Sign in to follow this  
gator1

Regions and States

Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, grappler-of-old said:

So that it is a school sponsored event.  Then the school can hold practice, use buses and uniforms and pay for tournaments.  

Correct and parents know its just not another travel baseball type thing in our area

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

it's just a matter of perspective. 

With programs that have good support from the school and community (parents)  This type of stuff is not a big deal.  

With programs that do not have good support from either the school or community (parents).  Or programs trying to built, this type of stuff is a huge deal. 

I've been on both sides of this.  When you have good support from the community its easy to promote fall practices and tournaments. When your trying to build a program this is like climbing Mt. Everest without the community support. 

That is why I liked the idea.  The official season can be complete, but those that want to continue can still hold practice and compete.  It's a win/win situation.  Those building programs can still build and have more practice and established programs can continue on as normal under the high school umbrella. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
3 minutes ago, grappler-of-old said:

it's just a matter of perspective. 

With programs that have good support from the school and community (parents)  This type of stuff is not a big deal.  

With programs that do not have good support from either the school or community (parents).  Or programs trying to built, this type of stuff is a huge deal. 

I've been on both sides of this.  When you have good support from the community its easy to promote fall practices and tournaments. When your trying to build a program this is like climbing Mt. Everest without the community support. 

That is why I liked the idea.  The official season can be complete, but those that want to continue can still hold practice and compete.  It's a win/win situation.  Those building programs can still build and have more practice and established programs can continue on as normal under the high school umbrella. 

Yes this has been my point all a long. Wasn't ever meant to ruffle any feathers just a different take on a situation from a different view.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
4 hours ago, GooglyMoogly said:

Small school here as well.  Nearly all of our wrestlers play multiple sports so I am not sure why your kids will have moved on to spring sports. Ours don't until they are done.  Our kids that play fball don't quit when we start wrestling practices.  Why would it be different for spring sports? 

Again, why won't they have much left in the tank?  If an early February Championship is already maxing your kids out maybe you need to change a few things in your program.  

They will move on maybe because wrestling is not their primary sport. Or more likely and what I fear the most, is they may choose not to wrestle at all. It is a continual battle to attract kids to the sport, especially in an area where basketball is already big, and baseball is nearly as big. One of the selling points to get the spring sport kids is that the season ends early and you won't miss any time.Again, I have zero concerns about the few die hard wrestlers our program has. The ones that go year round will love the longer season. The problem we are having as a whole is it seems like much of what we doing in an effort to be more "competitive" as a state, pushes these borderline kids who don't have higher level aspirations in wrestling, out of the sport and thus is hurting us growth wise. 

My other point is that due to numbers many schools have, the middle school gets much of their work in with the high school. With the high school shutting down in February, that will lessen the quality of work the middle school kids will get in practice in the weeks leading up to region and state. And with limited middle school events, lengthening a season that is already thin makes it even harder to develop kids. Not everyone goes to every open mat, private training session, or out of state tournament available. Again, it goes back to pushing the average kid out of the sport.

I know, I know, I need to shut up and build the program. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, grappler-of-old said:

it's just a matter of perspective. 

With programs that have good support from the school and community (parents)  This type of stuff is not a big deal.  

With programs that do not have good support from either the school or community (parents).  Or programs trying to built, this type of stuff is a huge deal. 

I've been on both sides of this.  When you have good support from the community its easy to promote fall practices and tournaments. When your trying to build a program this is like climbing Mt. Everest without the community support. 

That is why I liked the idea.  The official season can be complete, but those that want to continue can still hold practice and compete.  It's a win/win situation.  Those building programs can still build and have more practice and established programs can continue on as normal under the high school umbrella. 

I've been on both sides and back again. I'm I can tell you it's much harder now to build than it was 10 years ago when I built the first time. I feel like we are sacrificing growth in effort to be more competitive with neighboring states. IMHO, We will never be as competitive as we want to be, without first achieving consistent growth. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

 

I don’t log in much anymore to post but this topic hits me very close. Feel free to disagree with me...won’t hurt my feelings and I probably won’t login to reply or post again for a while regardless. 

 

I remember when the middle school STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS were an open tournament held at Campbell County High School. We have come a LOOOOONG way since then in this state, but I would like to ask everyone to evaluate a few things in regards to all of this. 

 

  1. We are comparing ourselves to the states around us with pretty good wrestling...but let me ask why would we want to emulate most of them? Consider:

    1. ILLINOIS: pretty sure they are AAU sanctioned/have their own athletic association for elementary/middle schools. I pulled up their calendar for THIS season, and all pre-season paperwork has to be in by November 1. Practice cannot begin until November 29, regular season begins December 6, Regionals are Feb. 26, Sectionals March 5, State March 11. The latest they will schedule state finals is April 2 this year (I’m assuming COVID or snow related). 

    2. INDIANA: I know for a fact because my brother has coached and taught up there in the Indianapolis area since 2016 they have ZERO organization state wide. His conference starts practice in December, wrestles duals and tris in January and February with a conference tournament the first weekend in March. The conference to the west of them? They only wrestle in January (practice December). He came down here last year around Christmas and was telling me he wished their coaches would organize state wide. It’s more of a localized thing in Indiana from what he says, with each conference doing their own thing. His conference doesn’t even have to use certified officials!!! 

    3. OHIO: part of the STATE HIGH SCHOOL association which sets their season limits and post season...what I know I would like us to get to but others I’m sure don’t...which is ok!

    4. TENNESSEE: I taught and officiated down there in the Nashville/Murfreesboro area for a year...and it is by far a cluster. One conference I worked with literally practices for a week then wrestles duals for 2 weeks...a 3 week season all completed by the end of October. Another conference practices at the start of November, and wrestles the entire regular season in December...1 tournament after Christmas break. Others wrestle more of a true regular season (start in November with practice and season starts on the first day of December), but they are all finished with their conference tournament at the end of January/start of February. There are MAYBE 3 weekend tournaments for middle schools in Tennessee that I was aware of (and realize the officials association I was a part of serviced from the KY state line all the way down to the AL state line...biggest association in the state) all season long up until their “State” Tournament (which is an OPEN tournament). Their AAU state tournament is scheduled for March 5 with their State Duels being the next day this year. 

  2. Our middle school regular season this year is literally 4 and a half months long this year if we hold states in March (Nov. 6-March 12)...for reference the high school season is 3 and a week (Nov. 24-Feb. 26). Both start practices officially October 15 (tomorrow). When I coached last year and the year before, I literally had parents tell me when they saw how long the season was they couldn’t commit to that type of time with a middle school athlete. What’s the solution? With the nationwide shortage of officials right now on top of this I’m not sure!! But it’s NOT extending the season past high school season in my mind. 

 

I’m not trying to call out anyone by any means and if you feel I am I apologize!!! I just wanted to throw some facts out there for everyone to consider. Is the answer to all of this asking to be pulled under the KHSAA banner like Ohio? Is it emulating Illinois and starting a middle school association as a separate entity for sports as a whole? Is it going to “pockets” like Indiana and Tennessee (my brother’s team in Indiana had 60 kids last year...for reference he teaches in a school district 5-square miles in size with no bus system and the middle school is literally the smallest in the conference size wise...I think they teach roughly 450 students grades 6-8) to grow the sport and then revisit coming together as a whole? Pros and cons to all. Like someone earlier said...we need to be finding solutions to these issues right now because if not...we are going to have bigger fish to fry soon. 

  • Upvote 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
20 minutes ago, rjs4470 said:

I've been on both sides and back again. I'm I can tell you it's much harder now to build than it was 10 years ago when I built the first time. I feel like we are sacrificing growth in effort to be more competitive with neighboring states. IMHO, We will never be as competitive as we want to be, without first achieving consistent growth. 

That's exactly right.  If the goal is really to improve wrestling in KY, then we first need to build a stronger foundation by increasing the number of participants. Having a longer regular season does the opposite.  New kids trying out the sport for the first time don't want a 4.5 month season, nor do parents, nor do spring sport participants.  If wrestling is their primary sport, then GREAT, no problem.  But requiring a 4.5 month commitment as the baseline for regular season is the wrong answer to growing the sport.  Making the season compact, competitive and fun is the best way to grow participation and grow the sport.  

That doesn't mean we can't still have competition year round for the hardcore members of the community.  If you want a longer season, support off-season tournaments!  I remember when we had greco and freestyle events.  I was there with my team at the Woodford FS/Greco event in 2019, as well as the FS/Greco state championships.  We trained for several other events, but those were cancelled because of the poor participation.  That was 2 years ago, and as far as I know we haven't had any freestyle events since.  2020 was COVID, but that doesn't explain 2021.  More off season tournaments have been planned and cancelled just in the past few months because of low participation.

Instead, our team spent the entire spring/summer/fall travelling out of state.  That's a tough way to grow the sport too.  I love the competition and I love the sport.  But even for a hardcore participant like me, it's rough driving long distances and getting hotels in Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, and Indiana just for a couple of matches per kid. 

Gentlebeard suggested that we "find solutions." I think the best solution is clear -

1. A shorter regular season like pre-COVID days (example: Mid October to Early February for 3.5+ months total) to build higher participation across the state

2. A much stronger off-season schedule for the more hardcore kids, coaches, and programs.  Freestyle, folkstyle, greco, whatever.  

This would meet the needs of both groups, in my opinion.

 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I get the feeling some assume mandatory practices MUST begin tomorrow and they MUST have tournaments every weekend from November 6th until March 5th/12th. If this is how you run your program, I’m certain there will be burnout.
 

SOME kids might miss preseason for spring sports, but the likely trade off is that they’ll be in better shape than those participating in preseason for said sport. 

At the end of the day, no one has any empirical data to show what the participation numbers will be or what the retention rate will be. The challenge is to find a solution within this construct. Pessimism and defeatism can infect a culture/team. Let’s guard against that. 
 

Doesn’t basketball have more games and longer season than wrestling? I don’t know of anyone complaining about basketball players missing spring sports.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
10 minutes ago, gator1 said:

But requiring a 4.5 month commitment as the baseline for regular season is the wrong answer to growing the sport. 

 

 

Football season essentially starts in July and ends in November. Basketball season starts the same week wrestling does (tomorrow) and lasts longer. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, GentleBeard said:

I get the feeling some assume mandatory practices MUST begin tomorrow and they MUST have tournaments every weekend from November 6th until March 5th/12th. If this is how you run your program, I’m certain there will be burnout.
 

SOME kids might miss preseason for spring sports, but the likely trade off is that they’ll be in better shape than those participating in preseason for said sport. 

At the end of the day, no one has any empirical data to show what the participation numbers will be or what the retention rate will be. The challenge is to find a solution within this construct. Pessimism and defeatism can infect a culture/team. Let’s guard against that. 
 

Doesn’t basketball have more games and longer season than wrestling? I don’t know of anyone complaining about basketball players missing spring sports.

Those of us who coach spring sports do complain about the length of basketball season ;-). I often hear wrestling folks compare wrestling to sports like basketball and football. While it is an understandable argument, like it or not wrestling is a niche sport and not really comparable to the other more mainstream sports. While I’d rather attend a wrestling match over a basketball game any day, the vast majority of people don’t feel the same way. That makes it hard to attract kids to try the sport out, and even fewer kids decide to specialize in the sport. The more hurdles we put in place, and the harder we make it to participate, the harder it’s going to be to attract and retain kids. Wrestling is already very tough physically and mentally, not mention the discipline that’s required to maintain weight. For all but the most dedicated, a long season is going to be a big deterrent. Basketball, football and most every other sport doesn’t entail the same mental and physical grind that wrestling does, and thus doesn’t suffer the same challenges a long season presents. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
53 minutes ago, rjs4470 said:

Those of us who coach spring sports do complain about the length of basketball season ;-). I often hear wrestling folks compare wrestling to sports like basketball and football. While it is an understandable argument, like it or not wrestling is a niche sport and not really comparable to the other more mainstream sports. While I’d rather attend a wrestling match over a basketball game any day, the vast majority of people don’t feel the same way. That makes it hard to attract kids to try the sport out, and even fewer kids decide to specialize in the sport. The more hurdles we put in place, and the harder we make it to participate, the harder it’s going to be to attract and retain kids. Wrestling is already very tough physically and mentally, not mention the discipline that’s required to maintain weight. For all but the most dedicated, a long season is going to be a big deterrent. Basketball, football and most every other sport doesn’t entail the same mental and physical grind that wrestling does, and thus doesn’t suffer the same challenges a long season presents. 

I’m not comparing the quality of sports. There’s no comparison in my bias. I’m comparing the length of seasons that seem to be a deterrent. It seems to me that if you don’t want a long season, you don’t have to schedule one. If you want to schedule tournaments every weekend from November - March then you can schedule that as well. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
21 minutes ago, GentleBeard said:

I’m not comparing the quality of sports. There’s no comparison in my bias. I’m comparing the length of seasons that seem to be a deterrent. It seems to me that if you don’t want a long season, you don’t have to schedule one. If you want to schedule tournaments every weekend from November - March then you can schedule that as well. 

And that's absolutely correct, and I'm sure many won't have an event every weekend. In fact, most probably shouldn't, or at least make many of the events not mandatory. We've already decided to push the start of practice back some.

I fully admit I'm still trying to figure out the secret sauce to not only get kids to come out, but to stay. And making the season longer doesn't address or fix any of the problems that previously existed that have hurt growth. It only adds another problem to the mix. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
2 hours ago, GentleBeard said:

I’m not comparing the quality of sports. There’s no comparison in my bias. I’m comparing the length of seasons that seem to be a deterrent. It seems to me that if you don’t want a long season, you don’t have to schedule one. If you want to schedule tournaments every weekend from November - March then you can schedule that as well. 

The long season is a deterrent to attracting and retaining new kids.  Basketball and football are huge in Kentucky, they're not facing the same challenge.  So comparing their schedules to wrestling is irrelevant to the problem of attracting and retaining new kids.   

Yes, we could each chose to have shorter schedules or longer schedules and/or only compete on certain weekends as you say.  But that exacerbates the other challenge we have with low participation, which is that events are extremely spread out and many of us have to drive very far every weekend for our events.  If half the teams compete on some Saturdays and half on other Saturdays, that just spreads out the geographic density of events, lengthening the travel.

That's not easy on anyone, and especially hard to digest for new wrestlers and their parents who have not yet fallen in love with wrestling.  I know this because they've told me this.  

This is not pessimistic or defeatest, or whatever other adjectives you've used.  My optimism is strong, and I believe we could have a growing and thriving wrestling community in Kentucky, but not if we make decisions that are counter to this goal.  This is why I wanted to state the challenge, and point out that the decision that was voted on by a small percentage of vested participants further exacerbates the problem. 

I still haven't heard a solid argument for why we've moved our post season out by over a month other than a general statement of "logisitics."  

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
56 minutes ago, gator1 said:I still haven't heard a solid argument for why we've moved our post season out by over a month other than a general statement of "logisitics."  

 

What date do you propose the middle school post season take place that would be accommodative to having enough officials?

You mentioned that this current scenario was passed by “a small vested group of coaches”. That seems to be a problem if the universe of vested coaches is small. 
 

Bye weeks might actually allow you to retain kids if parents aren’t traveling and wrestlers aren’t making weight every weekend. Do your best in the current climate as you see fit for your program and let’s revisit the empirical data at the end of the season. I’m curious to see the results. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Ok I'm just an old fart who has been around way to long and wrestled on rocks. 

     But in most sports the younger the participants the shorter the season. High school sports usually last longer than Middle school sports, Middle school sports have a longer season than Youth. 

     To get the most out of what we have everyone must work together. As wrestlerref stated Tenn. and Ind. have little to no organization and the schedules are erratic.  Gator1 advice of having a condensed season with more available tournaments would probably result in more attendance at tournaments/events. 

     Maybe a mid January championship season would help with the referee problem.  If the official season can end at this time it allows the middle school kids participating in high school to still participate in the high school season and post season.  You can still have a few youth/middle school events after the championship season for those diehard wrestlers.  

     The problem with having vested coaches for middle school is that many of those not considered vested are coaches doing double/triple duty (coaching Youth/middle and high school.) With the technology we have today we should be able to get ALL coaches feedback through electronic means. Even a blog such as this can help with ideas. I'm sure a private blog could be set up for middle school coaches only somewhere. (That way you can keep me and my cockamamie ideas out). 

**Disclaimer** These are the thoughts of GOO nothing more and nothing less. You can take them or leave them. In the world scheme of things they mean little or nothing.  GOO out. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

To Address the meetings of small size. I for one do not attend any longer. I used to try and log on when they were on zoom or other styles but most or all was just a bunch of arguing or talking over each other.  Some very critical comments sometimes when people tried to speak of different thoughts. I haven't seen much in working together on just the ones I attended. Doesn't say it hasn't gotten better. Just saying sometimes new ideals are meant with a lot of negativity before we look at the thoughts behind them.

Now as to season and starts I agree with GentleBeard and I did push my start back for several reasons. In the past we always tried to start close to when high school did but due to middle being 4th thru 8th and trying to build and retain kids with covid issues as well as youth football not ending all-stars in my area till first week of Nov. I moved middle school back to start second week of Nov just 2 days a week because parents didn't want a kid to start a new sport after it had already started. (so they are telling me) I didnt schedule them any matches till Jan with some of the better 7 & 8th just staying up with the high school to get more mat time in exhibition matches if they want to. This was done just to rebuild numbers we lost during covid and to try and retain more kids as we let them build a love for the sport before it becoming a year around sport. As for long term I really dont know the overall answer to building numbers and being better, but I will say I have been doing this now my 18th season and the kids in KY are the best I have ever seen with more teams wrestling than ever before during my time. In saying that it seems the numbers of some teams have gotten less and its seems harder and harder for those teams to now fill roster spots. So that we need to try and build as well as stay focused on building our level of wrestling.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this