MLee

Now let's move to today's English lesson: too, where, you're, you're, you're

Anyone that is having a hard time counting to 7 should probably refrain from lecturing others about math.

1st Annual Mic Dropper Tournament. Weight Classes: 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 52, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60.........

Why can't you understand...smallest to biggest, not exceeding 10%, 16 man brackets. That is not "manipulation." It's not even very complicated. You enter the ages, weights, and then...you press a button!

BANTAM Born 2008-2009 Two two-minute periods with 30 second rest between periods Championship and Consolation: 3 one-minute periods 40, 45, 50, 55, 60, 65, 70, 75, 75+ (15 lbs. maximum difference) INTERMEDIATE Born 2006-2007 Two two-minute periods with 30 second rest between periods Championship and Consolation: 3 one-minute periods 50, 55, 60, 65, 70, 75, 80, 87, 95, 103, 112, 120, 120+ (20 lbs.max difference) NOVICE Born 2004-2005 Two two-minute periods with 30 second rest between periods Championship: 1 one-minute and 2 1:30 periods; Consolation: 3 oneminute periods 60, 65, 70, 75, 80, 85, 90, 95, 100, 105, 112, 120, 130, 140, 140+ (25 lbs. maximum difference) SCHOOLBOY Born 2002-2003 Two two-minute periods with 30 second rest between periods Championship: 1 one-minute and 2 1:30 periods; Consolation: 3 oneminute periods 70, 77, 84, 91, 98, 105, 112, 120, 128, 136, 144, 152, 160, 175, 190, 210, 265 Those are the current USA weight classes. Now, Mr. Mic dropper, please explain to me where you came up with your brilliant 3 # weight class concept? Why not 2 #? Heck, lets make it 1#

Last year, we started from the lightest to heaviest w/out exceeding 10% in every age group. We did 16 man brackets and could have up to 4 kids per team in each bracket. This forced us to manually generate each bracket....I did it, total pain in the arse. This year, we used Track's template. It automatically attempts to separate teammates. Therefore, if you can move a kid up to the next bracket and pull a kid down to only have 1 per team per bracket and still keep it w/in 10%, it will. The only draw back is you have overlap in weights and a little big larger spread rates. Personally, I don't mind it either way. People don't like the overlaps (mainly conspiracy theorists), but nobody likes 4 kids from one club either.

Ugh...here we go again! As mentioned, the kids don't complain. I have coached a youth team of 70+ kids for 7 years...I haven't had 1 kid complain about 10% rule. Not a single wrestler. I have had many parents question it, but the masses have learned to accept it. Every year a new batch of "newbie" parents get on the message boards and complain (usually because little Regional Champ got paired up with 5 X State Champ). Demoralized? Wow, that seems far fetched. I think a benefit of 10% is exactly what you complained about...it promotes wrestling different kids! We attend the same tournaments against the same teams every weekend. My son has only wrestled 1 kid twice all year. Some weeks he's the biggest, some weeks he's the smallest. What's wrong with that? This year we used Track's own Block Template. Yes, Track has the 10% format built in! Wonder why? Maybe other states and tournament directors see the benefits and flexibility of it. So you think we're behind the times? I'd argue when it comes to our state tournament, we might be ahead of the curve. Finally, explain to me how changing the way we bracket makes our wrestlers better? I guess all we need to do is use USA weight classes and our kids will have Burroughs blast double over night.

The final brackets will be released tomorrow at 8 AM. We are still receiving corrections and attempting to separate 1st round regional match-ups.

Still have room for 50-75 more kids. Please let me know if you are interested. I'll take rosters until 10 PM tonight.

RAIDER RUMBLE TOURNAMENT FOR BEGINNERS AND EXPERIENCED WRESTLERS DATE: Saturday December 5th, 2015 LOCATION: Gray Middle School Gymnasium 10400 Hwy 42-Union, KY 41091 ENTRY FEE: $12.00 per wrestler and is due at the time of check-in. ADMISSION: Free admission for all spectators. ROSTERS: Team rosters must be received by Wednesday- December 2nd! Please e-mail rosters to: matthewlee@live.com (859) 391-7600 TIMES: Wrestling Starts: Birth Year (03 & 04, 05 & 06) 9am (Please arrive @ 8:30) Birth Year (07 & 08, 09 & 10) 1:30pm (Please arrive @ 1:00) WEIGHT CLASSES: TBD after rosters have been received. An effort will be made to create separate brackets for 1st year wrestlers. FORMAT: Double elimination. There will be Three-1 minute periods. AWARDS: Custom medals will be given to the top 4 placers in each weight class ONLY COACHES AND WRESTLERS WILL BE PERMITTED ON THE FLOOR-WRISTBANDS MUST BE WORE AND CAN BE REQUESTED WITH YOUR TEAM’S REGISTRATION.

Coaches, I've had a few teams request moving the deadline to Thursday night due to practice schedules. I have agreed to do so. If you are still interested in attending on Saturday, please let me know. It's starting to fill up. Thanks, Matt Lee

Please send rosters in Excel format using the attached template: (for those of you who cannot open attachment) Last Name First Name Birth Year Weight Experience Gable Dan 2002 100 0 Sample Team.xlsx

Oak Hills Tournament in Cincinnati is a good youth tournament. It is on Dec 6th. I'll try to dig up the flier.

That is great news! Thanks for sharing.

Wow...this Internet thing is really starting to take off! Nice work you two.

Medals are a selling point, but someone needs to do the selling! Think about it, by the time the medals have been handed out, our #'s have been established. Maybe there is a small % of kids that start wrestling the following year because they've seen a medal somewhere. But every time we've seen a surge in #'s, there was a committed coach behind the scenes recruiting at football fields, schools, etc.

You are really showing your age now.... More medals works better w/ retaining kids, not growing the #'s. By tournament time, the #'s are already established. How does giving out more medals increase #'s? It doesn't. It helps retain the kids we have, but we are having a growth issue more than a retainment issue. Growth comes from coaches that are committed. How did Grant County get to 2nd overall and 1st in DII in 3 years? From Coach Messerly and his staff. They've worked their butts off and built a great program. The question becomes..."how do we get more guys like that?"

I agree 100%. If and when we're ready to have qualifiers (I'd say around 1500 kids), I would prefer the TOC format over regionals. Kind of hard to have regionals at youth when some regions have 20 kids and others have 350.

You wrestled before?? This is certainly where we're headed, but the # 's have to make sense. We need some of the regions to find ways to grow if we use regional qualifiers. I like the Tournament of Champions quailifier format. Have a few tournaments scattered around the state. They need them to be sanctioned and ran the same way. If the kids place top 4 in one of those tournaments, you're eligible to participate in the state. It would also encourage more "in-state" wrestling.

My original proposal was to have novice and experienced brackets. Novice in the morning, 8 man brackets, remote weigh-ins, same as it was in years past. 2nd session, adopt set weight classes (USA would work), weigh in morning of, pre-register on Track, 16+ man brackets. I still like this the best, but this year's tournament was a lot of fun. Regardless of what we do, I personally appreciate others opinions and input. We can get heated on these message boards, but it usually between all the people that are passionate about the sport. Our youth and MS kids are looking great!

I hardly think a good debate among people who put countless hours into making our state better should be considered "whining." Dividing brackets up by GRADE for youth has always seemed silly to me. What does grade have to do w/ physical development? Nothing. BIRTH YEAR does. What if a kid was 14 years old and in the 5th grade? Should he be allowed to wrestle in our youth tournament? Of course not. This is why the youth tournaments are sorted the way they are. It is much more fair...smaller age and weight diiference. Sbfraz, you seem to be making our point. If the smaller weight classes are close to 100% youth aged kids, then why exclude them from a youth tournament?? Because someome thinks that placing in the top 4 in our MS tournament has miraculously made these kids superior to the youth kids. Broken record....shouldn't this decision be left with the individuals it impacts, their parents and coaches? I guess the few coaches that showed up and voted are better suited to make those decisions. I have a great youth kid that took 2nd to a wrestler who was ranked top 3 all year in MS. The MS kid didn't place top 4. We lost a close 2-0 match. BIG DEAL! It was a great experience. He got to stand on the podium and think about what he needs to do to get better. In addition, I received an email from a parent of a kid who won 1 match all year! He was hoping he would win one down state, but failed to do so. She thanked me for our coach's efforts and pledged to send him to more off-season events to get him better next year. They didn't get scared off. We handed out medals to almost 50% of the wrestlers that showed up. Since we don't have qualifiers, that is almost 50% of the entire state! Isn't that enough? If not, lets hand out more, but don't water down the competition out of fear some kid and their parents will quit. They won't, but if they do, are these the type of families we need in our sport? Let them play basketball and earn as many participation ribbons they want from their local YMCA. The other point worth noting...this the end of the year tournament. My newbies have been through a few "beginner tournaments" before they wrestled in more challenging tournaments. The parents and kids were forewarned. We told them not to expect great results. Some decide in the first few weeks, wrestling is not for them. I believe we started with 85 kids and ended w/ under 50. By the end of the season, these kids and their families understand the sport. We won't run them away if little Johnny doesn't make the podium.

But is that what we want? Do we want our top kids to shun our youth state tournament? I don't see how this helps our #'s.

Ha, no need to apologize.

Please don't assume my opinions are based around the thoughts of my son. He didn't want to wrestle in the youth tournament. I voted against it before he even wrestled a MS match years ago. I explained why I don't like the rule. I believe my points are valid. If you don't agree, no biggie. Obviously you are in majority because it got voted that way. As mentioned not a shred of evidence to support how it improves #'s, which is one of the reasons people voted for it. If I recall, 1 kid who was the MVW of MS State showed up at the Youth tournament and everyone freaked. I've had MS placers decide not to wrestle before the rule was implemented. I've also had a kid that wanted to wrestle in it because he had a goal to win 6 or 7 youth titles, but couldn't. It didn't sit right with me that a bunch of adults w/ agendas prohibited him from achieving his goal, as silly as that goal may seem to some. In the end, there are more important issues that needs to be addressed in our state. It's a dead issue to me.

I don't believe I've ever had an 8th grader eligible for youth state. That cannot be common.