TNAAU State Championship

[jcddmoon]

Being one the Georgia kids in question I would like to explain the reasoning and what we were told regarding the TNAAU State tournament.

 

Must be with a sanctioned AAU Tennessee Team and not compete in the Georgia State tournament.

 

We were participating in a TNAAU sanctioned tournament the weekend of Georgia state qualifiers.

 

I can't speak for the Kentucky kids but I know allot of the Georgia boys wrestled exclusively in the TNAAU region 3 this year. I do agree that this needs to be policed. If rules are in place then they need to be enforced.

 

I do know through word of Chuck Pope whose Son wrestled at Liberty the week of the Qualifiers, that if you want to compete in your State tournament you can through the use of a waiver.

[YOUTHCOACH16]

Hopefully I can clarify some of the things being said on here and explain how the process works and how it came to be. For years North georgia has participated in our Chattanooga tournaments as they are part of the Chattanooga community. At the end of the year they have always been excluded from our post season tournaments unless they wrestled for a Chattanooga club. The same issue happens on the Ky line and Bristol/va line. We proposed at our last board meeting to allow these kids to compete in our region and state if they meet certain criteria, mainly chosing which state they were going to compete in. The kids wrestling from Georgia are not competing in their states post season tournaments. They chose to wrestle with Tennessee instead. Now as far as the kids from Kentucky wrestling in both state tournaments this is clearly against the rules and they have been informed they cant compete in the Tn state tournaments. The reasoning behind allowing them to compete with us are many but the main reason is we are trying to grow our numbers and level of competetion. Tn aau is an organization and a member of the southeastern aau district. There are many cross boundary rules at the national level and we touched based with the aau home office to make sure this is legal and allowed and it was approved. We have to decide as a state what our goals are. We felt that allowing kids to compete in the communities they for all practical purposes live in and at the same time raising our numbers and making our state more competetive was our main goal. We even had the teams sign a contract stating they were whithin 50 miles and they would not wrestle with another states post season tournaments. There are many issues we have to work around such as middle school leagues not allowing their kids to compete outside of their leagues so that limits the number of aautournaments they can participate in prior to the aau post season tournaments. We try to make decisions that are best for the kids and sometimes those decesuions arent always as easy as black and white. We will revisit this ruling again in the spring at our board meeting but for this year the out of state kids whithin 50 miles who have signed our contract and have not wrestled in another states tournament will be allowed to participate.

[YOUTHCOACH16]

Mr House made some good points as well. I think as Memphis wrestling continues to grow we will see this same issue with Southaven and the other communities right across the line. I personally feel that allowing these teams to compete only makes our kids better and our state stronger and thats what our focus should be on.

Edited March 7, 2012 by YOUTHCOACH16

[jcddmoon]

Mr House made some good points as well. I think as Memphis wrestling continues to grow we will see this same issue with Southaven and the other communities right across the line. I personally feel that allowing these teams to compete only makes our kids better and our state stronger and thats what our focus should be on.

 

I have no issue with children who wrestle and compete in the state wrestling with us. My concern is that the lines may become blurred and you will have "medal hunters" who feel due to the Age/Weight requirments within their state they have an advantage by participating in our tourney. I have to say I think our TN wrestlers are as good as they come and I know that they will defend the State and our kids will retain the State Championships. I would just like to see clearly defined regulations preventing the misuse of the "system" as it is. Maybe at some point we can have a Southeast Regional Tournament sanctioned by AAU and all the Southeastern States can compete. Something similar to the Tri-State Classic that Ringgold use to host when I wrestled. Lets get em this weekend TN.

[YOUTHCOACH16]

Valid points Mr Moon and we are trying to keep that from happening. The coaches were supposed to sign an agreement at the beginning of the year agreeing to our rules. I think there were a few violations of this by lack of communication and those have been addressed. We are in a growing process and with that there will be hurdles we have to cross but thats a good problem to have. We knew this decesion would be a sensitive issue but we felt it was whats best for our state. We have to lok at the big picture and the state as a whole and we think this will make us stronger.

[mat73557]

So am I interpreting this correctly?

 

Some Kentucky kids who already competed in their own state tournament have been told that they cannot compete in the TN State Tournament.

 

AND

 

If the above is true, then that would imply that those kids from KY already competed in our region tournament and took spots to state away from kids who live and wrestle in TN.

 

Wow. I understand that if you live across the border but these teams are miles away. One GA team is 40 miles from the state line. It is not like those kids are members of HCWC and their moms and dads are driving them 40 miles one way to practice every day. No offense to any of you GA guys by the way.

 

Why is this a good idea again?

 

The tournament flyer from Kentucky says clearly.....

 

"2. Must wrestle in one of the 2011 KYSWA Regional Tournaments and be a permanent KY

Resident."

 

So how is that fair?

[iwondrwhy]

Hopefully I can clarify some of the things being said on here and explain how the process works and how it came to be. For years North georgia has participated in our Chattanooga tournaments as they are part of the Chattanooga community. At the end of the year they have always been excluded from our post season tournaments unless they wrestled for a Chattanooga club. The same issue happens on the Ky line and Bristol/va line. We proposed at our last board meeting to allow these kids to compete in our region and state if they meet certain criteria, mainly chosing which state they were going to compete in. The kids wrestling from Georgia are not competing in their states post season tournaments. They chose to wrestle with Tennessee instead. Now as far as the kids from Kentucky wrestling in both state tournaments this is clearly against the rules and they have been informed they cant compete in the Tn state tournaments. The reasoning behind allowing them to compete with us are many but the main reason is we are trying to grow our numbers and level of competetion. Tn aau is an organization and a member of the southeastern aau district. There are many cross boundary rules at the national level and we touched based with the aau home office to make sure this is legal and allowed and it was approved. We have to decide as a state what our goals are. We felt that allowing kids to compete in the communities they for all practical purposes live in and at the same time raising our numbers and making our state more competetive was our main goal. We even had the teams sign a contract stating they were whithin 50 miles and they would not wrestle with another states post season tournaments. There are many issues we have to work around such as middle school leagues not allowing their kids to compete outside of their leagues so that limits the number of aautournaments they can participate in prior to the aau post season tournaments. We try to make decisions that are best for the kids and sometimes those decesuions arent always as easy as black and white. We will revisit this ruling again in the spring at our board meeting but for this year the out of state kids whithin 50 miles who have signed our contract and have not wrestled in another states tournament will be allowed to participate.

Then why don't we let the Ga. high school kids wrestle in our high school state tournament. If what you are saying is really true that would make Tennessee high school wrestlers better also. AAU gives into the Chattanooga area and gives them what they want, I just wish it would be fair across the state. Maybe we should look into another sanction like we did several years ago when we stopped using FCI. We need a sanction that is fair across the state with rules and wont fold. We need someone to look out for Tennessee's best interest.

[ghostsingle]

Then why don't we let the Ga. high school kids wrestle in our high school state tournament. If what you are saying is really true that would make Tennessee high school wrestlers better also. AAU gives into the Chattanooga area and gives them what they want, I just wish it would be fair across the state. Maybe we should look into another sanction like we did several years ago when we stopped using FCI. We need a sanction that is fair across the state with rules and wont fold. We need someone to look out for Tennessee's best interest.

i just recieved a text from a mom of one of my wrestlers, she is not sure if they are going to the state tournament because of the out of state invaision, KY, GA, VA, TN, looks like a spring national warm up event??

[bradley08]

Then why don't we let the Ga. high school kids wrestle in our high school state tournament. If what you are saying is really true that would make Tennessee high school wrestlers better also. AAU gives into the Chattanooga area and gives them what they want, I just wish it would be fair across the state. Maybe we should look into another sanction like we did several years ago when we stopped using FCI. We need a sanction that is fair across the state with rules and wont fold. We need someone to look out for Tennessee's best interest.

 

How is it not fair across the state? The Ky kids have the same opportunity as the North Georgia kids. The Va. kids have the same opportunity as the North Georgia kids and the ms kids if there are any have the same opportunity as the Memphis kids. Sounds like its pretty fair across the state. Is your goal not to increase the numbers in Tennessee and make everyone better? Obviously thats not your goal. Your goal seems to be to make sure little Timmy wins the state. Obviously Tennessee's best interest was looked at and thats why this was evidently voted in. I highly doubt Chattanooga made their own rules. If anything the Chattanooga people should be more mad about it than anyone as some of their kids got knocked out by Georgia kids. Maybe you should make your own league like you suggested. One where little Timmy can always win. Leave the real wrestling up to the parts of the state that arent scared of a little competition. You wonder why Chattanooga always wins? Look no further than at your own fears and attitudes and you will find the answer my friend.

Edited March 8, 2012 by bradley08

[JBoskenUSAW]

i just recieved a text from a mom of one of my wrestlers, she is not sure if they are going to the state tournament because of the out of state invaision, KY, GA, VA, TN, looks like a spring national warm up event??

I can see both sides of the argument here, but here are my thoughts. I have a club that is located in Cleveland, TN. I am located twenty minutes from the GA boarder. I have many kids from GA in my club, most who I have trained from the very beginning. If they train with me, travel with me, and compete with my club, I would expect them to be able to compete in TN state. Now, I have my GA kids who would rather wrestle in GA states, and they know if they choose that path they cannot compete in region, state or on TN national teams. Basically, just because these kids happen to live twenty minutes south rather than twenty minutes north of me should not restrict them. Now if they didn't wrestle with my club everywhere and just chose to wrestle in TN region and State I could understand people's concern. If anyone wants me to elaborate on my thoughts, I'll be there this weekend.

 

Josh Bosken

HCWC

[bradley08]

i just recieved a text from a mom of one of my wrestlers, she is not sure if they are going to the state tournament because of the out of state invaision, KY, GA, VA, TN, looks like a spring national warm up event??

 

Invasion? How many kids are there from out of state ? I dont really have a dog in the hunt anymore but imho it seems like a lot of crying over a handful of kids who wish to wrestle with Tn as opposed to their state due to their proximty to the Tn communities. Im not sure about the other teams people are talking about but for all practical purposes N. Georgia is part of Chattanooga. Many people who work in Tn live right across the line in ga due to better schools, property values, ectt.. These people support and attend our tournaments, spend money in our community, some of them go to school in Chattanooga. They are much more a part of Chattanooga than they are Atlanta which is where Usa Ga wrestling is centered. I would think Memphis would have the same situation with their Mississippi counterparts right across the line. Its funny everyone is so worked up over this. Its the Chattanooga kids you should be worried about and not the North georgia kids. I bet there isnt more than 1-2 state champions at the most and more than likely 0.

Edited March 8, 2012 by bradley08

[cje329]

Wow you guys are killin me. Let them wrestle!!! If your scared of the competition, they dont compete. Those KY kids have been at almost every tournament that we have been to. When you ask their coaches why they travel so far the response is always, "We just want to compete and get better". Sounds like they are in it for the kids and not the parents. Now, Im sure you've got coaches and parents trying to explain to a 7 year old why he cant wrestle in the state tournament, all because someone apparently has some sort of personal agenda other than the sport itself. Its always been my experience that of you want to be a better competitor, then compete against better competition. How freakin complicated is that. Im sure this will come back to bite me in the butt later, but there I said it.

Edited March 8, 2012 by cje329