What are your thoughts on when a coach gives false information in a seeding meeting to gain an unfair advantage for his wrestler and team.

I wanted to hear from two of our ambassadors on this topic.

Hey Hiptoss,

Guess I should respond to this since you have put up two posts. So here goes:

Padding records and manuevering seeds has been around since wrestling tournaments. It is not fair and it is unethical, but some of the better coaches out there have been guilty of it. And I don't see it ending any time soon.

Basically, it is hardest to cheat when all information is known by each coach in each seeding meeting. Now when have you seen this? NEVER! I haven't had the record books of all the other wrestlers in a tournament even though that is the way it SHOULD be. Instead, we rely on coaches to be honest and accurate with their data.

The time when you see the most cheating or manuevering, as you will, is when teams don't really see each other much. I know, in the metro, it is very hard to pull a fast one because the seed card takes into account tournament finishes, and that information is now all over the place on the net and in the paper. Can't really lie about that.

Don't know if I have answered the question, but I would hate to be the coach who gets caught! After you get caught once, everyone is skeptical of you and will watch you like a hawk

Because of my beliefs in ethical absolutes I would say it is always wrong to lie. Have I lied in my life? Yes many times. Was I right in doing so? No. I am just admitting that I have failed to live up to my own ethical beliefs. I think it is especially wrong to lie in a seeding meeting because it is a situation of such mutual trust. The whole thing is based on trust and when you violate a trust you have lost a great deal. You have lost the ability to be trusted. I think this point was raised by the Grapplinman also. We can't live and work together if we can't trust each other and we can't trust each other if we are not honest with each other.

I would make one other point on lying in a seeding meeting. I would argue that lying in this situation is a symptom of a greater cause. I think we are so driven to win sometimes that we will do things we otherwise would not do. Our culture which often teaches us that only winners are a true success drives us to sacrifice many of our values at the alter of winning. I think we need to be counter cultural and place more value on things like honesty and effort than we do on winning. These are just my thoughts. I must admit I waited for the grapplinman to reply before I did. I am only writing about ideas here, I have no knowledge of anyone lying in a seeding meeting.

I guess my take on this is that a coach should be held responsible for giving acurate records at a seeding meeting, other coaches should not have to monitor their peer's record keeping. I look at it that he is cheating other wrestlers more than helping his own. If a coach llies about a record to gain a unfair advantage what else would he do? Falsify weigh-in records? It is wrong period. There is no defense for it.