Moving - best programs in Tennessee

[fooseball96]

Uh yeah - you gotta read... The man said he is moving to retire... and have good wrestling with lots of matches... Now being one who originally moved here to retire - I absolutley 100% would never move to west tennessee and the africa heat and tornados it has to offer... HA! I would not move to Nashville if retirement was a thought as the same applies and add terrible traffic! double HA HA! Sorry but Cleveland also miserable hot and climate like Atlanta, no wonder everybody summer wrestles there they got to get away... Dare I say a triple HA HA HA! sweat city!!!.

Knoxville is a nice middle ground I will admit, but if retirement and wrestling is your goal that is not the spot, based on wrestling... The Maryville area would be a good choice but then you have Sevierville traffic and admittedly thats a beautiful place to visit and play tourist - but sevierville anywhere close is a negative to me.

 

The besat logical choice by deduction is the mountains and comfortable summers along with great trout fishing rivers and turkey hunting of NE Tennessee... Am I right NE Tennesseans?! and thus Johnson City is the logical deduction. I know all of you posters are jealous of our climate... Enough said!

your nutts. Tennessee weather is different wherever u go. Rain, snow, tornados, sun all in the same week no matter where u are. The man said best programs in tennessee. And besides the solid program in science hill or greenville northeast tennesse would be the last place they would want to go. Yes its pretty, but this is about wrestling.

[WrestlingGod]

your nutts. Tennessee weather is different wherever u go. Rain, snow, tornados, sun all in the same week no matter where u are. The man said best programs in tennessee. And besides the solid program in science hill or greenville northeast tennesse would be the last place they would want to go. Yes its pretty, but this is about wrestling.

*You're *nuts *Tennessee

[marshiebaby]

your nutts. Tennessee weather is different wherever u go. Rain, snow, tornados, sun all in the same week no matter where u are. The man said best programs in tennessee. And besides the solid program in science hill or greenville northeast tennesse would be the last place they would want to go. Yes its pretty, but this is about wrestling.

 lifes too short     Not "nutts", just opinionated like you, but light in attitude as well... Of course I know its a wrestling forum lol...  but if your retiring and moving from Pennsylvannia to Tennessee it is not entirely about wrestling...  Take it from a guy who was twisted like a pretzel many summers as a kid by Rich Lorenzo back in the day.

Edited March 14, 2014 by marshiebaby

[fooseball96]

*You're *nuts *Tennessee

Im sorry. Didnt know this was English class

[hoosierdad]

Im sorry. Didnt know this was English class

Edited March 14, 2014 by hoosierdad

[ghouse]

My family and I are considering moving to Tennessee this summer, I am closing in on retirement so where we settle is subjective...though I may be a little partial to the Knoxville area (have some family there) My youngest son will be a sophomore next year and has been part of a great program here in western Pennsylvania.  I have no idea what wrestling is like in the Volunteer State but I do have a lot of questions.

 

1. How many school classifications are there in Tennessee and which one is the most competitive? (there are only 2 in Pennsylvania, AA & AAA)

2. How long is the season? (currently the sanctioned season here runs from mid November until the first weekend in March - states)

3. Are there "state team duals" if so how does a team qualify?

4. How many matches can you wrestle during a season? (here in PA a kid may get almost 50 matches provided his team continues to compete in the team duals and he progresses through the individual post season)

5. How many post season tournaments must you compete in to qualify for states? (currently we go through Sections, Districts, Regionals then to States) Another way of asking this would be "how do you qualify for states"

6. What schools offer "spring/summer clubs" for Freestyle and Greco and do any of them travel? (We have been to AAU/Disney duals for competition) 

7. What are some of the "better" programs in the state...ones that will offer not just good individual instruction but also encompass a team approach?

 

Thanks in advance for your help.

Chris (arrowhead)

 

Arrowhead,

 

Let me see if I can actually answer your questions directly.

 

1) TN currently has 3 classifications for wrestling.

DI-AAA = large school public

DI-A/AA = small school public

DII = private

Those are the three in very generic terms.  There are actually some details like the fact that there are some private schools in DI but those are the non-financial aid giving schools.  They generally compete in the DI-A/AA division.

 

The answer to which is most competitive probably depends on a few factors.  The DI-AAA division has by far the most depth.  You have some schools with very good coaching and of course the division has the most schools with the most athletes.  DII is much smaller in terms of teams, I believe there are currently 18 teams, but when you look at the state wide coaches poll (one of the last this season I could find) DII makes up 5 of the Top 12 programs and 2 out of the top 3.  That just goes to say that while the numbers are small the talent is very high at the top end.  The only nationally ranked team from TN in the last few years was in DII.

 

This topic stirs more debate here than most others but my general belief (backed up with lots of years of observation of results and discussion with some of what I consider to be some of the top wrestling experts in the state) is that the top 2-3 kids from the private division will be extremely competitive with those from the public division but it drops off pretty quickly after that as the public schools just have a ton more depth when it comes to athletes to chose from and in general, quality programs. If you matched up the champions from each division then it is a very evenly contested dual with the DI-AAA winning some years and DII winning others.  In general DI-AAA has a bit of a stronger edge in the upper weights where the large pool of athletes particularly comes into play.  Occasionally DII has a weight where all of their placers are highly competitive with the public side but that is rare (113 this year is a good example) and the quality does typically drop-off after the top 3-4 wrestlers but those top kids are, as a whole, just as good as what you see in the public division.

 

2) The first official practice date is the Monday the week of November 1st with the state tournament being held the third Saturday in February.  There are limitations around what can be done the pre-season and post-season but those are changing somewhat this year.

 

3) There are state team duals and the championships are held the first weekend in February (two weeks before the individual state).  The qualification process depends on which classifcation you are in.  If you are in the large public division (DI-AAA) then it is based on your region.  There are 8 regions in the state primarily geographically based.  Each of these 8 regions is split into two districts.  In order to make it to the state duals you must first finish in the top two in your district and then top two in your region.  This is typically done through dual events.  This yields a 16 team tournament.  The small public division is similar but they are split into 4 regions that ultimately yield an 8 team tournament.  The private division, DII, is split into two divisions, East/Middle and West, with 5 teams qualifying from the East/Middle and 3 from the West.

 

4) This will vary greatly from program to program and how they set-up their schedule.  Each team is allowed 18 dates with 4 individual tournaments.  There is no limit on the number of matches and individual may wrestle, just the number a team may schedule.  It is not unusual for wrestlers to end up with match counts in the upper 40's to lower 50's for the more competitive programs.  I have seen some wrestlers get into the 60's in a season but it will be dependent upon the wrestlers success and how many quad and tri meets the coach schedules versus dual meets.  

 

5) As of right now each division has to only go through one tournament, called a regional, in order to qualify for the state tournament.  The number of qualifiers will vary depending upon the division.  DI-AAA is a 32-man bracket at state, DI-A/AA is a 16-man bracket at state, and DII is an 8-man bracket at state.

 

Now you are getting into the parts where opinion is going to be a big part of this.

 

6) One thing to keep in mind is that until this summer TSSAA high school coaches have not been allowed to work with their athletes in the summer so it was paramount for the better programs to have competent club coaches for the spring/summer seasons.  That is about to change but the club coaches are likely to still play a major role.  Different programs have different ways of going about things as far as where they travel and compete.  Some train strictly in the room and hit a limited amount of folkstyle events while others may work with kids from several schools to create larger freestyle and Greco-Roman based clubs that travel extensively throughout the summer.  

 

You won't find many programs that are having success in the state without this.  A lot of this will be dependent upon area of the state to determine what teams are most successful.  Some of the teams you see the most are the Higher Calling Wrestling Club (based out of Cleveland High School in Chattanooga), West TN Takedown Club (based out of Christian Brothers High School in Memphis), Nashville Catholic (based out of Father Ryan in Nashville), Team Tornado (based out of King College in the Johnson City area), along with several others that I am just not going to take the time to name (no disrespect to any team I didn't mention I just tried to think of at least one team in each general area).

 

The top teams will typically field a decent group at the Southeast Regionals for freestyle and Greco, put a few kids on the national dual teams, and then take a group up to Fargo for the national championships.  In the most recent years (lets say since 2000) Christian Brothers has probably produced more All-Americans at Fargo than any other school (and the state's only two champions at Fargo are from there) but several other schools have had at least 1 AA (Baylor, Cleveland, Father Ryan, Brentwood, Soddy Daisy, and Bradley Central).

 

7) Once again this is going to be dependent on a couple of things 1) where you choose to live, 2) do you want to be public or private, and 3) people's opinions.  I will try to touch on each one of those slightly but this will be somewhat opinion based.

 

Where you choose to live - the state has some pretty clear separation based on wrestling.  The Southeast portion of the state around Chattanooga holds the most history and talent depth in the state to go along with a stronger wrestling culture in general (think somewhat akin to the WPIAL where you are from).  There are probably more high level individuals coming out of that area than anywhere else (especially if you factor in the population sizes).  The general Nashville area is probably next in terms of quality although it is much larger and holds more wrestlers.  Chattanooga teams will typically dominate the state championships in terms of team titles and individuals. Occasionally (maybe once a decade recently) a Nashville team wins a state title in the large public division.  In the private division Nashville teams are usually right there winning championships or making the finals with the two big teams from Chattanooga.  Next probably comes the Knoxville region or the upper-east TN region around Johnson City.  There are good programs in these areas but very few that are competing for state titles unless it is in the small school division.  The last area is probably the West TN region around Memphis.  The West side of the state hasn't had a team truly compete for a state title in the public division.  The only real option for wrestling at a high level there is with Christian Brothers High School in the private division who won state the previous two years and was nationally ranked in both years and had made the finals in duals for around 5-6 years straight prior to this season which was a little down after graduating a big class.

 

Public vs Private - Has been discussed more times than I care to even think of.  The choice should be about more than wrestling but to keep it wrestling related I will throw out a few basic things.  The top-level private schools probably travel more in season to big events than the publics.  There are a few publics that wrestle schedules close to as tough.  The private schools have probably put more wrestlers on out-of-state collegiate wrestling rosters in recent history.  it could be argued that this is due to several factors including wrestling acumen, academic preparedness, and other opportunities.  The choice of public versus private will also be affected by where you live and may also take into account religious preferences, academic tendencies, etc.  You can get a good education at the public schools but in general the privates set a higher standard (sometimes much higher).

 

3) Peoples opinions - I can't even begin to tell you how many quality programs I think there are in the state.  Let's face it we don't compare even remotely to what you see in PA and there are only maybe 5-6 teams in the state that could be placed into PA wrestling and be even remotely competitive (occasional state placers, not getting blown out as a team, etc.).  There are lots of quality men leading programs in the state that make excellent role-models and guides for the young men.  My advice is to research the teams around the areas you might be interested in with questions similar to what you have posted here.  If you were really looking for a short list then the teams mentioned above having previously had Fargo placers might be a good one to start with and I could maybe add a few others.

 

I hope all of that information helps and good luck in your decision making process and hopefully welcome to the TN wrestling family.

 

Garrett House

[coachknepper]

GHouse...Cleveland (D1-AAA) was ranked for several weeks last season nationally and Baylor slipped in for awhile I believe 2 or 3 years back.

 

Just wanted to add to your post above...great information for anyone moving to TN.

[CoachJones]

Anyone got any updates on this?? of course you wouldn't post lol

 

Coach Jones

coachjonestrained@gmail.com

865-368-4459

[Sommers]

Update is Upper east TN's pipeline is looking good

[arrowhead]

I would like to thank everyone for sharing their thoughts and opinions...especially Garrett House for his in-depth response...your post certainly provided some much needed insight and your answers were very specific given the vagueness (generality) of my questions...thank you.

 

Obviously much research is needed on my part as there seem to be several programs that have demonstrated success on an individual and team basis. That being said the only decision we have made as a family is my son will enroll in a public school. 

[fooseball96]

I would like to thank everyone for sharing their thoughts and opinions...especially Garrett House for his in-depth response...your post certainly provided some much needed insight and your answers were very specific given the vagueness (generality) of my questions...thank you.

 

Obviously much research is needed on my part as there seem to be several programs that have demonstrated success on an individual and team basis. That being said the only decision we have made as a family is my son will enroll in a public school.

Many options

Edited March 22, 2014 by fooseball96

[CoachJones]

arrowhead.. I would like for you to give me the opportunity to talk to you one on one.

 

Coach Jones

865.368.4459

coachjonestrained@gmail.com