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50 minutes ago, durdon said:

What are you talking about?  Yes, the last 2 years have been supar at McCallie but the 4 years before that they were 2nd or 3rd best overall program in the state with multiple multi-time state champs under Yost.  
 

With the young kids that they developed through their Club and MS program this year and the massive class of extremely good Freshmen they have coming in this next season, McCallie is loading up to be one of the best programs state for next few years again.  

"subpar" is being generous. McCallie has been atrocious under Yost the past two years. If they do not have a significant turn around next year, I suspect we will all be discussing who his replacement will be this time next year. 

I could be mistaken, but I do not think McCallie has beaten Baylor in the past 20 years or Father Ryan in the past 15. While they have had some good individuals from time to time, I don't think anyone has taken them serious as a team in that division in quite some time. Might I add, ZERO state team titles since Connell's crew won the duals in '06.

I also do not believe Connell or Newman ever lost to a team like MBA in their tenures. MBA put a drubbing on Yost and the big blue. 

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2 hours ago, durdon said:

What are you talking about?  Yes, the last 2 years have been supar at McCallie but the 4 years before that they were 2nd or 3rd best overall program in the state with multiple multi-time state champs under Yost.  
 

With the young kids that they developed through their Club and MS program this year and the massive class of extremely good Freshmen they have coming in this next season, McCallie is loading up to be one of the best programs state for next few years again.  

McCallie is a loooooooooooooooooooooooooong way from being at the level they were when Gordon Connell and Ethan Reeve were coaching together.  With that being said I am not sure that the current administration at McCallie would ever provide enough financial aid to wrestlers for the program to get back to that level.

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On 3/24/2023 at 2:07 PM, cbg said:

McCallie is a loooooooooooooooooooooooooong way from being at the level they were when Gordon Connell and Ethan Reeve were coaching together.  With that being said I am not sure that the current administration at McCallie would ever provide enough financial aid to wrestlers for the program to get back to that level.

After my son’s Freshman year, the McCallie administration stopped providing financial aid for wrestling to solely concentrate on football.  it got them 3 state titles in Football and couple of injuries away from winning it again this year.  It also got them 2 just awful wrestling seasons and several awful seasons in other sports too.  
 

 There has been a change at McCallie administration and now all sports especially wrestling are getting love again.

 McCallie has the best coaching staff in the state with Yost, Pitts, Leavit, Newman and the rest.  And now they are loading up with a massive class of freshman that have already said they are coming in and possibly of a few more they still may get.  

McCallie is going to be on top again here soon. 

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1 hour ago, durdon said:

After my son’s Freshman year, the McCallie administration stopped providing financial aid for wrestling to solely concentrate on football.  it got them 3 state titles in Football and couple of injuries away from winning it again this year.  It also got them 2 just awful wrestling seasons and several awful seasons in other sports too.  
 

 There has been a change at McCallie administration and now all sports especially wrestling are getting love again.

 McCallie has the best coaching staff in the state with Yost, Pitts, Leavit, Newman and the rest.  And now they are loading up with a massive class of freshman that have already said they are coming in and possibly of a few more they still may get.  

McCallie is going to be on top again here soon. 

I can appreciate your support of your team, durdon! That staff has underperformed mightily though... and that program has been a complete dumpster fire. If the the staff is the best in the state, they shouldn't need to get all the kids that Baylor has been getting into school. One would think the "best" coaches would develop the talent they have... I have seen the opposite. They were out-coached and out-performed by a Chattanooga Christian who beat them in '22 and took them to the wire in '23. That should provide evidence of how far this once proud program has fallen off into obscurity. Having said this, I do hope they turn it around. Tennessee wrestling is better when McCallie can compete. 

 

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20 hours ago, cowcatcherII said:

I can appreciate your support of your team, durdon! That staff has underperformed mightily though... and that program has been a complete dumpster fire. If the the staff is the best in the state, they shouldn't need to get all the kids that Baylor has been getting into school. One would think the "best" coaches would develop the talent they have... I have seen the opposite. They were out-coached and out-performed by a Chattanooga Christian who beat them in '22 and took them to the wire in '23. That should provide evidence of how far this once proud program has fallen off into obscurity. Having said this, I do hope they turn it around. Tennessee wrestling is better when McCallie can compete. 

 

McCallie is one of the most expensive high school in the US. If you board it’s over 60k a year.  It is also one of the toughest academic high school in the US.  The full pay student body that McCallie attracts have virtually no athletic ability so it’s not like they can just grab kids out of the hall and turn them into wrestlers. 
This is a huge disadvantage compared to the other private school in Chattanooga and throughout the state who have athletic kids in their normal student body.  
 

Without the financial assistance for athletes who are interested in going to McCallie their sports programs will be awful and this is what has happened to the wrestling program for past 4 years.  

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53 minutes ago, durdon said:

McCallie is one of the most expensive high school in the US. If you board it’s over 60k a year.  It is also one of the toughest academic high school in the US.  The full pay student body that McCallie attracts have virtually no athletic ability so it’s not like they can just grab kids out of the hall and turn them into wrestlers. 
This is a huge disadvantage compared to the other private school in Chattanooga and throughout the state who have athletic kids in their normal student body.  
 

Without the financial assistance for athletes who are interested in going to McCallie their sports programs will be awful and this is what has happened to the wrestling program for past 4 years.  

MBA is just as expensive, no option to board though.  They are DEVELOPING kids. Maybe one of the best jobs doing so at that. So everything your saying is an excuse

You have every resource available to you that you need to develop talent. Baylor’s and McCallies best teams ever, developed their own talent. Just admit, they haven’t done a good job, not very involved, and honestly not sure the cared. 

But, they will be good in a few years bc they don’t have to worry about developing any kids  bc they are getting a pretty solid crop of kids that are choosing McCallie. 

 

 

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57 minutes ago, durdon said:

McCallie is one of the most expensive high school in the US. If you board it’s over 60k a year.  It is also one of the toughest academic high school in the US.  The full pay student body that McCallie attracts have virtually no athletic ability so it’s not like they can just grab kids out of the hall and turn them into wrestlers. 
This is a huge disadvantage compared to the other private school in Chattanooga and throughout the state who have athletic kids in their normal student body.  
 

Without the financial assistance for athletes who are interested in going to McCallie their sports programs will be awful and this is what has happened to the wrestling program for past 4 years.  

I knew these schools were expensive but wow that is insanely expensive...more than most colleges! 

I did do some research and found that it costs $32,880 to be a day student at McCallie. It costs $33,500 to go to MBA. Maybe the Blue Tornado needs to take a page out of MBA playbook. They have found success with equal or higher academic/tuition standards than McCallie's. 

To you point durdon, it certainly helps when you can give scholarships like Baylor has. Yes, Baylor was obviously super successful during the Jim Morgan era, but their national success over the past 5 years definitely seems like it has been shopped for and bought $$$. When you think about it, it really makes what Cleveland and Father Ryan have done all the more impressive.

 

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As a senator of this great state for 12 years and someone who sent their kids to a private school in Tennessee, I believe I can add to this discussion.

 

Mr. Durdon,

You can’t honestly expect us all to believe that McCallie just randomly decided to de-emphasize wrestling after your son’s freshmen year.   In that time span McCallie won 4 cross-country state championships.  Did they decide to value cross-country over wrestling?  If you click on the McCallie website, you will find a note stating that McCallie has won 54 team and individual state titles in the last four years.  54!!! It would sure seem to be a very balanced athletic dept in the shadow of a great football team.

You must realize that McCallie has not won a traditional state championship in wrestling since 1993.  This is not a 4-year problem.  No kid on the team was alive the last time McCallie won state.  McCallie has probably invested more into their program in the last decade than any other program in the state.  At most tournaments they have more coaches than they do placers.  They have 3 head coaches on staff in Yost, Newman, and Connell.  They have at least 5 other assistants who wrestled in college. They have a full-time club coach.  Despite all the resources that McCallie has poured into the program, they routinely get out coached by CCS and Boyd.  We get that the program helped your son achieve his academic and athletic goals, so you are forever a McCallie sycophant.  We all know the well ran dry when Chittum pulled out and went to Blair.  The truth is that this new wave is being directed by a parent who wants to restore the glory years of 1993. Why the false narrative?

 

In regard to DII schools giving scholarships: Directly form the TSSAA Handbook: Section 16

Financial aid may be awarded on the basis of need, but proof of such need must be filed in the TSSAA office on forms approved by the Executive Director. In order to determine the basis for need, all schools awarding financial aid shall use one of the following services: FACTS Grant and Aid Assessment (FACTS), Financial Aid for School Tuition (FAST), School and Student Scholastic Service for Financial Aid (SSS), Family Financial Needs Assessment (FFNA), Private School Aid Services, Blackbaud Tuition Management, or Tuition Aid Data Services (TADS). Schools must choose one of the companies for all student-athletes. A committee consisting of School Heads from Division II schools and one ex-officio, non-voting member from the Board of Control and Legislative Council will meet and make recommendations to the Board of Control on each student submitted. In addition, this committee will collect information from schools regarding financial aid statistics, grant procedures, and the overall financial aid program within the school. The Board of Control will then rule on all cases at the August meeting. The Board of Control shall have authority to reject the basis of need for students when in its opinion, or in the opinion of the school committee, the amount of need stated by the financial service cannot be justified.

 

To summarize: There is no such thing as a scholarship to a private school in TN.  They are not allowed to give MERIT aid.  If you know of someone who has received a scholarship, please turn that school into the TSSAA.  That school will get the death plenty. If they were allowed to give scholarships, then TN private schools would be able to compete with the teams in the Northeast who do give scholarships. The TSSAA handicaps the private schools in our great state.  Why doesn’t McCallie just offer a full ride to every kid in the SE and win it every year if they had the ability?

 

If one has worked hard in business, law, or medicine and made good money, then you are going to have to pay to attend private schools.  Baylor’s run most recent run, and historically, includes many prosperous families who have footed the bill.  That is certainly true of McCallie, Father Ryan, Christian Brothers, and MBA as well.  People like Alex Whitworth’s family have done very well through hard work and education.  Why do people have a problem with them paying for private school? Seems very socialist!  There are two types of kids who have the easiest time getting into McCallie: wealthy folks and poor folks.  The middle class is squeezed out, again. Coach Morgan had a dry spell from 1981 to 1999 without a state championship… why didn’t he just start handing out scholarships?  Sometimes this misconception is exacerbated by folks in TN who claim their child got a full ride scholarship.  In reality they are just poor if they got full need-based aid; they probably don’t understand the difference.

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1 hour ago, BobCorker said:

As a senator of this great state for 12 years and someone who sent their kids to a private school in Tennessee, I believe I can add to this discussion.

 

Mr. Durdon,

You can’t honestly expect us all to believe that McCallie just randomly decided to de-emphasize wrestling after your son’s freshmen year.   In that time span McCallie won 4 cross-country state championships.  Did they decide to value cross-country over wrestling?  If you click on the McCallie website, you will find a note stating that McCallie has won 54 team and individual state titles in the last four years.  54!!! It would sure seem to be a very balanced athletic dept in the shadow of a great football team.

You must realize that McCallie has not won a traditional state championship in wrestling since 1993.  This is not a 4-year problem.  No kid on the team was alive the last time McCallie won state.  McCallie has probably invested more into their program in the last decade than any other program in the state.  At most tournaments they have more coaches than they do placers.  They have 3 head coaches on staff in Yost, Newman, and Connell.  They have at least 5 other assistants who wrestled in college. They have a full-time club coach.  Despite all the resources that McCallie has poured into the program, they routinely get out coached by CCS and Boyd.  We get that the program helped your son achieve his academic and athletic goals, so you are forever a McCallie sycophant.  We all know the well ran dry when Chittum pulled out and went to Blair.  The truth is that this new wave is being directed by a parent who wants to restore the glory years of 1993. Why the false narrative?

 

In regard to DII schools giving scholarships: Directly form the TSSAA Handbook: Section 16

Financial aid may be awarded on the basis of need, but proof of such need must be filed in the TSSAA office on forms approved by the Executive Director. In order to determine the basis for need, all schools awarding financial aid shall use one of the following services: FACTS Grant and Aid Assessment (FACTS), Financial Aid for School Tuition (FAST), School and Student Scholastic Service for Financial Aid (SSS), Family Financial Needs Assessment (FFNA), Private School Aid Services, Blackbaud Tuition Management, or Tuition Aid Data Services (TADS). Schools must choose one of the companies for all student-athletes. A committee consisting of School Heads from Division II schools and one ex-officio, non-voting member from the Board of Control and Legislative Council will meet and make recommendations to the Board of Control on each student submitted. In addition, this committee will collect information from schools regarding financial aid statistics, grant procedures, and the overall financial aid program within the school. The Board of Control will then rule on all cases at the August meeting. The Board of Control shall have authority to reject the basis of need for students when in its opinion, or in the opinion of the school committee, the amount of need stated by the financial service cannot be justified.

 

To summarize: There is no such thing as a scholarship to a private school in TN.  They are not allowed to give MERIT aid.  If you know of someone who has received a scholarship, please turn that school into the TSSAA.  That school will get the death plenty. If they were allowed to give scholarships, then TN private schools would be able to compete with the teams in the Northeast who do give scholarships. The TSSAA handicaps the private schools in our great state.  Why doesn’t McCallie just offer a full ride to every kid in the SE and win it every year if they had the ability?

 

If one has worked hard in business, law, or medicine and made good money, then you are going to have to pay to attend private schools.  Baylor’s run most recent run, and historically, includes many prosperous families who have footed the bill.  That is certainly true of McCallie, Father Ryan, Christian Brothers, and MBA as well.  People like Alex Whitworth’s family have done very well through hard work and education.  Why do people have a problem with them paying for private school? Seems very socialist!  There are two types of kids who have the easiest time getting into McCallie: wealthy folks and poor folks.  The middle class is squeezed out, again. Coach Morgan had a dry spell from 1981 to 1999 without a state championship… why didn’t he just start handing out scholarships?  Sometimes this misconception is exacerbated by folks in TN who claim their child got a full ride scholarship.  In reality they are just poor if they got full need-based aid; they probably don’t understand the difference.

I never once mentioned scholarships,  I said specifically financial aid.
 

After my sons Freshman year, we had over 10 high level wrestlers apply at McCallie the next 3 years that would have qualified for a very high percentage if not 100% of financial aid based off their families income level but McCallie didnt grant them any aid at all because that money was tied up in football.  Just because you qualify doesn’t mean you are getting it or the entire amount you qualify for.  It completely up to the schools if they want to give out aid and how much they give out based of the financial aid calculator. 
 

And, yes you are correct, the financial aid system does penalize middle class families as once the family income gets above 150k then you only qualify for a tiny bit of aid and for those families the tuition at McCallie, Baylor, and MBA is just to much to swing. 

As for the cross country team, the McCallie wrestling team was really good in 18 and 19.  My sons freshman year in 18, McCallie would have won beaten Christian Brothers in both  traditional and dual state if River Henry had not gotten hurt.  His sophomore year, they lost to Baylor on the last match to lose dual state.  I would aLao argue that you are more likely get full pay kids in cross country than you are in wrestling.  


My point on all of this is that  the amount of financial a sports program gets at McCallie, Baylor, MBA is single determining factor of success of those sports teams. 


As for as judging the overall ability of a coaching staff, for me and my son we looked at different coaching staffs and our determining factor was which staff would prepare him best for D1 which is why we eventually decided on McCallie.  Yost has produced the most D1 wrestlers of any active coach in TN and Pitts has developed probably the 2nd most.  

 

This past season 3 programs had 4 wrestlers that wrestled D1,  Christian Brothers, Baylor and McCallie.  As far as starting varisty matches this past season Baylor had 1 of their 4 that did, Christian Brothers had 2 and McCallie had 3.   So I will say it again, McCallie has the best coaching staff in the state. 

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5 hours ago, durdon said:

I never once mentioned scholarships,  I said specifically financial aid.
 

After my sons Freshman year, we had over 10 high level wrestlers apply at McCallie the next 3 years that would have qualified for a very high percentage if not 100% of financial aid based off their families income level but McCallie didnt grant them any aid at all because that money was tied up in football.  Just because you qualify doesn’t mean you are getting it or the entire amount you qualify for.  It completely up to the schools if they want to give out aid and how much they give out based of the financial aid calculator. 
 

And, yes you are correct, the financial aid system does penalize middle class families as once the family income gets above 150k then you only qualify for a tiny bit of aid and for those families the tuition at McCallie, Baylor, and MBA is just to much to swing. 

As for the cross country team, the McCallie wrestling team was really good in 18 and 19.  My sons freshman year in 18, McCallie would have won beaten Christian Brothers in both  traditional and dual state if River Henry had not gotten hurt.  His sophomore year, they lost to Baylor on the last match to lose dual state.  I would aLao argue that you are more likely get full pay kids in cross country than you are in wrestling.  


My point on all of this is that  the amount of financial a sports program gets at McCallie, Baylor, MBA is single determining factor of success of those sports teams. 


As for as judging the overall ability of a coaching staff, for me and my son we looked at different coaching staffs and our determining factor was which staff would prepare him best for D1 which is why we eventually decided on McCallie.  Yost has produced the most D1 wrestlers of any active coach in TN and Pitts has developed probably the 2nd most.  

 

This past season 3 programs had 4 wrestlers that wrestled D1,  Christian Brothers, Baylor and McCallie.  As far as starting varisty matches this past season Baylor had 1 of their 4 that did, Christian Brothers had 2 and McCallie had 3.   So I will say it again, McCallie has the best coaching staff in the state. 

2018- Maybe could have beat CB but would have still lost to Baylor

2019- No Bates or Horst and they still win at Duals

and best coaching staff….. stop 

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The problems with the McCallie wrestling team appear to be with the administration not being willing to provide wrestlers with 100% of the financial aid that they qualified for.  If tuition is 30K and a family qualifies for 50% that would be 15K.  However, if the school only provides wrestling families with 50% that would be 7500.00 so the total bill for the family would be $22,500.00 instead of $15,000.00. That extra $7500.00 might as well be 75 million to most families as they would struggle to pay the 15k.  Not defending McCallie but I have had wrestling families from McCallie that were paying 100% of the tuition tell me that the administration at McCallie wanted to focus on LAX, Soccer, Swimming and Track & Field athletes because the athletes in those sports typically don’t need as much financial aid. What everyone must understand is that a school only has X number of dollars that they can allocate to financial aid.  I have also been told that the administration at MBA does not provide financial aid to athletes that just wrestle.  The good wrestlers at MBA are paying the full tuition or they also participate in football.  To me the sad thing is that several of the D2 schools are doing absolutely nothing to develop the talent that is already in the school.  When a successful team does not even have a middle school team and just goes out and recruits kids to fill certain weight classifications something is wrong.  What ever happened to the philosophy that you work to help your own before you seek help from the outside?

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Goes for Tennis at McCallie as well, as they are pulling athletes from around the world (no idea if they are recruiting or the academics simply pull them).  Why? I don't know for sure but I'm guessing the amount of aid a top flight tennis player from European country "X" needs is very little.  So in a sport like tennis the student athlete isn't simply competing with GA kids down the street. 

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