. It will kill some programs. Soddy Daisy, Red Bank, Hixson all our schools had youth programs that fed our schools wrestlers. Good ones, Red Bank and Soddy Daisy would regularly send 30 to 40 kids to these tournaments. The depth is gone, what I told Mike then is bearing fruit. It was a great tool for Chattanooga wrestling that produced, but they wanted a state group. I wrestled my kids in Chattanooga tournaments and also ran them to Atlanta for 3 years...ive been poor ever since. I helped my kids where I could , but a lot of parents don't have money to run all over the place and some kids don't have parents that give a flip, Chattanooga wrestling program provided a valuable tool for our high school wrestling programs.

This is another load of crap they have forced our wrestling community to eat. You force us down to taking 2 teams from our region that is usually loaded with 4 teams good enough to be there. Now we are going to sit kids at home that could represent themselves very well at the state tournament so we can give out more medals to....

I think the Coaches just voted to make a brand new state tournament for the small schools in our state for the Individual. It would be a worse beat down than what WC just got. I cant understand y people scream for separation then want to beg to prove themselves...........a crazy world we live in. Bearcat, I like the way u talk. Mike, I voted Donavan MVP...I had to do a double take when I saw that name.......Soms, wanted to give it to Tate....just another reason for us chattanoogans to look at him funny. One year he's screaming Hixsons fight song, next hes a Blazer...now a darn Wildcat. Soms is bipolar. Go scratch something Soms....., all in good fun. I sure have missed all you guys. Good Luck at state.

I think Tate will wrestle tonight. I thought about this 8hrs ago.

I think Blake Sutherland should get the dang game ball. Gratz Baylor and Cleveland, some really great wrestlers.

Nice post, Go Cleveland.......