The Pipeline....

[rlwest40]

If it was my kid in Hamilton County that was being restricted and wasn't getting the matches then honestly he wouldn't be wrestling for his school's middle school team. He would continue to travel whenever and wherever necessary and compete at the club level whether it was AAU USA WOW NHSCA or whatever. Club MS teams not affiliated with their schools have been very successful in Georgia for many years. They actually set up a dual season and championship for these teams and travel out-of-state to much tougher MS tounaments as well. Pope, Gilmer, Jefferson, and more recently Commerce are some examples.

[durdon]

sorry, I fixed it.. My autocorrect must've switched it to Hamblin county...  and I might be completely off base but it is what I am seeing happening at the youth level...

[Nainten]

sorry, I fixed it.. My autocorrect must've switched it to Hamblin county...  and I might be completely off base but it is what I am seeing happening at the youth level...

 

To your credit you did preface it by saying it was going to be a bold prediction.  Come hard or go home!

[rlwest40]

I'm guessing that Baylor and Cleveland are gonna dominate when all their club kids get into high school.

 

If another local team can pick up the overflow from Baylor then they will be tough too. I don't think they will all scatter too much. I doubt all of them will stay with Baylor but if parents are willing to drive them to practice and compete now then they will continue throughout high school to make sure they are part of a good program and getting the coaching they need. I'm sure the overflow will also benefit McCallie, Notre Dame, Soddy, and Hixson on a smaller scale. Maybe even Red Bank, East Ridge, Signal Mountain, Central, East Hamilton, and Ooltewah as well.

[durdon]

Rob, this is what has been happening the past few years.  Baylor's overflow has been benefiting Red bank, East Ridge, Central, East Hamilton,Ooltewah and rest of the Hamilton County Middle schools.  

 

Talking with the parents of some of the elite kids who have moved into middle school out of the Red Raiders club this year and who are now at those Middle schools, they are not happy they are being actively discouraged not to do club circuit.  

 

The Hamilton County Championships are the same weekend as the TeamTN regionals which means those kids will have to choose between wrestling for their middle school team or wrestling in the TeamTN Middle School state tournament.  The entire season Hamilton County middle school season conflicts with the heart of the TeamTn Club season.  

 

I think what we are going to see over the next few years if this continues like this is that the really elite kids are going to move out of Hamilton County.   Bradley County is more than likely going to benefit tremendously by Hamilton County decision to move their middle school wrestling schedule to conflict directly with the TeamTN club season as the parents of the elite kids in Hamilton County are going to move their kids to those schools so they don't fall behind... While that is going to hurt the top level talent in Hamilton county, what is going to be a killer is the rank and file kids who don't move and drop out of the club circuit to do the Hamilton County Middle School  wrestling only and all of the new kids who start wrestling in middle school in Hamilton County who won't realize until they get into high School how far behind they are.  

[rlwest40]

Something definitely needs to be done at the middle school level. It would be nice to see the TMSAA organize a middle school season complete with area, sectional, and state championships. If they won't step up and do it then they shouldn't interfere with the AAU or whoever is willing to do so.

[deadlift]

 

I am going to make a bold prediction here...

 

Based off what I am seeing from what is happening at the youth level, the balance of power of wrestling is going to start to shift from metro Chattanooga to metro Nashville starting in about 2 years.

 

There are 2 factors at play that are going to cause that to happen. One is that there is an absolute army of really highly developed youth and middle school kids in middle TN that will start hitting the high schools in 2 years. We saw this last year at TeamTN state tournament as all of the Middle TN kids showed up big time. The youth and middle school club states have always been dominated by Chattanooga kids and kids from a few select clubs throughout the state until Metro Nashville kids came in a cleaned up last year. And, this year theses middle tn kids have gotten even better and it's not just how skilled they are but also just how many good kids they now have. I don't think anyone in the wrestling community in this state has really ever seen the influx of talent that is about to start hitting the middle Tennessee high school wrestling programs.

 

The second factor is that while Middle TN is getting dramatically stronger, Chattanooga youth wrestling is about to go on a major decline. Hamilton county's middle school rules and schedule that are prohibiting kids from wrestling on the club circuit is going to start killing the development of the majority of the middle school kids in the Chattanooga area including the ones who were already on the club circuit as youth. Right now there is just 1 major kids club in Hamilton county with a couple of other small clubs. Mike has over 60 kids in his program and a majority of those kids won't end up going to Baylor. Those kids have over past 6 years have ended up at other Hamilton county public middle schools. Mike has basically been the regional training center for all the Chattanooga schools for a number of years now. Now all those kids he has developed are going to see their skills decline as they won't be getting anywhere near the level of competition in Hamblen County middle school league as they would face on the club circuit. All of the kids in the Hamilton County public middle schools are going to quickly and dramatically fall behind the kids in Middle TN and bigger clubs in the state that are pushing their kids out on the club circuit. All of the public high schools in Hamilton county that have been traditional powers probably don't realize it yet but their pipeline of new talent has now been turned off.

 

Bradley County and the other private schools that are in the Metro Chattanooga area are actually doing the opposite next year and working with TeamTN to make their middle school schedule more club circuit friendly and encouraging their kids to get out on the club circuit because they realize that is only way they are going to stay ahead of Middle TN high school teams.. But with the largest county in Metro Chattanooga area restricting their kids from the club circuit,what Bradley county and private schools are doing won't be enough to prevent shift in this balance of power that's about to happen...

Scott, This was supposed to be a secret. Edited February 5, 2014 by deadlift

[YOUTHCOACH16]

Scott is correct to a certain extent. There are already several stud wrestlers starting for some powerhouse teams that moved out of Hamilton county for that very reason. I also agree Nashville is going to continue to get stronger as witnessed by the rise of teams like Ravenswood, Wilson Central, Beech, Centineal and several others. Nashville has had strong feeder systems in place for a while now with quality coaches and they have way more kids to chose from with their large population base. The Chattanooga area has had this problem with the middle schools for years. Several teams such as Soddy and a couple of others have worked around as best they could. We (Aau) has been fortunate that we have always been able to move our region tournament so that the public school (hcac) middle schools kids could compete on the Sunday following their conference tournament . This enables them to participate in the state and state duals and national teams if they qualify but it was almost voted down this year. We ( Aaau have to schedule our regionals tournaments all on the same weekend across the state and have to work with all the other middle school organizations schedules. In addition we have to have the regionals the week before the Aau state tournament since its a big undertaking to rent a place big enough for 18 mats we are at the mercy of the facilty. We also have to have the state done in time for the spring nationals and national duals so we dont have much flexibilty, there will come a time when we are no longer able to accomodate the public school middle school league (hcac) due to timing and all the other requirments we have to meet. It will be interesting to see if they move their date to accomodate their own kids or not. They only have two tournaments a year so it would be much easier for them to move their date but Im not sure it will happen.  When that happens the parents all of the kids that have grown up wrestling in the Aau will pitch an immortal fit  when little Johnny doesnt have the same opportunity the rest of the kids in the state has. Now that middle Tennessee and other areas are getting better it will definitley speed up the process of those areas by passing a lot of the Chattanooga teams as its already happened. Its only going to get worse and quickly. The teams in the Chattanooga area that dont have to follow those rules will be fine but the others will be left behind. Its pretty simple, if a 6-8th grader in Chattanooga gets 12-15 matches against sup par competetion and a kid in Nashville or another area gets 40-60 matches against much tougher competetion for three years who do you think will be better as a 9th grader?  It doesnt matter how good you were until the 5th grade, you will regress and others will improve and pass you. Nashville Catholic ( Father Ryans Feeder) is a prime example of this.. They have had a solid youth program but for the last handful of years their middle school age has dominated Tennessee other than maybe Cleveland a few years.   

[YOUTHCOACH16]

I'm guessing that Baylor and Cleveland are gonna dominate when all their club kids get into high school.

 

If another local team can pick up the overflow from Baylor then they will be tough too. I don't think they will all scatter too much. I doubt all of them will stay with Baylor but if parents are willing to drive them to practice and compete now then they will continue throughout high school to make sure they are part of a good program and getting the coaching they need. I'm sure the overflow will also benefit McCallie, Notre Dame, Soddy, and Hixson on a smaller scale. Maybe even Red Bank, East Ridge, Signal Mountain, Central, East Hamilton, and Ooltewah as well.

Well you have a couple of mine already and I know of about 4-5 more that are 50-50 on moving up there pretty soon as well. The good kids are going to go where they have the best chance to be succesful. Look at McCellhaney at Bradley for example. The kid grew up wrestling at East Ridge, his brother was the coach but he went to Bradley because they felt it was the best opportunity for him to be succesful. You spend all those years working and sacrificing you arent going to throw it all away once you get to high school. Everyone cries about Bradley, Cleveland , Soddy and the privates recruiting some of the transfers they have all had over the years but the fact of the matter is  good programs recruit themselves and parents are always going to put their kids in the best positions to succeed.  

Edited February 5, 2014 by YOUTHCOACH16

[Sommers]

No Name dropping Tex, but... (off the top of my head, although limited)... My hats off to Mike Sutherland (affecting many beyond Baylor), David Isbell, Josh Bosken, Brian Bauke & Garrett House, Gorham/Koballa & co.  , coach J Heath doing double duties along with Salter and others,  Jeff Williams & Stephen "Trick" Petricca, and I know I"m missing many others that are sacrificing to build things around the state, but MY thanks to All of you (even those that have moved on like Al Morris & son, and Bill Kennedy)...

 

I think Scott Taylor's statement a few weeks ago on the Archer thread is worth repeating...

 

Here's ya another copy & paste, "It doesn't start at the High School level. ( I must add that it certainly help to augment it)  Ga started 8 years ago sending teams to every major national tournament at the Elementary and Middle school level and that is what is paying off for them today.  Most of those kids that are on Archer today were on the Minion teams from a few years ago..   TN wrestling has got to get more organized and start sending multiple teams to all of the major duals and we need to start encouraging our young wrestlers to get out on the national circuit now if we want to start producing the caliber of kids that we now see in Ga High school.  And, we have to change the rules to let our high school kids wrestle more and teams travel more so that they can get the exposure they need to get to the next level."

 

"Case in point, looking at Philo electric, the toughest middle school invitational in the country I count 6 ga teams and was actually surprised to see 1 TN team there as Father Ryan has their club team up there this weekend. People wonder how Farher Ryan produces year after year, well it's because they send their middle school club team out on the national circuit. I am primarily concerned about middle school wrestling because I have a 6th grader and it drives me nuts that there is all the Ga kids my son wrestles with that get all of these opportunies to wrestle in these big tourneys that he doesn't. 

Now Rob is more concerned about what's going on the high school level because he has a high level high school wrestler and his son is the prime example of why we have start not just letting our high school teams travel more but actively pushing them to do so. At high school level it's not just about experience it is more about exposure. Ethan West is one of the 30 to 40 wrestlers in this state that is good enough to wrestle at a high level college but probably won't get that opportunity because we are not allowing them to get the exposure they need in front of the college coaches that kids from Ga and other states are getting. Outside of our top 4 or 5 kids in this state (Debien, Oliver, etc) none of the rest of our kids are known by college coaches and they aren't going to take a chance on our kids without knowing how those kids will perform against national kids. 
There is probably 20 to 40 kids in Ga that our top 20 to 40 can compete with that are going on to wrestle in college while ours aren't because we lock our kids in a box. "

[Sommers]

Woops, Definitely missed Coach Foreman who saw some of his fruits in a big way this season!!

[BlackknightGATA]

Something definitely needs to be done at the middle school level. It would be nice to see the TMSAA organize a middle school season complete with area, sectional, and state championships. If they won't step up and do it then they shouldn't interfere with the AAU or whoever is willing to do so.

 

Agreed

Lead, Follow Or get out of the way... The middle school schedule in region 1 is limited to starting after JAN 01 and ends in Feb. According to TSSAA kids are not supposed to be on the mats before jan 01... And the can't participate in AAU or USAW during the season- none of this helps grow the sport. If not for the clubs taking up the slack in training and competition- TSSAA would have successfully killed the sport here in TN. If stymying the sport wasn't their intent with the AAU and USAW prohibitions it is an unintended consequence that needs to be changed.