Best Coach in the State?

[Jackson]

Well said Legman! When you see them as they mature and start families, whether they won a championship or were just there, the kind of person they become is what is important.

[sly]

Funny thing is,...I never aspired to put myself in any class at all. Just loved to watch young guys dream big, then try to help them go reach it. It's the same thing another man did for me over twenty years ago. Let someone else worry about records and "classes". It's not those championships that I miss the most now,...it's the relationships that our sport builds. Those are my best memories.

 

Legman, The great thing is you were able to acheive both championships and lasting relationships which is a credit to you. I am glad that I had the opportunity to work with you for many years and more importantly that you were both my son's coach and teacher. Thanks for being a huge part of many great memories for me and my family.

 

Your Friend,

 

Alan Morris

[walkenvol]

RamRod - inappropriate post. SM was an 18 year old senior as are most. A few are 17 and a few are 19. Who's your son? Let's discuss his academics and age on this forum also. With atta boys like that, I'd hate to see your insults.

[Sommers]

Funny thing is,...I never aspired to put myself in any class at all. Just loved to watch young guys dream big, then try to help them go reach it. It's the same thing another man did for me over twenty years ago. Let someone else worry about records and "classes". It's not those championships that I miss the most now,...it's the relationships that our sport builds. Those are my best memories.

My hat's off to you Steve, and to Turner for what happened in Bradley County over the years and would not have happened without Turner starting the foundation and you building upon it in a big way.

 

Steve, no matter what some folks say, you are to be considered one of the elite in our sport or any sport for that matter; and you should not be concerned about all these "gainsayers" that spute their negative energy about your accomplishments. Personally, I refuse to allow these guys to tarnish my thinking about what you have done.

 

I, for one, would love to see a Baylor/BC match this year, but I respect your decision while you were coach to focus on the D-1 ranks primarily. You have expressed your reasoning for that while coach. Now the foundations and structure is established and hopefully full competition could be considered once again in the future.

 

Thanks for what you have done and look forward to your return, hopefully one day, as you are still young. Good luck to your girls in B-ball and Turner's too!!

 

Dave

[Sommers]

Legman, The great thing is you were able to acheive both championships and lasting relationships which is a credit to you. I am glad that I had the opportunity to work with you for many years and more importantly that you were both my son's coach and teacher. Thanks for being a huge part of many great memories for me and my family.

 

Your Friend,

 

Alan Morris

Sly,

 

You never failed the legman in sending him developed talent to work with. Congrats to you. You deserve it. Good luck with your WV kids.

[Brickhousechick]

I believe Logston deserves to be listed amoung the best. He has turned out some of the best wrestlers ever. I do think he missed an opportunity to be considered "the best of the best" by beating the d-2 teams. He had a chance to put himself in a class by himself.

 

 

His achievements have already established him in a class by himself.

[RamRod]

RamRod - inappropriate post. SM was an 18 year old senior as are most. A few are 17 and a few are 19. Who's your son? Let's discuss his academics and age on this forum also. With atta boys like that, I'd hate to see your insults.

Look for a great Hvy out of the middle TN area and you will figure it out. When the AAU thing was mentioned it made me think about other things I had been told. I want bring it up again. Hopefully, no one is on here to attack posters children.

[Raider76]

Funny thing is,...I never aspired to put myself in any class at all. Just loved to watch young guys dream big, then try to help them go reach it. It's the same thing another man did for me over twenty years ago. Let someone else worry about records and "classes". It's not those championships that I miss the most now,...it's the relationships that our sport builds. Those are my best memories.

I would agree that these are the most important things,and as I said before I do consider Logston a great coach. I guess I am still chapped that I never got to see a Simpson-Keller match.

[tnsparty]

This is sure to get a lot of different responses but who is hands down the best wrestling coach in the state of TN? This can include their win/lose record, different coaching awards, or even maximizing the amount of talent they have to win.

 

I will qualify this by saying I am relatively new to high school wrestling. However, I am really impressed with the new coach at Independence HS, Coach John Berry. He is doing a great job, along with those that help, with the young kids at IHS.

[LovinIt]

The Vincent's vote for Steve Logsdon. We hope to see you back in the coaches chair one day.

[harry thornton]

Say What?

"The Wrestler" showed up for one of our strategical meetings and then apparently went straight to his laptop to respond so eloquently to this thread

HT

[harry thornton]

Walkenvol, I agree with you... Dalton stinks

Chick,

 

Thank you for the reasoned discussion. I agree with the majority of your points.

 

Einstein knew math, but that knowledge alone didn’t make him a great teacher. A great teacher has a passion to transfer their knowledge to the student and can inspire the student to want to learn. In sport, that knowledge transfer typically takes place during practice. All coaches hold in season practices – that’s what they’re paid to do. The better coaches are great communicators and stay current with the sport’s evolving techniques and training methods. IMHO, the best coaches are the ones who give this same effort out of season when they’re not being hired to do so. Shane Turner does more of this then anyone the walkenvol knows. Wendel Weathers is working hard to create opportunities also.

 

Certainly, a coach can do negative things that tarnish his efforts. You ask if I feel that the Legman should be ranked with the coaches named? I have no clue. I’ve never attended one of his practices and I don’t know the extent of his out of season efforts. When I occasionally run into him, he’s never been anything less then cordial to me. There have been some outstanding wrestlers graduate from the Bradley program under his watch and the Bear nation appear to be very happy with him so as stated before - he must of done a whole lot of things right. Based on his quotes in the papers and on this board, I would venture a guess that he would consider it an insult to be ranked with some of those coaches named and based on what I know I would agree with him.

 

You also asked if not wrestling the private schools lowers his status – from my perspective yes. I understand that he has some specific beefs with 2 of those programs and took a firm stance but from my perspective the ramifications of those actions were not to the benefit of his wrestlers, wrestling in the Chattanooga area in general, and lastly his program’s reputation. Like you, I don’t agree with the folks who paint that stance as “dodging the competition” and the examples of other tough opponents on the schedule validate that point. Those dual meets would have been memories that your sons would have carried a lifetime and it’s a shame that the men involved can’t find the common ground to make them happen. The privates will line up for the opportunity to dual Bradley, but the Bradley staff chose not to allow those events to happen. The D1/D2 split is a completely different issue and no wrestling coach can put that humpty dumpty back together again.

 

The one Chick point with which I don’t agree is that “people just can’t get by the fact that Bradley has been the benchmark”. The folks I know feel just the opposite and respect the Bear program for setting the bar. The single issue they don’t respect is the refusal to dual Bay/McC. Surely you can admit that those events would be enormously more exciting/competitive then mopping the mat with the Rhea and Daltons (no offense intended) of the world?