Did that powerhouse program just magically appear from the dogheap it was? Or how does that work? How could a brand new program that wasn't very good appeal to the young stud wrestlers? Fill me in.

quote:

Originally posted by okiest.cowboys58:
Well one way to even things up across all classes would be to make a school "bump up" a class after 3 titles in a row or something & bring down the bottom team from the class effected to make room. I've seen that done in rec league summer sports to make things even so a team can't be stacked year after year. It's a thought.

That's a good concept.

It is very difficult to make drastic moves up or down in the pecking order. Unless they foul up drastically the better teams in any class will tend to remain as one of the better teams for years for the very reason that they are good. There is an excitement in those schools that makes kids want to be a part of it. So more and more good athletes will come out for wrestling, which makes the team better, which creates more excitement, etc. So the program spirals upward. On the other end of the scale if your school has been down for years it is very difficult to reverse that. People don't come to meets or talk wrestling up because they are constantly getting beaten. Consequently athletes in those schools tend to stay away from wrestling because of the fact it means next to nothing to the school/community. So the program gets a little worse and fewer athletes come out for wrestling and the spiral downward continues.

I believe the solution lies in discarding the classification by enrollment. There is no doubt in my mind that this year's Howells team would have competed very well with the lower half of the Class A teams. And, conversely the lower half of the Class A teams would have been able to compete fairly well with most lower class teams teams.

So let's have each school decide, on a two year basis, which class to enter. If you are a good Class B program you might opt to wrestle in the Class A state tournament. Most coaches and wrestlers want to test themselves against the best. Notice how some of our better teams in all classes travel long distances to get better competition. If you are a Class A team that is struggling you might find a way to reverse the spiral by entering a lower class so you can have some success. A few more athletes may come out, which creates a little more excitement, which causes a few more athletes to come out, etc.

At the end of two year cycle any school who finished first or second both years must move up a class. (They could opt to move up more than one class) Any school that finished last or second to last both years must move down a class. (They could opt to move down more than one class.)

Sorry, top notch Class A schools and struggling Class D schools. You have nowhere to go. But keep in mind that if 6-10 good programs from lower classes more up to Class A and some of the struggling Class A schools move out the caliber of Class A just got much better so your level of competition just good better. And you struggling Class D schools will find that when the top schools in your class move out you will have a better chance to have some success, which improves your chances of reversing the downward spiral.

Before you say, "That couldn't work because we've never done it that way before," I'd like you to read an email that I got last week.

>> RAILROADS ARE HOW WIDE?
>>
>> Does the statement, "We've always done it like that" ring any bells?
Read this email to the end; you'll love it!!
>> The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge
used?
>> Because that's the way they built them in England, and English
expatriates built the US Railroads.
>> Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail
lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and
that's the gauge they used. Why did "they" use that gauge then? Because the
people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for
building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.
>>
>> Okay! Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?
Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on
some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the spacing
of the wheel ruts.
>>
>> So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first
long distance roads in Europe (and England) for their legions. The
roads have been used ever since. And the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots
formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheelspacing.
>>
>>
>> The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is
derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. And
bureaucracies live forever.
>>
>> So the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what
horse's a** came up with it, you may be exactly right, because the Imperial
Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses.
>>
>> Now, the twist to the story.
When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are
two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These
are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their
factory at Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to
make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the
factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run
through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel.
The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track,
as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.
>>
>> So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the
world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand
years ago by the width of a horse's a**.
>> - And - You thought being a HORSE'S A** wasn't important!

For starters...this is not just a wrestling issue. Does Skutt recruit...yes. Does Prep recruit...yes. Does Gross recruit...yes. These are catholic institutions and they have to recruit to stay afloat. So you people that deny that recruiting is not taking place are severely mislead and ignorant. I'm a college student at a Catholic University and my friends tell me that when they were in the eighth grade, each catholic high school would come to their school and try to sell them on the school. Back to my original point. Look at last year in Class B. Skutt won basketball, football, wrestling, legion baseball, girls soccer, boys golf, in the finals for boys soccer, girls tennis, second in boys tennis. Skutt can draw from all of the metro area, they have the money, the resources, the opportunities, and the coaching to lure people to their school. This should show the rest of the state and the NSAA that the playing field is not fair at all. My high school played against Skutt in the finals of the state basketbal tournament last year and lost in overtime. The senior class had around 70 kids. In grades 10-12, we had an enrollment of 257. Is that fair? Another point...in most other class B schools, kids cannot specialize in one sport like they at Skutt (sure, there are exceptions) because there are only a handful of good athletes at each school and they need to play each sport in order to field a competitive team. They cannot wrestle all year long because they are playing other sports. I know I'm ranting a little bit here, but the "Skutt" factor is getting out of hand, not only in wrestling, but all sports.

good idea

Wrestling Mom,

That's exactly how it happened. On Skutts first team, they had two girls on the team. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Nobody paid any attention to Skutt when they were not very good, but when there hard work finally paid off, everybody rags. The coaches many times paid for equipment out of their own pockets rather than go without. Again, their success is very simple: two coaches with 8 All-American plaques and one national championship between them who could communicate with the kids, extremely supportive parents, and very aggressive goals. RJ and Brad set very lofty goals when they wrestled and this carried over to the team. There was not anouther coaching staff in the state that had their credentials.

some states dont allow private schools to attend state tourneys they have their own.

I think they were successful... do they teach at skutt?

one question for poeple that think skutt recruits. If you are a good wrestler in the metro area and you want to go wrestle Division I, where do you go if you have the oppurtunity?

Some parents will not send their kids to public schools if they can afford a private education. The athletics is a bonus on top of the education.

Skutt wins because Brad makes them win. MS wins because Doug and Jay make them win. Prep wins because Hiff and Enger make them win. Kearney wins because McCann makes them win. Period. The only issue should be" Where does a kid get the best shot at college oopportunities."

All those schools are big schools with a lot of kids. Bennington is a small school and has put out 3 Division I quality wrestlers in the past 5 years. Allgood (not D I but everyone would agree could be), Smith at Wyoming and Pokorny at Nebraska. I don’t know if any other school can match that (maybe Skutt). Im not talking about walk ons, I am talking about scholarship wrestlers. Plus Coach Pokorny has the connections with the D I coaches. Rumor is both Sanderson and Gable have been to Bennington in the past year and I am sure there has been a few others and Coach Pokorny has been out to the Olympic Training Center a couple of times. So there are more options than just Skutt.

Wrestling Mom,

You have hit on the one advantage that private schools have. You don't have to be a teacher at the school to coach there. And I think you have brought an advantage to light. When Skutt opened, they got in my opinion the two best coaches in the state. And sadly, RJ and Brad could not have coached at any of the metro schools. Keep in mind that there is also a disadvantage in that school costs at private schools. With the schools so close to each other, I'm sure Skutt has lost some good wrestlers to the Millard schools. I think in other states, you don't have to teach at the school where you are coaching. Texas is noted for having great high school football, and coaches don't have to teach. However, in Nebraska some school just make a teacher the head coach and bring in somebody really good to coach as an assistant. Example Prep with Neuman.

Jake Smith started at Blair, then transferred/moved into the Bennington school district.

quote:

However, in Nebraska some school just make a teacher the head coach and bring in somebody really good to coach as an assistant. Example Prep with Neuman.

When Neuman was in Valentine he helped with the wrestling program, but very minimally. Coach Allison was the man there and continues to be today. I know Prep might use him differently, but I just wanted to state that.

I hate the idea of having a private state championship if for no other reason than if I was competing I would want to compete against the best not some watered down version of a state championship. Wrestlers by nature are that way we are very lucky that there are tournaments out there that have multi-class teams in them Boystown for example.

Loper,

Do you remember Brandon Brill you used to wrestle for KHS? IF you don't think that Skutt recruits just ask him! He was the wrestler I referred to in a previous post for the doubters of the post.

Doesn't it seem strange that everyone thinks Skutt has this great advantage over everyone in wrestling, but not in baseball, basketball, football, volleyball, soccer, golf, tennis, track, etc.? All the "advantages" people speak about should roll over into every sport they offer. However, it is only wrestling in which they dominate. Doesn't it seem strange that everyone thinks Skutt has this big advantage over everyone, then why isn't it showing up in other sports? Prep has the same ability to draw from everywhere in the city, and they have NEVER won a wrestling championship. Something to thik about.

The elite athletes in football, basketball, baseball etc go to Class A schools because the competition is better. That's how it is, that's how it always has been and that's how it always will be.

Comparing wrestling, esp in regards to Skutt's success, is silly and pointless. The NSAA needs to look at wrestling as the individual entity it is and Skutt for what they are demographically-a Class A wrestling program. There should be a proposal introduced to the NSAA that forces Skutt to move to the Class A level in wrestling. I believe Skutt has looked at the issue and would probably choose that path if they were allowed to do so. Once they did move up to A, people would stop bitching and we wouldn't have to have these silly debates.

So, are you really saying Skutt has no advantage over nearly all of the rest of Class B? Really? not sure how Prep got into this and you could mention a couple of others if you want. We all know of the efforts establishing the Skutt program and should give credit to the quality of the coaches and personnel that accomplished it, but to imply its possible to duplicate it out of the metro areas is simply ignoring the facts. If Skutt personnel want to accomplish the same in those other sports, they do have the right to do so. And, who knows, maybe they will! Maybe that's what it will take to level the field in Class B, you've not heard anything until Skutt takes home the football trophy. It seems impossible to have this situation addressed without the bandwagon criticizing Skutt, they only did what everyone wants to do, unfortunately for nearly all of the rest of Class B its not possible. And, does anyone really believe Skutt wrestling cares who they wrestle?

The thing is, Skutt HAS the capability of wrestling in Class A by petitioning the NSAA to move up a class.

There are some schools who do this -- I believe Columbus does, or at one time DID, petition up to play Class A in football, so it is possible for them to go up a class WITHOUT the NSAA having to reconfigure the classification setup for wrestling.

And I don't think Skutt would have to worry about the title run coming to a close. With the talent they have coming back next year, they would be a STRONG favorite to win in A next year, IMO.