State wrestling talent spread to thin.

[werazzlin]

No they would not. Back then when there was one state no split they only placed 4 per weight class. So how does one match away from 6th place come close to the top 4 back then ?

Because it is harder to place now.

[cobrakid8]

The top kids are still the top kids, but it is much easier to place now than it was 10-20 years ago. I have helped with a few programs for the past few years and I have whipped up on some state placers last 5-10 years and I was one round away from placing and I am fat and out of shape now so I know my wrestling has not gotten better. Now the top kids maybe but the 3-6 has not gotten better than the past and now with 3 divisions instead of 1 or even 2 there will be kids that have no business with a medal, get one because they go to a school with a smaller population of students. I mean the best way of making programs better and to have interest in growing the sport starts with more youth programs not more placers! I mean 2 of the top public schools in the state have been Bradley and Cleveland and they are in the SAME county so they divide a lot of their stud wrestlers and yet year after year there they are and now they have Walker Valley joining them, and I am sure if they had a 1A school open up there that team would have some studs also! Has nothing to do with having more placers, that county presses wrestling even more so than football and some other sports and it starts with their youth programs, same with Soddy Daisy and their youth program. Kids most of the time cannot wait until high school to decide to start or they prob have no chance to medal. This split helps nothing with that just like having the girls state I mean it has been a joke so far. Hardly any numbers at all so I guess to grow it lets start a small school girls and than a big school division and maybe they will come. This is not Field of Dreams, if kids want to wrestle they have to want it, they need to start early because this is the toughest sport out there!

[hoosierdad]

Because it is harder to place now.

 

This is so far from the truth. It is easier to place now than it was back in the day because there was 1 division for the state tournament. You can not look yourself in the mirror and believe it is harder now when you have 2 divisions for the state championships. The state tournament is watered down and will be even further next year when they add the A/AA dvision. You are also kidding yourself believing this will bring more fans. The TSSAA is cutting the division 2 in half so you will miss a big part of the division 2 crowd.

Edited February 20, 2013 by hoosierdad

[Franknbeans]

1. Split was 1997. so according to my calculations that is 15 years ago.
   

[cbg]

Because it is harder to place now.

It is much easier to place today than it was 20-30 years ago. Just look at the Middle Tennessee geographic area: Prior to the D1/D2 split they had 4 districts with around 12 teams in each district and a wrestler had to place in the top 4 to advance to the region tournament. The region was comprised of about 48+ teams and a wrestler had to place in the top 4 to advance to the state tournament. Once a wrestler made it to the state tournament they had a 16 man bracket with no easy matches and they only placed 4 individuals. Look at past results of various state champions and most would win by 4 or 5 points in their first round match. From the quaterfinals on it would be a war with most matches being decided by no more than 2 or 3 points. Even wrestlers that were 3X state champions would have difficult matches. The way it is today you may only have one or two good wrestlers in each weight class and they are in different divisions. Skill wise the top wrestlers today are very strong but due to the various divisions they have a cakewalk to a state championship.

Edited February 20, 2013 by cbg

[mfceo]

Shoestring wrote:

There are some schools in Chattanooga that supposed to be good and used to be state powers that wrestle NOBODY and then they wonder why they get beat in the state individuals every year. Well, guess what, it will only get worse. Do you think the Hixsons, Centrals, East Ridges, East Hamiltons , Notre Dames of the world will wrestle Soddy, Cleveland, Bradley, Walker Valley Baylor, or McCallie right in their own hometown? Some of the best teams in the state within a 15-25 minute drive and they will never face them so they can protect some win loss record. Is that fair to your kids? Is that making them better wrestlers? Has that prepared them for the state tournaments? Also you will have to travel great distances now to find matches because the small schools will not wrestle the big schools.

 

my reply to his or her unresearched comment

East Hamilton is now big school so not applicable example

 

Hixson wrestles Soddy, Bradley,Walker Valley,Ooltewah,Gordon Lee,Black Horse(cbhs states #1 team is there) Bradley Invitational

 

Red Bank wrestles Soddy, Bradley, Ooltewah,Baylor and McCallie And a early duals tournament at Heritage Ga vs NGa's best and up until this year attended sham slam every year and McCallie Invitational plus GP West

 

East Ridge wrestles Soddy , Walker Valley, Bradley,Ooltewah and Mccallie Invitational

 

Notre Dame wrestles Bradley Invitational in past has went to Atl to wrestle tough Ga teams , Ooltewah Walker Valley, Ravenwood and Soddy invitational

 

Central wrestles Ooltewah,Brentwood, Gordon Lee,Beech, Bradley, Blackman, and Bradley Invitational

so what and the heck are you talking about...all these team schedules are on nwca...do your research...looks like all those Chatt small school teams travel for tough matches too

btw

Central had 2 placers

Hixson had 2 placers

Notre Dame had 2 placers

East Ridge had 2 placers

Red Bank kicked off two Srs,. that were multi time placers that would prob been placers this year

and I can name 2- 3 placers that every year ...-all of these teams have lost to Baylor, McCallie and Soddy

Edited February 20, 2013 by mfceo

[cchulk]

"Our problem is not having enough coaches with the vision and dedication"

 

This is an ignorant statement except for the part about 'not enough coaches'.

There are a lot of us out there that have vision and dedication but do not have the resources that we need to maintain quality feeder programs or kids programs. I have been trying for 15 years, but community support is low, there are very few people with wrestling experience in my area to help coach kids, and financial support is limited. I, like many coaches, only have so much time to give and it is spread very thin. I know for a fact that vision and dedication is not the problem for small towns coaches and small schools. We dont have the wrestling base that Soddy has, but we are trying our best to build it. The richer get richer, wrestling-wise, while the poor like us work our butts off just to get out of poverty.

 

Nobody is asking to be handed a medal. My school will no longer be in A-AA after this year, but I completely support the split. I know like us, the small schools want to earn what they get, but by allowing them to compete with schools in similar situations, they can give more of their population a vision, hope, and attainable dream for success. As a coach or father, you should want every child to have a chance at success, even if it is not at the highest level, even if they could not start in 1st grade or 5th grade, even if they live in poverty, even if they don't have middle school wrestling, even if they only have one coach and no youth coach...these are all major issues of many counties, not including soddy, cleveland, pigeon forge and the other school people like to use as examples. The split gives more of these kids that chance for success without just handing them a medal. I doubt any of next year medalists will say i'm pathetic, they just gave me a medal....more likely what will happen is a little brother or youth wrestler will look up to one of those medalists and resolve to work hard enough to attain their new goal of being one of those medalists....resulting in the growth of TN wrestling.

[rcpatriot]

If these splits are such a bad idea why did the majority of the coaches vote for it?

[Khromax]

Shoestring wrote:

There are some schools in Chattanooga that supposed to be good and used to be state powers that wrestle NOBODY and then they wonder why they get beat in the state individuals every year. Well, guess what, it will only get worse. Do you think the Hixsons, Centrals, East Ridges, East Hamiltons , Notre Dames of the world will wrestle Soddy, Cleveland, Bradley, Walker Valley Baylor, or McCallie right in their own hometown? Some of the best teams in the state within a 15-25 minute drive and they will never face them so they can protect some win loss record. Is that fair to your kids? Is that making them better wrestlers? Has that prepared them for the state tournaments? Also you will have to travel great distances now to find matches because the small schools will not wrestle the big schools.

 

my reply to his or her unresearched comment

East Hamilton is now big school so not applicable example

 

Hixson wrestles Soddy, Bradley,Walker Valley,Ooltewah,Gordon Lee,Black Horse(cbhs states #1 team is there) Bradley Invitational

 

Red Bank wrestles Soddy, Bradley, Ooltewah,Baylor and McCallie And a early duals tournament at Heritage Ga vs NGa's best and up until this year attended sham slam every year and McCallie Invitational plus GP West

 

East Ridge wrestles Soddy , Walker Valley, Bradley,Ooltewah and Mccallie Invitational

 

Notre Dame wrestles Bradley Invitational in past has went to Atl to wrestle tough Ga teams , Ooltewah Walker Valley, Ravenwood and Soddy invitational

 

Central wrestles Ooltewah,Brentwood, Gordon Lee,Beech, Bradley, Blackman, and Bradley Invitational

so what and the heck are you talking about...all these team schedules are on nwca...do your research...looks like all those Chatt small school teams travel for tough matches too

btw

Central had 2 placers

Hixson had 2 placers

Notre Dame had 2 placers

East Ridge had 2 placers

Red Bank kicked off two Srs,. that were multi time placers that would prob been placers this year

and I can name 2- 3 placers that every year ...-all of these teams have lost to Baylor, McCallie and Soddy

Pull your panties out and calm down....so much red anger talking. Soddy Daisy, didnt wrestle any you listed but Hixson. Whats even more intresting is these small schools you listed used to be the state powers they will no longer compete against, how about that big guy.

[slingshot]

The top kids are still the top kids, but it is much easier to place now than it was 10-20 years ago. I have helped with a few programs for the past few years and I have whipped up on some state placers last 5-10 years and I was one round away from placing and I am fat and out of shape now so I know my wrestling has not gotten better. Now the top kids maybe but the 3-6 has not gotten better than the past and now with 3 divisions instead of 1 or even 2 there will be kids that have no business with a medal, get one because they go to a school with a smaller population of students. I mean the best way of making programs better and to have interest in growing the sport starts with more youth programs not more placers! I mean 2 of the top public schools in the state have been Bradley and Cleveland and they are in the SAME county so they divide a lot of their stud wrestlers and yet year after year there they are and now they have Walker Valley joining them, and I am sure if they had a 1A school open up there that team would have some studs also! Has nothing to do with having more placers, that county presses wrestling even more so than football and some other sports and it starts with their youth programs, same with Soddy Daisy and their youth program. Kids most of the time cannot wait until high school to decide to start or they prob have no chance to medal. This split helps nothing with that just like having the girls state I mean it has been a joke so far. Hardly any numbers at all so I guess to grow it lets start a small school girls and than a big school division and maybe they will come. This is not Field of Dreams, if kids want to wrestle they have to want it, they need to start early because this is the toughest sport out there!

Nice post, Cobra. The only disagreement I have is that "maybe the top guys are tougher today than 10 years ago". About 10 years ago, we had guys like K. Ward, M.Keller, J.Yost,R. Blackmon,J. Leen, M.McCarty, Q. Gibson, K. James, P. Simpson, etc, etc, etc... To say that the top-tier guys today are tougher than these guys..?

[Khromax]

"Our problem is not having enough coaches with the vision and dedication"

 

This is an ignorant statement except for the part about 'not enough coaches'.

There are a lot of us out there that have vision and dedication but do not have the resources that we need to maintain quality feeder programs or kids programs. I have been trying for 15 years, but community support is low, there are very few people with wrestling experience in my area to help coach kids, and financial support is limited. I, like many coaches, only have so much time to give and it is spread very thin. I know for a fact that vision and dedication is not the problem for small towns coaches and small schools. We dont have the wrestling base that Soddy has, but we are trying our best to build it. The richer get richer, wrestling-wise, while the poor like us work our butts off just to get out of poverty.

 

Nobody is asking to be handed a medal. My school will no longer be in A-AA after this year, but I completely support the split. I know like us, the small schools want to earn what they get, but by allowing them to compete with schools in similar situations, they can give more of their population a vision, hope, and attainable dream for success. As a coach or father, you should want every child to have a chance at success, even if it is not at the highest level, even if they could not start in 1st grade or 5th grade, even if they live in poverty, even if they don't have middle school wrestling, even if they only have one coach and no youth coach...these are all major issues of many counties, not including soddy, cleveland, pigeon forge and the other school people like to use as examples. The split gives more of these kids that chance for success without just handing them a medal. I doubt any of next year medalists will say i'm pathetic, they just gave me a medal....more likely what will happen is a little brother or youth wrestler will look up to one of those medalists and resolve to work hard enough to attain their new goal of being one of those medalists....resulting in the growth of TN wrestling.

It probably is ignorance to a certain degree, i dont know everyones level of dedication to a measurable degree. but i will promise you this, if and when Kevin Emily returns home to chattanooga, we are gonna start a new club, I bet within 5 years the program is sending good quaility kids to any school they desire. No money, alot of poor folk but the man can run a youth program second to none. Not sure what you would call that but its not ignorance. Coach, i do understand some of the things you talk about. Somethings may not be able to get done in an area like your in. Kevin and I have talked about building one some where that needs it, to see if we can get the kids to achieve at a higher level. Not sure where just yet. I get and understand, even like some of the ideas posted. Ive just always believed that when it comes to an individual sport....WRESTLING, school size shouldnt factor into the equation. Go for Gold. Im sorry if any of this came off as argumentative, im truly a very lighthearted guy

Edited February 20, 2013 by Khromax

[cobrakid8]

Sling, never said that the state champs now days could beat those from before, but I do think the top kids from today say 1 and 2 could have placed and very well could have won states 10-15 years ago. I wrestled in high school before and after the split from all together to public/private. I was an average wrestler at best and I know the split between public and private watered down the wrestling as it was and is. Just like the private division is very top heavy now also, I see the A-AA split from AAA the exact same way. My senior year I was beaten when it was down to 8 in the private school division 2 kids i had beaten placed 4th and 5th. Again the splits are like handing medals to some that do not deserve it plain and simple. I guess everyone wants this to become like Rec soccer or baseball and lets have every kid get a trophy. I mean that small school thing really killed one of the best wrestlers I got to spend time with in Tim Voiles. Heck he was the only wrestler most years and I think he won state a few times. He wanted it and did not let being from a small school stop him. He went to practice at other schools, went to all kinds of tough tournaments and he became what he became because of that. There is no excuses out there and I wrestled at a large school, but i also helped at a large and small school before and those that want to be great can be great because they want to be! Wrestling year round, taking in camps, etc. All it takes is a will and heart. But enough rant the small school coaches voted the way they wanted and soon enough we will have 150 champions and than who cares who wins it all!