Chris Duke

Middle School and Youth State

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Are you serious?  if you make middle school state as a 5th or 6th grader you get punished and can't wrestle youth?  I'm not sure how this helps promote or grow the sport way to take a huge step back Kentucky.  

https://cdn4.sportngin.com/attachments/document/0136/1837/BYLAWS_of_the_KENTUCKY_FOLKSTYLE_WRESTLING_COMMITTEE.pdf

B. Every wrestler is required to have competed in a KFWC sanctioned regional tournament in order to participate in the Youth State Tournament. Additionally, any wrestler that participates (excludes alternates who do not make it into the tournament) in the KFWC Middle School State Tournament cannot wrestle in the KFWC Youth State Tournament.

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This rule absolutely helps our growth. For years we have had middle school qualifiers and placers beating kids at the youth level. Why? It makes zero since. If these kids have already had success at a higher level, why would we let them regress to a lower age level. Obviously if they are qualifying for the middle school State Tournament, they are not being challenged at the youth level regularly. 10 years ago, I may have agreed with your statement. But we are growing! These are good problems! Eventually, youth State has to have a qualifier. Eventually, Middle School has to have a cutoff age wiseS Eventually, we will reach the competitive level of other states. 

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This really affects the lower weights 70/75.  I see youth kids beat middle school qualifiers every year.  There is no reason to stop a 5th or 6th grader from wrestling youth.  All we are doing is keeping our above average 5th or 6th grader from wrestling middle school.     

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How does it help growth? I always found that argument silly.  Is there any evidence that restricting kids from wrestling a single tournament increases participation?  Just the notion seems ridiculous.

If you don’t like it because it seems unfair, then fine. But like Duke mentioned, don’t have the lighter weight classes. How many 70 # MS kids do we have in the whole state? I’m not sure we could fill an 8 man bracket. 

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This is a dead horse.

Matt Lee and I tried to change this when we headed up the youth.  It was voted down immediately.  It is truly painful to watch people justify why an age appropriate child can't compete at every level.

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So your saying a young 5th or 6th grader from a region with small participation numbers, makes the top 4 in their region and just qualifies, now is disqualified from the youth tournament that he actually is more prepared for. 

OR

A youth that puts in the extra work to become a solid wrestler, now is disqualified from competing at the youth state because the just qualified for a MS State. 

OR

A solid elite wrestler that wants to compete Nationally and wants to wrestle in the Elementary State Tournament BUT because Tulsa Nationals is the same weekend  as the manadatory Regional tournament that he has to weigh in for, but doesn’t even need to compete in to qualify for the State Tourney, cannot compete in his state tournament

All because some coach Dad thinks that by eliminating good kids from the elementary State tournament is a good idea!??

Nike Man, please explain how these scenerios are great for our sport, these kids or making our competition better?

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Look guys, I don’t have a dog in the fight. I have simply just been involved for a long time. I have seen growth throughout the state and I am proud of that. We (KY), do a lot of bickering back and forth for the wrong reasons. We are lucky to allow youth to wrestle middle school and middle school to wrestle high school. I don’t for a second take what these kids have accomplished lightly. All I am saying is, why would you as a coach or parent want a kid that has had success on a higher level, drop down to dominate a lower level. Did H. Courtney, C. Lewis, C. Yost, etc. drop down their 8th grade year to win a middle school State Championship? Of course not. What does that prove when you have already proved that you can go on a higher lever? Does this not cross over into the youth and middle school level too? I agree that just simply qualifying for the Middle School State Tournament shouldn’t necessarily disqualify you. Placers seem reasonable. If I am “wrong”, that’s ok. It wouldn’t be the first time. Haha. I am just expressing my opinion and how we advise our kids. Just because someone has an opinion that’s different than yours doesn’t mean that they are wrong, just means they have an opinion that you disagree with. If we all thought the same way, we’d all be robots. Right?

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Are we really talking about this again?  I always thought the new rule was silly.  You are basically punishing a kid for the fruits of their labor.  Not letting a kid wrestle in a tournament with the same weight/age kids as them is crazy.  You are basically punishing a kid because he is good.  Nobody has a problem with a middle school kid wrestling in the middle school state tournament and then letting that same kid compete at high school regionals the following weekend.  Growth seems to be the topic that we all want to talk about.

I say let a kid get as many matches he can as a elementary/middle school wrestler and watch the growth happen.  At the end of the day the youth/middle school title doesn't mean that much, but when you are in the moment thats all that matters.  As a state we will never all agree on this topic.  The end result in my opinion is that we punish kids for their success by not letting them compete.

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Maybe the fact that this becomes an issue every year is an indicator that something is wrong. Nobody is trying to punish a kid. But we shouldn’t be trying to coddle one either. So maybe we should make elementary, middle school and high school age kids definitive? 

Youth State Tournament eligibility grades K-5

Middle School State eligibility grades 6-8

High School State eligibility grades 9-12

If people don’t like grade requirements, maybe we should go to USA age requirements. Wrestle your age division and that’s all. Too many options for parents and coaches. Make age, grade, and weight definitive. No percents on weight. Make a weight class. But that’s a whole other ball of wax.

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1 hour ago, Nike Man said:

Look guys, I don’t have a dog in the fight. I have simply just been involved for a long time. I have seen growth throughout the state and I am proud of that. We (KY), do a lot of bickering back and forth for the wrong reasons. We are lucky to allow youth to wrestle middle school and middle school to wrestle high school. I don’t for a second take what these kids have accomplished lightly. All I am saying is, why would you as a coach or parent want a kid that has had success on a higher level, drop down to dominate a lower level. Did H. Courtney, C. Lewis, C. Yost, etc. drop down their 8th grade year to win a middle school State Championship? Of course not. What does that prove when you have already proved that you can go on a higher lever? Does this not cross over into the youth and middle school level too? I agree that just simply qualifying for the Middle School State Tournament shouldn’t necessarily disqualify you. Placers seem reasonable. If I am “wrong”, that’s ok. It wouldn’t be the first time. Haha. I am just expressing my opinion and how we advise our kids. Just because someone has an opinion that’s different than yours doesn’t mean that they are wrong, just means they have an opinion that you disagree with. If we all thought the same way, we’d all be robots. Right?

 

3 hours ago, Nike Man said:

This rule absolutely helps our growth. For years we have had middle school qualifiers and placers beating kids at the youth level. Why? It makes zero since. If these kids have already had success at a higher level, why would we let them regress to a lower age level. Obviously if they are qualifying for the middle school State Tournament, they are not being challenged at the youth level regularly. 10 years ago, I may have agreed with your statement. But we are growing! These are good problems! Eventually, youth State has to have a qualifier. Eventually, Middle School has to have a cutoff age wiseS Eventually, we will reach the competitive level of other states. 

Referencing super stud HS kids isn’t a fair comparison.

We’ll probably see a 4th grader go 0-2 in the MS State tournament this year. That kid won’t be permitted to wrestle in the Youth state tournament. Does that seem right to you? 

 

 

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MLee, the first quote of mine that you used clearly stated that, “I agree that just simply qualifying for the Middle School State Tournament shouldn’t necessarily disqualify you. Placers seem reasonable.” 

Does that seem right to me, yes.

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Yes,  Dutch I brought it up only because I didn't see the rule change.  When it was top 4 I didn't agree with it but it seemed like a good compromise.  Two years later it's placers.  Now if you qualify, REALLY just qualifying will eliminate a kid from wrestling with kids his age.  I'm just not sure how this promotes growth.  

When you watch kids bust their tails all year and they have to choose between Youth and Middle School I doesn't make sense to me.  We have 2 kids that will not compete in the Middle School tournament and wrestle in a watered down Youth State because of this.  Both kids would most likely go 1-2 or maybe 2-2 in the Middle School Tournament.  How are we growing by making these kids choose?  By making teams and parents choose we are watering down both tournaments.  

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8 hours ago, Nike Man said:

Maybe the fact that this becomes an issue every year is an indicator that something is wrong. Nobody is trying to punish a kid. But we shouldn’t be trying to coddle one either. So maybe we should make elementary, middle school and high school age kids definitive? 

Youth State Tournament eligibility grades K-5

Middle School State eligibility grades 6-8

High School State eligibility grades 9-12

If people don’t like grade requirements, maybe we should go to USA age requirements. Wrestle your age division and that’s all. Too many options for parents and coaches. Make age, grade, and weight definitive. No percents on weight. Make a weight class. But that’s a whole other ball of wax.

Then you won’t have enough kids to fill line ups on High School or Middle School teams. I do have a dog in this fight and have for years. My son has been one of those kids eliminated by the rules created in the past. Worked hard enough in the off season and traveled to train and compete outside Kentucky during the summers. He, as a 4th and 5th grader, “qualified” but was never big enough to beat the older more experienced “true” middle schoolers at 70 lbs. BUT he competed and tried and failed( GOOD LESSONS TO LEARN with no CODDLE)  So with this new rule, he would have been disqualified as a 4th and 5th grader from competing at youth state. I’m glad he wasn’t eliminated because he got to enjoy the fruits of his labor and competed both years and won youth state those 2 years. By these new standards, he goes 1-2 as a 4th grader and places 5th as a 5th grader. Hardly the results worth keeping him out of a youth state that only has 1000 participants total. (I know these are true numbers because I’ve help run this tournament the last 9 years) You used Yost and Courtney as examples of choosing not to go back and compete on a younger level. That’s great they had the choice. Now we’ve taken those choices away from kids that want to get better and compete on 2 levels. We’re not Ohio and PA. And won’t be, we’re Kentucky and we need to do whatever we can to grow the numbers and keep kids excited about this sport. All this rule did was eliminate kids from competing. 

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8 hours ago, Nike Man said:

MLee, the first quote of mine that you used clearly stated that, “I agree that just simply qualifying for the Middle School State Tournament shouldn’t necessarily disqualify you. Placers seem reasonable.” 

Does that seem right to me, yes.

Sorry, I couldn't read past that "this rule absolutely helps our growth" statement.  

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This rule has my son,who is a young 6th grader wrestling a middle weight, worried about not being able to wrestle at youth if he has a good day at regionals. By a good day I mean, He is not going to win the tournament by a long shot,but if gets a good draw and wrestles his tail off  like he's been training to do, might slide into the top 4. If this happens he will likely go 0-2 maybe 1-2 in state tournament. So now what he's thinking is maybe he takes 5th and gets lucky enough to capitalize on someone else's misfortune and gets to wrestle in both state tournaments.  Any rule that forces a kid into thinking like that is stupid.

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I took a quick look at last year's 70 lb MS bracket.  I found 5 kids that qualified for MS State and wrestled in the Youth State Tournament (may have missed others).  Here is how they placed in their Youth State weight classes: 1, 2, 2, 3, DNP.  Does that look like they "dominated" the youth tournament?  Absolutely not.  Some of those losses came by youth kids w/ no MS experience.

The notion that they have "graduated" from youth by qualifying for the MS State tournament is absolutely asinine.    

 

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Here is the best example I can give, Have a 7th grader that just started wrestling last year. He’s a 500 wrestler meaning he is 15/15, probably going to place 4th in middle school Region. And is youth eligible according to our bylaws. Going to get killed at state once the tougher kids from the rest of the regions combine at state. And it would benefit him as far as self confidence and “mat time” to wrestle youth state. But unfortunately he won’t have that opportunity. I personally think that’s a better example then “the hammers” not being able to wrestle youth state. That’s the definition of growing our youth. Just my 2 cents

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I agree with the rule being bad. I disagreed with it and voted against the rule. However, it was my vote and two (2) other votes against it. It is said every year we need Coaches or Team Representatives to attend the Spring and Fall meetings. Even if it seems trivial to do so. Make your voice heard!!! It has been brought up about using some sort of conference call system so more people can be apart of it, but until that happens, we need people to be there.

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What's the current age limit for youth wrestling? Didn't we extend it to basically allow 8th graders to wrestle at Youth State last year or the year prior? 

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5 hours ago, Chris Duke said:

Yes,  Dutch I brought it up only because I didn't see the rule change.  When it was top 4 I didn't agree with it but it seemed like a good compromise.  Two years later it's placers.  Now if you qualify, REALLY just qualifying will eliminate a kid from wrestling with kids his age.  I'm just not sure how this promotes growth.  

When you watch kids bust their tails all year and they have to choose between Youth and Middle School I doesn't make sense to me.  We have 2 kids that will not compete in the Middle School tournament and wrestle in a watered down Youth State because of this.  Both kids would most likely go 1-2 or maybe 2-2 in the Middle School Tournament.  How are we growing by making these kids choose?  By making teams and parents choose we are watering down both tournaments.  

I didn't realize that it changed from top 4 to state placers.  WOW!!.  What will they do next?  If you wrestled one match at middle school you are disqualified from participating in youth?  Once again that is why we have ages and weights.  I remember when my son started wrestling youth tournaments.  One year he had Derek Wiley in his bracket at youth state.  Derek beat him like a drum.  I remember looking over at his coach and he said now you can pin him.  It felt like an emperor giving the thumbs down to the gladiator in the arena.  :D  

My son was fairly new to wrestling and Derek was already wrestling middle school and was light years ahead other kids his age.   The reason I tell this story is that was probably the best thing that could of happened to my son at the time.  It really made him understand that you can work that much harder and compete with those elite kids.  Losses are a good thing in my opinion.  My son could probably tell you more about losses than wins.  The reason is you learn from losses because of the pain associated with those losses. 

We will never agree on this topic as a state, but I would hope we would reconsider not watering down the youth state tournament anymore than it already has been.  Maybe we should just give all the kids a participation medal so they don't quit wrestling if they lose.  

Here is a funny commercial that goes perfectly with this topic:

 

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2 hours ago, Ghost76 said:

I agree with the rule being bad. I disagreed with it and voted against the rule. However, it was my vote and two (2) other votes against it. It is said every year we need Coaches or Team Representatives to attend the Spring and Fall meetings. Even if it seems trivial to do so. Make your voice heard!!! It has been brought up about using some sort of conference call system so more people can be apart of it, but until that happens, we need people to be there.

Then it needs to be used this year. We’ve talked about it every year at these meetings and it never happens. Only a handful can get together during the summer. A couple years ago we had all the coaches in one room at Louisville Downtown. That seemed to be the most convenient for everyone. Maybe that’s when we have a one hour vote after posting the issues online and through emails that are up for vote a month or 2 prior to tourney weekend. As for now, what can we do to help these kids out before the weekend?

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55 minutes ago, gameface said:

Then it needs to be used this year. We’ve talked about it every year at these meetings and it never happens. Only a handful can get together during the summer. A couple years ago we had all the coaches in one room at Louisville Downtown. That seemed to be the most convenient for everyone. Maybe that’s when we have a one hour vote after posting the issues online and through emails that are up for vote a month or 2 prior to tourney weekend. As for now, what can we do to help these kids out before the weekend?

It's 2018... we can't send out an email and vote online? There are tons of survey software out there we could use. Create the survey/poll and send the link out.

This goes back to them eliminating districts, which is another topic that needs to be discussed... but I hear it now "you should've come to the meetings".

We barely can get all the high school coaches to show up for the HS Coaches Clinic... what makes you think we're going to get all of the youth and ms coaches (who mostly volunteer or are paid very little) to show up to a meeting in the fall and/or spring? 

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