BobCorker

2 hours ago, Rasslinking said:

No need to check sources. Mr Durden claims McCallie had the best coaching staff. You guys got 6th place at state this year. Haven’t won a state title since 2006?

Getting beat by Baylor is understandable, as they recruit their entire line up. But every other school ahead of you guys operate on the sane playing field.

So, if you want to beat them, you would need to bring in a bunch of recruits. Which you guys are. Pretty sure there is about 5-6 of the best 8th graders in the state attending McCallie next year, none of which were McCallie Students prior.

And let’s be real, if you were not there, they wouldn’t have most of the kids on the team.

 

How many Baylor kids from the traditional state title lineup wrestled for a different high school before Baylor?    How many started in middle school?  Sounds like McCallie should be in the hunt to win it next year. 

5 hours ago, Rasslinking said:

MBA, FR and CB do a great job developing their own talent. That’s obvious bc they all have feeder programs represented in the youth state tournament. Bottom line is Baylor and McCallie would rather recruit kids to build a team, which is fine. But they aren’t better coaches than any of the other 3 programs. Past credentials are 100% irrelevant when it comes to ability to coach. 

How many kids on FR and CB's teams went to FR middle school and CB middle school? 

As a senator of this great state for 12 years and someone who sent their kids to a private school in Tennessee, I believe I can add to this discussion.

Mr. Durdon,

You can’t honestly expect us all to believe that McCallie just randomly decided to de-emphasize wrestling after your son’s freshmen year.   In that time span McCallie won 4 cross-country state championships.  Did they decide to value cross-country over wrestling?  If you click on the McCallie website, you will find a note stating that McCallie has won 54 team and individual state titles in the last four years.  54!!! It would sure seem to be a very balanced athletic dept in the shadow of a great football team.

You must realize that McCallie has not won a traditional state championship in wrestling since 1993.  This is not a 4-year problem.  No kid on the team was alive the last time McCallie won state.  McCallie has probably invested more into their program in the last decade than any other program in the state.  At most tournaments they have more coaches than they do placers.  They have 3 head coaches on staff in Yost, Newman, and Connell.  They have at least 5 other assistants who wrestled in college. They have a full-time club coach.  Despite all the resources that McCallie has poured into the program, they routinely get out coached by CCS and Boyd.  We get that the program helped your son achieve his academic and athletic goals, so you are forever a McCallie sycophant.  We all know the well ran dry when Chittum pulled out and went to Blair.  The truth is that this new wave is being directed by a parent who wants to restore the glory years of 1993. Why the false narrative?

In regard to DII schools giving scholarships: Directly form the TSSAA Handbook: Section 16

Financial aid may be awarded on the basis of need, but proof of such need must be filed in the TSSAA office on forms approved by the Executive Director. In order to determine the basis for need, all schools awarding financial aid shall use one of the following services: FACTS Grant and Aid Assessment (FACTS), Financial Aid for School Tuition (FAST), School and Student Scholastic Service for Financial Aid (SSS), Family Financial Needs Assessment (FFNA), Private School Aid Services, Blackbaud Tuition Management, or Tuition Aid Data Services (TADS). Schools must choose one of the companies for all student-athletes. A committee consisting of School Heads from Division II schools and one ex-officio, non-voting member from the Board of Control and Legislative Council will meet and make recommendations to the Board of Control on each student submitted. In addition, this committee will collect information from schools regarding financial aid statistics, grant procedures, and the overall financial aid program within the school. The Board of Control will then rule on all cases at the August meeting. The Board of Control shall have authority to reject the basis of need for students when in its opinion, or in the opinion of the school committee, the amount of need stated by the financial service cannot be justified.

To summarize: There is no such thing as a scholarship to a private school in TN.  They are not allowed to give MERIT aid.  If you know of someone who has received a scholarship, please turn that school into the TSSAA.  That school will get the death plenty. If they were allowed to give scholarships, then TN private schools would be able to compete with the teams in the Northeast who do give scholarships. The TSSAA handicaps the private schools in our great state.  Why doesn’t McCallie just offer a full ride to every kid in the SE and win it every year if they had the ability?

If one has worked hard in business, law, or medicine and made good money, then you are going to have to pay to attend private schools.  Baylor’s run most recent run, and historically, includes many prosperous families who have footed the bill.  That is certainly true of McCallie, Father Ryan, Christian Brothers, and MBA as well.  People like Alex Whitworth’s family have done very well through hard work and education.  Why do people have a problem with them paying for private school? Seems very socialist!  There are two types of kids who have the easiest time getting into McCallie: wealthy folks and poor folks.  The middle class is squeezed out, again. Coach Morgan had a dry spell from 1981 to 1999 without a state championship… why didn’t he just start handing out scholarships?  Sometimes this misconception is exacerbated by folks in TN who claim their child got a full ride scholarship.  In reality they are just poor if they got full need-based aid; they probably don’t understand the difference.

4 hours ago, Manhole said:

We all know Baylor can’t develop talent and no one improves there. They get cussed at from the corner because that all the coaching available. Their recruiting is that you will get a better drill partner than where you live which is a perk disappearing class after class and you get paid travel which all boarding schools offer so why choose Chattanooga over MD or PA? 

Show me on the doll where the Baylor wrestler hurt your boy

Man...Soddy Daisy must be sick about Flavin and Dyer missing weight. They would have as good of a chance as any of these four if those two were in the field this week. I don't know how that happens and at this time of the year of all times too... 

I'm surprised there isn't more chatter on this... weren't we all just being told about how smart/elite of a coach the brand new bearded wizard of the round gym is? Surely he has to understand that on you must be on time and on weight to have a chance.  

12 hours ago, cbg said:

Everyone knows that the Al Dvorak Tournament is not the same caliber of tournament as the Beast of The East but it is a solid high school wrestling tournament.  I have little doubt that it would be more difficult than the Tennessee State Tournament.  

https://www.journeymenwrestling.com/tournaments

Looks like some of the top Beast of the East Talent will be at the National High School Showcase this year

Baylor 45 Bradley 21

Cleveland 40 Bradley 26

Neither team is a top 50 team in the country

44 minutes ago, Ummmno said:

You must not know who Phillip or his family is. It's ok, we're all new to the state at one point. 

 

He comes from the most qualified family in the state. He himself is an NCAA runner up. If you don't think he's ever coached you're either willfully ignorant or, like i said, new to the state. 

58 minutes ago, Ummmno said:

You must not know who Phillip or his family is. It's ok, we're all new to the state at one point. 

 

He comes from the most qualified family in the state. He himself is an NCAA runner up. If you don't think he's ever coached you're either willfully ignorant or, like i said, new to the state. 

I’m pretty familiar with them.  Their family has produced coaching legends in TN; that goes without saying. They are also fantastic humans.  I was in St. Louis when Philip lost to Zack Esposito in the finals. 

None of that has to do with the fact that Philip Simpson chose to go into the private sector after he was done competing.  There is no doubt that he could have made a fantastic DI coach. It would appear that he chose a different route and never spent years coaching at the college level and making 30K a year while he worked his way up the ladder. 

I guess my question is, what do you think the resume of a DI coach should look like?  Simply be a great wrestler from that state? My argument is that many of the intricacies of being a DI coach are only learned from being in the industry.  I think the current coaching staff needs more time, but if it doesn’t work out then Kevin Ward might be a good place to start. 

On 3/23/2022 at 10:00 AM, Ummmno said:

Just my opinion here, and it may be an unpopular one, but I think when Eslinger left and we hired a new coach it should've been one from in state. 

 

We have one FROM this state who competed at the highest levels and isn't currently coaching at the NCAA level. Phillip Simpson. 

Not only is he not currently coaching at the NCAA level, but it also doesn’t look he has much experience in that field at all. 

How often do DI programs hire people from the Construction Manufacturing industry?  For one, he probably makes 4x what a college coach gets paid.  Secondly, running a DI program is a very specific skill set.  Fundraising, recruiting, organizing training cycles, handling crazy wrestling dads, dealing with admin/boosters, and working with compliance office are all skills that are only honed in the business.  Teaching the best finish to a single leg is the least important skill of a D1 head coach; they hire assistants to do that.

Injuries. Heard that both Cordey and Harper will be back in Janaury.  Dual is no contest with those two.  How come Cleveland did not have the Lake Norman Duals on their scheudle before the season started? 

2 hours ago, Rasslinking said:

But can they compete with teams such as Blair or WS?

With them literally recruiting everyone on thier team except 2-3 kids, you would think they should be able to, right?

Not a single person has made that claim, Rasslinking.   They probably would not be favored to win a single match. If fact, it's probably unlikely any kid in TN would be favored.  McCallie(2), CBHS(1), Baylor(2), and FR(2) all have kids that wrestled for other high schools.  I think you are over overreacting.

Perhaps a TN team should try to get ranked in the top 50 before beating the best two teams in the country.

If you were hired at McCallie as the head coach, and they didn't have an elementary school, where would you get all of you wrestlers?  You know that kids are not zoned to go to private schools, correct? Would you talk a bunch of 8th graders out for wrestling and win the state a couple years later? 

2 hours ago, PurpleWrestler said:

you too Bruce

Oh, to help you out again, 7 of the 14 starters at CBHS were part of the Wave program

On the others

2 were new wrestlers, started as a freshman

Another's dad attended CBHS 

And 2 were from a local club that has no school affiliation and became friends with our kids, and I've never asked them why they chose CBHS, but maybe it's because of the reputation we have in town for molding young men into fine students. 

So no, none of these kids were recruited. And I could go back for years and show you the exact same stats

So you want us to believe that Bowers and Derek coaching together for Team TN didn't have anything to do with the Bowers boys showing up at CBHS? They just moved 6 hours away for the fun of it? The rumor mill was churning pretty hard about Copper Flynn moving to CBHS once Bowers showed up too, but it didn't pan out.   I guess Wills Bronson just up and moved from Dalton, GA and picked CBHS without any outside influence?  The Wave club is the best recruiting tool possible... find good local talent at a young age and put them on travel teams. You are the only show in town.  

I am not saying that any of this is the wrong thing to do.  You should try to get the best talent in Memphis.  Father Ryan gets the best kids in Nashville.  They had a heavyweight out of Minnesota, John Hayes, a few years ago.  Parker Peterson wrestled for Park Hill, MO at one point.  Kids move! Ethan West lived in Georgia and won state titles for Cleveland. Hilton moved from Nashville to wrestle for Boom Ranch.  Baylor and McCallie attract their fair share of talent in all sports. No one thinks schools are out there doing in home visits.  The kids and parents are the ones that recruit...they want their kids to be on a good team. It happens in public and private, and it always will.  Social media has only made it easier.  There is a reason DII was created... stop crying about it.   Build nice facilities and hire committed coaches...then kids will show up...it's a law of nature. 

35 minutes ago, durdon said:

I’m not sure but I don’t think Ryan moved to Chattanooga by 8th grade but I can’t remember when he left Knoxville. 

He attended Baylor 6th-12th; that much I know.  I could not recall if Murphy and Parker placed the same year.  Thanks NotSurprised for confirming.   So it has been done multiple times but still impressive for Boom Ranch. 

Congrats to the TN guys! Way to represent! Boom Ranch is doing a great job. 

Correct me if I am wrong, but I remember Ryan Parker winning the middle school division and Michael Murphy getting 2nd or 3rd in the same year.  Didn't Ivy and one of his teammates place in the same year too?   Durdon? 

41 minutes ago, PurpleWrestler said:

what year is this from?

Not last year. Last year Baylor and CBHS finished 14th and 16th

Last year.  Check the records on trackwrestling.  It was announced that they had issues with Flo and would use trackwrestling for the final scores. 

46 minutes ago, Opry said:

I hate to argue with publicly available facts, but Baylor placed 14th last year and the best they have ever done was in 2015 when they did finish 9th. Also only 40 teams.

https://www.kcstampede.com/past-results/

You are correct about Parker, he was quite good.

Year	Baylor	CBHS
2009		8
2010
2011		6
2012		14
2013		32
2014	18
2015	9	12
2016	28	21
2017	14	16
Avg Place	17.3	15.6

Either way, they still get spanked this weekend.

You should try harder at arguing publicly stated facts. Stampede press release after the tournament stated that TrackWrestling would have the updated/correct team scores for last year.  I've copied them for you. CBHS should have a great tournament out there this weekend.   Not sure why you want Baylor to fail so badly. 

14 hours ago, Opry said:

Baylor will get spanked this weekend in Kansas City and we will see how tough they really are...don’t think they have ever had a champ there

Ryan Parker won the tournament.  He made the finals 2x.  Whimper and Reiniche made the finals.  Reiniche has a couple guys ranked ahead of him in his bracket this weekend.  Baylor made the top 10 last year.  What do you consider getting spanked?  It's a national tournament with 50 teams that was ranked as the 5th hardest in-season tournament in the country by Intermat. 

DII will be extremely close down the stretch.  I have heard McCallie folks say that when they are full strength they are the team to beat. It will come down to who is healthy. 

I looked back at the last four years that TN has been going and came away very impressed. Hopefully, we see more and more guys competing up there.  It seems that some teams push it harder than others, but the more guys that place the better it looks for TN.  

Team results since TN started going back: 

2014-2015

Baylor 7^th

Father Ryan 34^th

MBA 48^th

McCallie 56^th

2015-2016

Baylor 9^th

FR 19^th

McCallie 20^th

MBA 56^th

CBHS 100^th

2016-2017

McCallie 10^th

Baylor 15^th

FR 21^st

MBA 23^rd

CBHS  37^th

2017-2018

McCallie 8^th

CBHS 9^th

Baylor 14^th

MBA 34^th

Father Ryan 52^nd

Yep, BoydBuc-  Glad your boy could get his medal too. He did a fine job. I thought for sure he had that match in the semis.  Don't you agree that it feels good to actually earn it... much better than just showing up at a regional tournament with a bunch of half-empty brackets and have a medal just given to you?  

Also, I never said the region is a bad idea.  I just was poking at BoydBuc for crying about a medal that doesn't really seem worthy of hanging on the wall next to Elvis. 

BoydBuc, 

Do we have years of your whining to look forward to now that Boyd is going to be a future DII powerhouse?  My boy placed at the region tournament Saturday and never once asked about getting a medal.  You must live in a snowflake world where everyone gets a participation trophy.  Who cares about being top 4 out of a crappy 8 man bracket?  Only 1 team even entered a full line-up on Saturday... seriously, making it to state in DII is not an accomplishment.  Get over it. 

Also, McCallie played a basketball game Friday night at Baylor, so I'm guessing they couldn't turn around the gym in time for Saturday.