pioneer_pride

biged - in reply to your original questions, I'm not sure if the state taking over the middle school sports is picking up steam or not, but to me if the state does, it will be bad for wrestling. Some concerns I would have is: 1) title ix (not sure if this is an issue at middle school or not) 2) the state would probably split and have club state & school state. you would end up with two "lesser" tournaments in my opinion. 3) its very hard to convince an AD or principal to give wrestling a chance. If they did not grow up in the sport, odds are not good. Have you heard more about this? What's your opinion on this?

I was talking to Ranger about this topic tonight. I hope any ms/youth coaches watching this board make sure they have proper insurance coverage. Do not assume you, the kids, the school are covered. Conner had a kid sue the school years ago. From what i was told about the lawsuit, the kid's family tried to sue everyone including 1) the volunteer youth coach 2) the varsity head coach 3) the AD 4) the principal 5) the BOE. The only person present when this kid got injured was the volunteer youth coach. Ranger told me it costs $40 to sanction your event. When we ran youth/ms dual meets alongside the varsity meet at Conner, the AD told me the gate was more than the varsity boys basketball gate would be for a Friday night. Not sure what the $ amount was, but easily more than $40. All you youth/ms coaches out there work very hard and most parents appreciate that. But don't think for 1 second if their kid gets a serious injury you will not be sued!!! Sorry to hijack the thread but I feel we might have some bigtime risk here.

Keith that looks great and clarifies a lot. Something we do in our region is have youth and ms dual meets along side hs varsity. Are these events covered or would the host scbool need to charter the event? I understand the usa members would be based on your post, but what about the schools liability? Just curious.

Bigedcoach - in one of your posts you referred to the refs should make sure they have a usaw ref certification as well as their nfhs certifications to host at one of our hybrid tournaments. I researched this quite a bit as well and as you pointed out this liability stuff is extremely involved. My understanding years ago was that as long as the event was ran according to nfhs guidelines, then the refs were covered through their insurance through high school certification. This is why we had to abide by the five match rule at state. Do you think this is accurate? Just want to get your opinion. I thought we were covered and actually the schools are covered through usaw as well as club teams. It would be great to get you to verify the possible scenarios we have with club teams and school teams meeting up at the various ms competitions we have, and making sure we are covering our basis. Id hate to see ranger or any of our dedicated coaches be homeless because we were misinformed. Kdsmith also knows a lot on this subject.

Can anyone post a picture of the new medals?

I bet it was ranger. I dont know if you remember my original bling bling flava flav style medals but Ill always remember some of the kids faces as we wheeled out those gigantic medals at state. Making it special for the kids is the reward you get for having everyone take swings at you online.

Should have read the whole thread before my previous reply. ;-)

Opening the state meetings up to non coaches could cause problems. I attended a boone county pee wee fb boosters meeting one year where a group of parents were upset over a specific issue and they showed up with a lynch mob mentality. It was counter productive to say the least and county police had to show up and babysit.

We originally abided by the 5 match rule because our refs were certified through nfhs. Even if our event was sanctioned by usaw some refs very adamantly refused to ref a tournament that went over 5 matches. It is good you guys have gotten past this because we were never able to back in the old days. For every one person who will get upset about allowing kids to wrestle 6 matches there are 10 people who would be upset if you flipped a coin to decide 6th place. Ranger and JR, fantastic job on those finals singlets. I seen a pic on facebook of a ryle kid posing in his finals singlet downstate. Very cool idea. He was smiling ear to ear.

Mr. Boston, that's pretty cool you put up those stats about Joe Carr junior. The first time I seen Joe Carr Jr wrestle was in 1986 at the King of the Bluegrass tournament. He was maybe 50 lbs? I watched this little kid hit picture perfect moves and could hardly believe my eyes. I was brand new to wrestling, and was watching him on the mat with some other little kid (funny to think it might have been Ian Horn or someone like that). But he was hitting these throws and stuff and looked better than most high school kids at that tournament. If there had been a youtube back then, I would have posted a video of this. Seeing all those statistics refreshes my memory of just how good that kid was! The state has improved by leaps and bounds since then, but he was way ahead of his time for this state. He made all of us Ky wrestling fans very proud for a while.

Thats a lot of points.

Unless I overlooked his name, Im very surprised brent hitchings hasnt been brought up. Him and john fahy were very dominant. No one wanted a piece of john fahy back then. He totally dominated ky. Brent was right behind him. I also was floored when I watched caleb ervin wrestle his 8th grade year. The injury I was told was a dislocated kneecap. Either way, monday morning he was scheduled for surgery. Saturday he was pinning and techfalling future state placers. Them boys are a different breed. Here would be the top 5 of kids I seen years back. 1 Fahy 2 Harrison Courtney 3 Brock Ervin 4 Caleb Ervin 5 Brent Hitchings Harrison could also be a strong case for number 1. He was wrestling varsity like 145 in the 8th grade and as good as anyone. Not flea weight. No offense but varsity 145 is a whole world different than ms 80 lbs.

I asked julian tacket a while back about an all star match and his reply was there can be no varsity wrestling that occurs after the state tourney. Not sure if that can be changed but a senior all star matchup would be excellent. Also if it could include us vs other states...that would be cool too.

Jpizar83 - im with you on that.

Are big school and small school completely seperate? So they never match up?

Thanks. I didnt think it was meant negative.

I'm not really trying to argue or persuade either way. And its not that i want it to be a team sport. I just think there is a team aspect to it. And when I coached kids that were truly pulling for each other as team mates it was pretty cool. A lot of team sports parents and team mates are consumed with jealousy. One comment about what you said about people not sacrificing their individual title for a team title. Ive seen kids do this. Tommy Storms for sure. His senior year could have went out a 3 timer. Wrestled up for the team. Troy Cole did the same and the list goes on. Yes both of those guys already had individual titles, but they both sacrifices a lot for their team. Ok now its THE END for me and Ill go back into retirement.

They keep team scores, they give team trophies, to me that alone makes it a team sport. When I coached middle school wrestling I loved when individuals did well but I think the kids enjoyed team victories as much maybe more. I remember we were a last minute substitution at m.s. state duals one year and our team was pretty bad. We didnt win a dual all day until the very last one we beat anderson county on like the fourth tie breaker. Kids on both teams were on the side of the mat cheering more than any football game. Parents were screaming. This was two teams battling it out for last place at state duals. To me it is dedinitely a team sport.

I would have blown a snot bubble laughing so hard if I had seen that. I dont know what the ref said when this happened, but my younger brothers witnessed a match in college where a guy was picked up and brought back down to the mat rather hard to his butt. When he hit the mat he crapped all over the mat. I'm guessing the ref said something like "oh sh**!!"

In other states I've seen them do what they call a parade of champions. They just line the kids up and have them walk around the arena. It would cut down on time. For the record, I am not saying they should eliminate the face off. Running two sessions with a total of 900 kids and rolling up mats by what, 5:30 or 6? Kudos to everyone who helped put this together.

If I remember correctly, Dave gave up 2 2 point moves in 1988. A reversal to a D1 Ohio state runner-up (who he defeated). And a reversal or takedown in the 3rd period in the state finals. It might have been an escape in the state finals. All his other matches were either goose eggs or he gave them escapes. Kevin would get merked by Dave. (all due respect). Brad and Dave would have been a good match in my opinion, Brad was quicker and probably better technique, but Dave was probably a lot stronger. Ranger - my perception of Gibbs may be distorted by the fact that Tommy was a smaller 130 lber and probably a true 119 lber, wrestling up at 130. So I had the impression Gibbs was a pretty solid 130 lber. Maybe he wasn't...i could be wrong there. I actually discussed this the other day with one of Storms team mates and he said Tommy was considering cutting to 112 for nationals that year.

Ranger - i can normally see things your way, but on this post I wasn't able to stick my head as far up my....nevermind. ;-) If you would take Yenter over Storms because of technique, then how could you take Gibbs over Carr. I'm starting to see a trend here homer! As far as Jude over Reid or Hitchings, I think both Reid & Hitchings made their claim by placing at the Beast of the East. I know Jude has placed high at a few good nationals, like Freshman, but not sure where else. Has he been to anything comparable to the beast that has all classes (9-12)?

Dave Ritchie was absolutely amazing. By Ervin's senior year who knows he actually probably will be better, but I watched Dave Ritchie wrestle his senior year and he made kids blow snot bubbles at state. I believe he pinned a defending state champ in the finals?? GOO & Ranger - don't bet against Storms. Tommy not only dominated in state, he always found a way to draw the toughest kid in the tournament and managed to beat most of them when SK wrestled a very tough out of state schedule. Storms was at most a 125 pounder his sr year, and wrestled up to make the team stronger. He could have dropped to 119. I seen him weigh 128 the monday following districts fully clothed drinking water. 130 was too big for him, and it still was a stalling call in OT that took down the champ.

I don't know if you'd classify them as "up and coming" or just getting back to where they have been in the past, but it looks like St X is a team to watch out for in the near future. I'd say sooner than people think.

Not dead, more like a wrestling coma. I've been a lurker on the website, but without a dog in the fight anymore, I can just relax and watch other people argue from now on. :-)