85mc 0 Report post Posted March 21, 2013 hey right there with you i was hoping enough were in favor of it they might change things before next season Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bluesdad 73 Report post Posted March 21, 2013 Me to but I don't think Ky will change their youth tournament set up for some reason. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
85mc 0 Report post Posted March 21, 2013 out of all the comments seems like just 2 against it Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bluesdad 73 Report post Posted March 21, 2013 Yeah but it's the 2 that run things in Ky..lol. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
raidercoach 51 Report post Posted March 21, 2013 Weigh ins are a must. I don't know if they have to be the day of the tournament, but certainly closer to the event and with officials. Until someone comes up with a solution that fixes the log jams at many weights while leaving others half full, I don't think weight classes make sense without qualifying tournaments. Qualifying tournaments creates many other logistical problems that no one has solved. Then we have the weight cutting issue that everyone seems split on. Seems like we'd be messing up a good thing for what benefit? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bluesdad 73 Report post Posted March 21, 2013 Weight cutting happens regardless of set up of the tournament. If you think the 10% rule cuts out cutting your wrong. Log jams what log jams. Blue has wrestled at I'm going to say between 80 and 100 tournaments and I have never seen a log jam at weight ins. I've seen some at high school tourneys but never in youth never. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
raidercoach 51 Report post Posted March 21, 2013 Weight cutting happens regardless of set up of the tournament. If you think the 10% rule cuts out cutting your wrong. Log jams what log jams. Blue has wrestled at I'm going to say between 80 and 100 tournaments and I have never seen a log jam at weight ins. I've seen some at high school tourneys but never in youth never.10% drastically reduces weight cutting. I'm done arguing with you about it. I can present overwhelming evidence with years of weigh ins by our youth/middle kids and it is obvious: kids cut weight much more with fixed weights. I don't care how many tournaments you have been to. We have near 1000 kids at our state tournament. If we had weight classes there is NO way you could have fixed weight classes without log jams. We've ran the numbers over and over using USA wrestling weights and you have some weights with 30+ kids. So you would have to have 2 brackets at many weights. If you have to do that, what's the point? You are essentially doing what 10% already does for us: distributing the participants so every bracket is full while maintaining a manageable number per bracket. Many have looked at it and NO ONE has come up with a solution to this problem without: 1) having qualifying tournaments or 2) making multiple brackets at the crowded weight classes. I'd argue, if you have to have multiple 65lb, 70lb, 75lb brackets, are you really determining a state champion at these weights? Obviously not. Many of you are so obsessed with making our youth state more prestigious by making these changes. I have news for you: the kids love the tournament as it is and there is nothing we can do to make winning a Kentucky youth state title prestigious. The only way the kids would have a negative feeling about our state tournament is if the parent or coach was critical of it. We've coached hundreds if not thousands of kids that went to our state tournament and we've never heard a bad thing from a kid or a parent. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bluesdad 73 Report post Posted March 21, 2013 You make these comments like your God of Ky wrestling. Let me make a bold statement here! Your not. I'm sure you've put a lot of time and love the sport but so have a lot of us. You say no way. How do you know if you've not tried it. As long as you have weight ins 2 weeks prior or later you will have more people lying about weights. It happens. Not with everyone but some. If you weight in the night prior or that morning it takes all the guessing out of it. I know your from the northern part of the state and know all and all us eastern guys don't know a thing. Why I wonder how weve got enough sense to put our shoes on the right feet. No all the kids don't love it. It's a fact they don't. Do many of the kids that aren't skilled enough right now to win a true state championship love it? Sure they do. Our state championship should be about awarding these kids that put day in and day out in the wrestling room working their tails off to win a state championship. So it's ok to award these kids that practice 1 day a week and not the ones that are winning state titles in high school. It boggles my mind I don't get it and never will. Also I'm done arguing with you to. But I don't remembering arguing with you about it in the first place. But so be it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
raidercoach 51 Report post Posted March 22, 2013 You make these comments like your God of Ky wrestling. Let me make a bold statement here! Your not. I'm sure you've put a lot of time and love the sport but so have a lot of us. You say no way. How do you know if you've not tried it. As long as you have weight ins 2 weeks prior or later you will have more people lying about weights. It happens. Not with everyone but some. If you weight in the night prior or that morning it takes all the guessing out of it. I know your from the northern part of the state and know all and all us eastern guys don't know a thing. Why I wonder how weve got enough sense to put our shoes on the right feet. No all the kids don't love it. It's a fact they don't. Do many of the kids that aren't skilled enough right now to win a true state championship love it? Sure they do. Our state championship should be about awarding these kids that put day in and day out in the wrestling room working their tails off to win a state championship. So it's ok to award these kids that practice 1 day a week and not the ones that are winning state titles in high school. It boggles my mind I don't get it and never will. Also I'm done arguing with you to. But I don't remembering arguing with you about it in the first place. But so be it. You are showing your ignorance when you say we haven't tried set weight classes. You do know we had set weight classes and changed to 10% because of all the same issues I listed..right? I don't know you, but I suspect your experience in this sport is limited to the few years your son has wrestled. I say that because it wasn't very long ago we had weight classes at youth and the biggest reason we went to 10% was to help with the brackets...which 10% has tremendously helped with. Furthermore, we have the weights of every kid that weighed in at the state tournament the last few years. We used those weights to analyze how our state tournament brackets would look using USA wrestling weight classes. The results were ugly. Just like I said before, we had MANY weight classes with way too many kids in the bracket. The ONLY solution to this is to either have a qualifying tournament or to split those brackets into two or three. To say we haven't looked at this or tried it is IGNORANT. It has been looked at many times the same results...it doesn't work. You could argue for having a qualifying tournament to reduce the participants at state so we don't have as many issues with some brackets. But then you would take our state tournament from 1000 to 500 and from talking with people in the know, would likely force it out of Alltech. I am 100% in agreement with you over the weigh ins. I've never said anything other than we need to have them closer to the tournament. However, this will create some logistical challenges, but I'm sure they can be worked out. "No all the kids don't love it. It's a fact they don't." The last I checked, I help coach the largest youth team in the state. Hence, I have a bit bigger sample than you, who I believe doesn't coach anyone other than maybe your own son. Our kids love our state tournament..no question. It is all about attitude from the coaches and parents. If you go into it saying, "this tournament sucks because they don't have weight classes" then I'm sure the kids will feel the same way. Kids are simple creatures; give them a cool spotlight, a cool venue, and a big shiny medal and they are pumped up. Our kids get to experience the high school finals the night before and wrestle in the same venue the next day. That is the coolest thing about our state tournament. How many other states do that? I don't know of any other states that pull that off. Anyone that wants to change that is out of their mind. I don't know where you got that I have bias against eastern ky. I live in NKY, but work in Lexington and Eastern Ky. I have many friends in Morehead, Pikeville, Paintsville...all over. I spend at least 2 days a week driving up and down the Bluegrass Parkway. I love that part of the state. We can have a difference of opinion and be passionate about it, but there is no reason to attack me personally. I've never claimed to be the God of KY wrestling. I've told you before, I respect the passion and dedication you have for your son. I'll end my rant with what I feel the most passionate about. Weight cutting in our sport has historically been a dirty little secret that everyone knew happened, but no one ever admitted to, at least at the youth level. I know I am on the right side of the weight cutting debate because there hasn't been ONE person stand up and say "I think it is okay for my 7 year old to cut weight". No one will admit that they allow their kid or they encourage the team they coach to cut weight....yet we all know kids and teams that do it. I feel that needs to end and it goes way beyond just controlling your own kids. I think if anyone is in position of influence with our association, they need to do all they can to prevent/reduce weight cutting. I don't care if it is 1lb for an 8 year old...it is bad for the kid and bad for our sport. Why do they govern weight cutting in high school and college with tests to prevent dangerous weight cutting? They do it to protect the kids from doing what we know they would do if we didn't have the tests. Does it work 100% of the time? Absolutely not. I cheated my hydration test in college. However, we can't ignore the facts that if you have weight classes and can't regulate the weight cutting (we can't even get weigh ins done correctly) then the 10% rule is the best tool we have. Is it perfect? Apparently not, but to do nothing is irresponsible. So for people to say "well 10% doesn't eliminate weight cutting", they are missing the point that it does drastically reduce it and that can be proven. If you guys are hell bent on making the state tournament harder, just double the bracket size and keep 10%. You would have 16 man brackets and could place the top 6. I assure you that with 16 man brackets, we will have stiff competition at every weight. I'm not 100% for this, but it is a way better idea than going back to the stone ages of weight classes. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bluesdad 73 Report post Posted March 22, 2013 My experience with Ky wrestling is subject to the last 3 years since Blue has started wrestling. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bluesdad 73 Report post Posted March 22, 2013 It's not about making the tournament harder. Blues bracket at state had 2 kids that won state in it other than his self. So brackets were alot easier than that. It's about making it have qualified wrestlers in all brackets top to bottom. I'm glad to learn you like our part of the state. I only state the other because it seems you will never listen to folks from our part of the state. If we ever have a suggestion it seems it's thrown down with without any thought. I don't you you either but I would like to get to know you so I wouldn't have all these miss consumptions about you. I feel we have gotten off on the wrong foot. But I believe we both want what's best for all the kids in the state and are passion is coming through. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kynovice 1 Report post Posted March 22, 2013 I don't want to get in the middle of an argument because i am in the first year of wrestling with my son and this is all new to me. My son has wrestled in both the 10% and weight class and i personally like the 10%. He has wrestled in 3 different states and the only time we had any problems was in the weight class brackets it was very noticeable that some of those kids were cutting weight. With this being the State Tournament and so many people having trouble with weigh-ins why can't the association do the weigh-ins at the clubs or schools. You could have a set date that anyone who plans to attend must register by and supply the dates and times of their practices so the weigh-ins would be a surprise. Then you could hire a non-bias company or members of the association go do the weigh-ins and verify age. You may have to go up on the entry fee a little to cover cost. Anyone who was missed could pay extra and weigh in the night before or that mourning on a case by case not a whole team. This would be a lot of work to get across the state but no one should complain ( I know someone would) about a certain coach or club not using the correct weight since it would be out of their hands. You could also do random weigh-ins at check in to verify. As for the Youth State Tournament i think it was great and my son had a great time the night before and the day of the tournament. I think he called it beast. From reading the post on here i think by the time the State meet comes around the parents have really gotten keyed up for their kids and want it to be more than what it is. Yes some of the kids are really good and work really hard to get here and don't get much competition and i know this is supposed to be for the State. These are kids you don't even know if the kid is thinking about wrestling when he gets on the mat(he could be thinking WWE) so you may not get his/her best effort. Some of your best wrestlers may not even come because its to far for them to travel or they don't have the money. So lets let them be kids and enjoy this and be happy for them if you have a State Champ or if they didn't win a match. Heaven knows as they get older the fun will be gone and we will be putting the pressure on them when they get to middle and high school. If you want more competition for your kid there always seem to be a tournament going on some where with some good wrestlers or wrestle your kid up in middle school. I like the idea of the T.O.C. with the qualifiers, but think it should be closer to the State meet. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
85mc 0 Report post Posted March 22, 2013 the day before or morning of would be great for weigh ins 10% or not. but 2 weeks before & teams doing weigh ins their self no Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bowlbear1 1 Report post Posted March 22, 2013 weigh-ins are a must a few days before and having coaches from each team there during the entire weigh-in process along with an official, or maybe even certified trainer to verify all weights. having the weigh-ins using the cross-over method may work also. That would mean that no wrestler can weigh-in at their own club, school, county. Set up a time in each "district" area as the weigh-in site and have a rep from each team present along with the official/trainer to check all birth-certs, forms, weight, skin check. I know it may be hard with some counties being larger than others but if we know ahead of time then it can all be scheduled and set up where no 1 person,coach, school, team, or club is in charge therefore you eliminate more chances of the cheating on weights. Example would be something like Boone Co. clubs/teams go to a Campbell Co. site, and Campbell Co. goes to a Kenton Co. site, and Kenton Co. goes to a Boone site. Again I'm not sure if that would be feasible just throwing it out there as a possible answer. Face-off have to stay for these kids I have heard nothing but kids year after year telling all the new kids that come on the team about how great it is when the drop the lights at state and get put in the spotlight! And I thank GOD for that!!! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MichiganMan 3 Report post Posted December 20, 2015 Since moving here and wrestling my whole life and now my son is starting . This is the only state I have been that doesn't have weigh ins and set weight classes. Usually get a pound allowance at state since kids grow over the season Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MichiganMan 3 Report post Posted December 20, 2015 It's not about the cutting of weight. But even at the youth level a wrestler should have disciplined weight management 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
