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coach_williams wrote:

highleghillary wrote:If you live in wv, then there is no such thing as small or big schools. Everything here is small, especially with several of today's competing schools in AA originating as AAA schools at one point. I have no problem with one big tournament. If anybody doesn't like that, then tell it to somebody in california

There is a considerable difference between our bigger and smaller schools. Do me a favor and take the 5 minutes it takes to walk around the entire facility at Magnolia High School and then go see how much school you can see at Parkersburg South in 5 minutes. That aside, student population is what is relevant, not community attitude (big town vs small town). It is harder for small schools with 5 or 7 wrestlers to compete against schools with 25 or 30 wrestlers. The larger schools will always be the "state champion school" and the small school never will, resulting in the smaller school struggling to build and keep a wrestling program because students don't want to wrestle for the team that always comes in 44th at states.

And nobody cares how California does it. There are 10 school districts in Cali that have more students than the city of Charleston, WV has residents. We can not do it the way they do it because our largest school district (Kanawha county) wouldn't even be in the top 25 in California.

ohhh and btw you dont compare our AAA schools to any of the california schools, you cant look at it that way. if you look at our aa and aaa schools, most of these schools are smaller than schools in tons of the states. What we are simply looking at is the structure. Do i think california should be doing the structure they do? Honestly, thats irrelevant, what is relevant is that ours isnt as competitive as it was 7-15 years ago, and i have no problem debating that. This is because of the turnout! the sport must be consolidated, if not then atleast until wv as whole repairs itself, which btw could take years, dont expect a different result. Wrestling is not like football. Though there are some team aspects of it, the sole reason why kids chose to do this is merely for the appreciation of getting that hand raised. Also, the fact that independence beat south last year, to say that AAA would always win just isnt true.

highleghillary wrote:ohhh and btw you dont compare our AAA schools to any of the california schools, you cant look at it that way. if you look at our aa and aaa schools, most of these schools are smaller than schools in tons of the states. What we are simply looking at is the structure. Do i think california should be doing the structure they do? Honestly, thats irrelevant, what is relevant is that ours isnt as competitive as it was 7-15 years ago, and i have no problem debating that. This is because of the turnout! the sport must be consolidated, if not then atleast until wv as whole repairs itself, which btw could take years, dont expect a different result. Wrestling is not like football. Though there are some team aspects of it, the sole reason why kids chose to do this is merely for the appreciation of getting that hand raised. Also, the fact that independence beat south last year, to say that AAA would always win just isnt true.

You seem to have missed the point. Cali (and a lot of other states) can structure their state wrestling differently from us because of student population. We simply do not have the student population in our schools to approach it that way.

The turnout is down for one simple reason. Student population (what I was talking about the entire time). Our state has lost 210,000 residents since 2000. If just 25% of the people who left are school age students then that means our school population dropped by over 52,000 students in that time frame.

I never said a AA/A team could not beat a AAA team nor did I say a AAA team would always win states. I said it was unfair for schools that were small with just a few wrestlers to be lumped in with large schools. A school like Fayetteville with just 6 or 8 wrestlers can never score the team points to have a shot at a state championship against big schools that have more wrestlers in the tournament than Fayetteville even has on their team. Lumping them all into one tournament is unfair.

coach_williams wrote:

highleghillary wrote:ohhh and btw you dont compare our AAA schools to any of the california schools, you cant look at it that way. if you look at our aa and aaa schools, most of these schools are smaller than schools in tons of the states. What we are simply looking at is the structure. Do i think california should be doing the structure they do? Honestly, thats irrelevant, what is relevant is that ours isnt as competitive as it was 7-15 years ago, and i have no problem debating that. This is because of the turnout! the sport must be consolidated, if not then atleast until wv as whole repairs itself, which btw could take years, dont expect a different result. Wrestling is not like football. Though there are some team aspects of it, the sole reason why kids chose to do this is merely for the appreciation of getting that hand raised. Also, the fact that independence beat south last year, to say that AAA would always win just isnt true.

You seem to have missed the point. Cali (and a lot of other states) can structure their state wrestling differently from us because of student population. We simply do not have the student population in our schools to approach it that way.

The turnout is down for one simple reason. Student population (what I was talking about the entire time). Our state has lost 210,000 residents since 2000. If just 25% of the people who left are school age students then that means our school population dropped by over 52,000 students in that time frame.

I never said a AA/A team could not beat a AAA team nor did I say a AAA team would always win states. I said it was unfair for schools that were small with just a few wrestlers to be lumped in with large schools. A school like Fayetteville with just 6 or 8 wrestlers can never score the team points to have a shot at a state championship against big schools that have more wrestlers in the tournament than Fayetteville even has on their team. Lumping them all into one tournament is unfair.

1. Wrestling is an individual sport.
2. It was clearly stated that such a tournament would name a AAA champ team, AA champ team, and A champ team, a la OVAEC.

greencrush wrote:

coach_williams wrote:

highleghillary wrote:ohhh and btw you dont compare our AAA schools to any of the california schools, you cant look at it that way. if you look at our aa and aaa schools, most of these schools are smaller than schools in tons of the states. What we are simply looking at is the structure. Do i think california should be doing the structure they do? Honestly, thats irrelevant, what is relevant is that ours isnt as competitive as it was 7-15 years ago, and i have no problem debating that. This is because of the turnout! the sport must be consolidated, if not then atleast until wv as whole repairs itself, which btw could take years, dont expect a different result. Wrestling is not like football. Though there are some team aspects of it, the sole reason why kids chose to do this is merely for the appreciation of getting that hand raised. Also, the fact that independence beat south last year, to say that AAA would always win just isnt true.

You seem to have missed the point. Cali (and a lot of other states) can structure their state wrestling differently from us because of student population. We simply do not have the student population in our schools to approach it that way.

The turnout is down for one simple reason. Student population (what I was talking about the entire time). Our state has lost 210,000 residents since 2000. If just 25% of the people who left are school age students then that means our school population dropped by over 52,000 students in that time frame.

I never said a AA/A team could not beat a AAA team nor did I say a AAA team would always win states. I said it was unfair for schools that were small with just a few wrestlers to be lumped in with large schools. A school like Fayetteville with just 6 or 8 wrestlers can never score the team points to have a shot at a state championship against big schools that have more wrestlers in the tournament than Fayetteville even has on their team. Lumping them all into one tournament is unfair.

1. Wrestling is an individual sport.
2. It was clearly stated that such a tournament would name a AAA champ team, AA champ team, and A champ team, a la OVAEC.

No I got what you were saying and literally what I said is the reason for the population in schools, all in which regardless of your classification, is significantly lower than the average school in several states. Earlier you said something about Charleston.... That is the biggest city in wv. Charleston doesn't even have 40,000 people. I'm sure atleast 3/4 of the states in our union have a city that has more than 40,000 ppl. And no not like the OVAC this isn't the OVAC this is the States. OVAC is a conference too who has declined in competitiveness in the past decade. There needs to be a format similar to PA as well, with a dual state tournament for you guys who are big on the team aspect of this. Personally I'd rather just have one tournament, 4 sections, top 4 go. 16 man bracket, top 8 place, 2 day tournament. This would be a way that is hard to get to the state tournament, and the state tournament has good match at literally every match with very few pins. Then having a dual state championship at a date obviously before the individual, at also 2 days. Over-all format for the entire state structure is 4 days. 4 days is more than three. It could also be at different cities rotating every year or so like Charleston, morgantown, wheeling, etc. Keeps all the cities participating and not just an established site (which is a different discussion). But from reading the posts earlier I know some ppl would get upset or feel like certain schools would be targeted. Which is why I brought up a more compromising version. All of which these are examples of the total opposite of "everybody getting a trophy. " I promise you, go back to this thread in 5-10 years and if this current format we have doesn't change, and we continue this half a** way of constantly realigning schools back and forth between classifications, this sport will constantly decline. If I'm wrong then come back on here and remind me and I'll have zero problem of that.

And coach Williams, I do appreciate you providing me the info that our largest school district wouldn't even be calis top 25. Since Cali I believe has 58 counties (I could be wrong, just a guess) and we have 55 counties, putting wrestling aside and focus on just the state, what's that telling you about wv?

highleghillary wrote:And coach Williams, I do appreciate you providing me the info that our largest school district wouldn't even be calis top 25. Since Cali I believe has 58 counties (I could be wrong, just a guess) and we have 55 counties, putting wrestling aside and focus on just the state, what's that telling you about wv?

He s telling you this why politicians visit CA. Way more then WV.

So...the small program with 6-8 wrestlers problem has been solved by giving out 3 team trophys. Some single A schools have 40 wrestlers. So that's that. Any other reason we shouldn't unite??

rodrego wrote:So...the small program with 6-8 wrestlers problem has been solved by giving out 3 team trophys. Some single A schools have 40 wrestlers. So that's that. Any other reason we shouldn't unite??

nah, us smaller schools will just have to work harder. Maybe drive 2 hours instead of 1 hour to practice. Or practice for 4 hours instead of 2. Maybe we can get some Olympian to move into one of our towns (i suppose to work at a Aunt Janes Grocery) so he can help train our athletes. But, if we cant get an Olympian to come in and help.....we can always just drive our kids an hour and a half each way twice a week (after our 4 hour practice) to him to get the extra training our athletes need. We just need to work harder. Lump them all together and see how it turns out.

Wow.....maybe that's what is going on in the metropolis of Coal City??

Frank wrote:

highleghillary wrote:And coach Williams, I do appreciate you providing me the info that our largest school district wouldn't even be calis top 25. Since Cali I believe has 58 counties (I could be wrong, just a guess) and we have 55 counties, putting wrestling aside and focus on just the state, what's that telling you about wv?

He s telling you this why politicians visit CA. Way more then WV.

No frank.....smh we have too many counties. Though what you said is also true

I understand mscoach64 does not want the small schools competiting against large schools for a team title but does he also object to 1 tournament with 3 team champions? Seems like that would eliminate some of the problems people are discussing and still protect small schools and encourage wrestlers to come out and be part of a state championship team.
Not making fun but which team does mscoach64 think has an Olympian training them? I pulled a list and here are the closest Olympians I can find: Henson at WVU, Sunny Abe in Pittsburgh, chertow, Sanderson and a handful of the Penn state guys in Happy valley, Snyder/dlagnev maybe others in Columbus, whereever Nate carr is coaching in Ohio this week. I know mscoach64 was being sarcastic but maybe we should see if we can get Olympians to help?

The school I follow is not ovac or ovaec whichever it is but after the third time it was mentioned I looked at their website. I like the way they crown a champion individually and then reward teams at all the different size levels.

mscoach64 wrote:

rodrego wrote:So...the small program with 6-8 wrestlers problem has been solved by giving out 3 team trophys. Some single A schools have 40 wrestlers. So that's that. Any other reason we shouldn't unite??

nah, us smaller schools will just have to work harder. Maybe drive 2 hours instead of 1 hour to practice. Or practice for 4 hours instead of 2. Maybe we can get some Olympian to move into one of our towns (i suppose to work at a Aunt Janes Grocery) so he can help train our athletes. But, if we cant get an Olympian to come in and help.....we can always just drive our kids an hour and a half each way twice a week (after our 4 hour practice) to him to get the extra training our athletes need. We just need to work harder. Lump them all together and see how it turns out.

Kids who are dedicated will do w.e and you don't need to hire an Olympian? Lol. This really wouldn't be a big deal, you all will survive. Especially since aa is better than AAA as of now IMO. But if it would make you guys feel better you guys can keep the top 3 team trophies ☺

Ask the Cameron teams of the 90's if being a small school was a disadvantage! Its not always about size, but rather about the culture that you create as a coach and a community for your program.

ZZChooseTop wrote:I understand mscoach64 does not want the small schools competiting against large schools for a team title but does he also object to 1 tournament with 3 team champions? Seems like that would eliminate some of the problems people are discussing and still protect small schools and encourage wrestlers to come out and be part of a state championship team.
Not making fun but which team does mscoach64 think has an Olympian training them? I pulled a list and here are the closest Olympians I can find: Henson at WVU, Sunny Abe in Pittsburgh, chertow, Sanderson and a handful of the Penn state guys in Happy valley, Snyder/dlagnev maybe others in Columbus, whereever Nate carr is coaching in Ohio this week. I know mscoach64 was being sarcastic but maybe we should see if we can get Olympians to help?

The school I follow is not ovac or ovaec whichever it is but after the third time it was mentioned I looked at their website. I like the way they crown a champion individually and then reward teams at all the different size levels.

it was all sarcasm. i had no idea that any team had an Olympian training them. We are not disadvantaged....we'll just work harder.

I always thought it was about size!

I couldn't resist WP1992.

After re-reading, I now see that this is essentially the same discussion as in the other thread that JV wrestlers should be in the state tournament. So shouldn't we just do away with the term "JV" altogether? Is it fair to diminish someone with the term JV, as if they are not a great wrestler, when they are just as good as everyone else?

Personally, I see no issue with it. I just ask for 2 things.

1. No crying when your JV wrestler who qualified for states because he is in a region with just 3 other wrestlers in his weight class draws the #1 seed in the first round and gets destroyed and decides he is quitting wrestling because he is embarrassed. You wanted it You got it. Own it.

2. When your "guaranteed state champ" draws a JV kid in the first round and that JV kid gets lucky and pins your champ only to go 0-2 in his next two matches and be eliminated, don't complain that JV wrestlers shouldn't be in states. You wanted it. You got it. own it.

mscoach64 wrote:

rodrego wrote:So...the small program with 6-8 wrestlers problem has been solved by giving out 3 team trophys. Some single A schools have 40 wrestlers. So that's that. Any other reason we shouldn't unite??

nah, us smaller schools will just have to work harder. Maybe drive 2 hours instead of 1 hour to practice. Or practice for 4 hours instead of 2. Maybe we can get some Olympian to move into one of our towns (i suppose to work at a Aunt Janes Grocery) so he can help train our athletes. But, if we cant get an Olympian to come in and help.....we can always just drive our kids an hour and a half each way twice a week (after our 4 hour practice) to him to get the extra training our athletes need. We just need to work harder. Lump them all together and see how it turns out.

1. Why will you have to drive twice as far to practice if the state tournament is all class?
Is the distance between your home and the school going to increase in proportion to the increasing quality of the state tournament?
2. Also, why will you have to practice for twice as long once you are done driving twice as far to get there?

One of the biggest flaws that currently exist is a lack of parity in regional qualifiers. Sad!!!!!!!

I think the simplest way to fix the problem would be to let JV wrestlers compete in the regionals. I know comparing wrestling to track is like comparing apples to oranges, however track regionals allow schools to enter 1 relay team and up to 3 athletes in other events. There are numerous schools who have qualified multiple athletes in one event. And in some cases, two athletes have placed at the state track meet in the same event from the same school. Schools that come to mind are Bridgeport and Winfield. Both have had 2 runners place in the top 3 in certain events at the state meet. Are these extra runners considered JV? Why limit wrestling to one kid per weight class when you don't limit track to one runner per event. Both are considered team/individual sports depending on who you talk too. So why punish wrestling when one school may have the best two in a weight class when track teams aren't punished for having the two fastest kids in the state?

Recruiting and Retention

Find the geographical center of West Virginia, quarter the state, northeast,northwest,southeast and southwest. There's your four regions.
Combine everyone,A,AA,AAA and their jv wrestlers.

Take the top 8 from each region to the states a week later.

Others then the big school /little school, let the excuses fly.

I ll start
My kids region has more quality wrestlers in it then that one so not all of our best wrestlers will make it to the state.
Population that region doesn't have the people to be competitive.
Jv wrestlers don't exists.
Too many tuff kids on my sons region he ll never make it to the states

Frank wrote:I ll start
My kids region has more quality wrestlers in it then that one so not all of our best wrestlers will make it to the state.
Population that region doesn't have the people to be competitive.
Jv wrestlers don't exists.
Too many tuff kids on my sons region he ll never make it to the states

My kid doesn't have the grades

Much easier to take AAA and create 2 regions place the Top 8 for the State Tourney. This way we should be able to reduce the byes that are created in certain regions and we should get, better chance, the best 16 kids in each weight class.

Frank wrote:I ll start
My kids region has more quality wrestlers in it then that one so not all of our best wrestlers will make it to the state.

Certainly true with the regions now.

Let's cut to the chase. Eliminate the State Wrestling Tournament altogether. When the season is over have one big USA Wrestling or AAU wrestling tournament and everyone can enter across the board. Top wrestlers get seeded. Placers qualify for Nationals. Done. That should make most people happy I think.

Wrasllinfan wrote:Much easier to take AAA and create 2 regions place the Top 8 for the State Tourney. This way we should be able to reduce the byes that are created in certain regions and we should get, better chance, the best 16 kids in each weight class.

This sounds like a chicken dinner winner, common sense and simple, it wouldn't take big changes to make it happen. I like it as long as the 2 regions are more evenly balanced than the current regions are. It probably makes too much sense to even be considered though.

aaacoach4 wrote:Let's cut to the chase. Eliminate the State Wrestling Tournament altogether. When the season is over have one big USA Wrestling or AAU wrestling tournament and everyone can enter across the board. Top wrestlers get seeded. Placers qualify for Nationals. Done. That should make most people happy I think.

Best idea yet. There is your Team WV. A & B team

P.H.D. wrote:

aaacoach4 wrote:Let's cut to the chase. Eliminate the State Wrestling Tournament altogether. When the season is over have one big USA Wrestling or AAU wrestling tournament and everyone can enter across the board. Top wrestlers get seeded. Placers qualify for Nationals. Done. That should make most people happy I think.

Best idea yet. There is your Team WV. A & B team

No let the press decide state championships