Yeah Panther. Alliance, Hastings, Gering and GINW are probably terrified to face those powerful bottom tier Class A programs. We all know those lower class teams don't compete against any of those smaller schools during the rest of the year right? Or was it just my illusion that I saw Millard South at Blair, Plattsmouth dualing Millard North, Kearney at the Lexington Invite, Omaha Central at Boys Town and High Plains at the York Invite? Maybe I was dreaming but I swear I thought I saw Lincoln Southwest down at Beatrice. I say to add to your proposal lets just make it so that no Class A teams can wrestle any non Class A teams during the rest of the year. How's that? Fair? And if you don't like what I post on here then don't read it. It won't bother me.

Those lower tier teams we mentioned,have no chance whatsoever of competing for a state championship.Norfolk had around 900 enrollment, but about1/3 of that is kids that cant even spell wrestling and have no interest in an extracarricular activity.Why not tell the Skutt guys to move their juggarnaut program up, so it will be a 3 or 4 team race instead of 2 or 3.Look what that does to teams like South Sioux,or those others we've mentioned.Have a post state 'all class champ' event for bragging rights.I know you are trying to promote the agenda of a small group at the expense of the whole.Please respond to my oppinion that to adress the open enrollment issue is the one that would bring parity back.

If there are 10 teams in a district, will the district tournaments have to be two days to ensure that a kid won't have more than five matches in a day?

Maybe some of those "lower-tiered" teams just need to get better coaching staffs?

If you move the top 8 from class B to A its not like you are adding a bunch of programs that are going to bring the "balance" that HB is looking for. These are the top 8 im enrollment in B and how they finished in the state tournament. Only 3 teams cracked the top 20 in B. Also 13 teams in B scored 10 pts. or less. 4 scored 0 pts. 20 teams in C scored 10 pts or less. 23 in D scored 10 pts. or less.

Hastings 39th
Scottsbluff 6th
Lexington 27th
Beatrice 26th
Blair 23rd
Omaha Skutt Catholic 1st
Grand Island Northwest 21st
Alliance 7th

Just got back from a bicycle ride with my boy JM..I froze my fanny off and I have a lot of that.....LOL....I found out that I am out of shape...big around the waste....and FROZEN.

This has turned into such an interesting debate. What happens is that we cannot put a clear finger on the overall goal. And we certainly cannot put a finger on what the clear cut solution is either.

Let's sort out the problem a bit and think about it. Ross has a point about some of the depth in A. The lower teams are simply not carrying the load in A like they are capable for their enrollments. Like I said before....if all the teams were competent, we wouldn't even have this argument. Seriously some of it is an OPS thing and some of it is growth. When you add two new schools to Lincoln and then throw in the mix Papio South....you kind of dilute the talent pool....anyway this is one problem...and this problem exists in the bottom end of each class.

A second situation does deal with Skutt. When they win 9 in a row, and nobody can crack their strangle hold....well to the rest of the teams in B....it gets to be OLD HAT. I can't speak for the B folks but they don't feel like it is fair. Most of the B schools don't have the option enrollment pool out there that Skutt has....so Skutt has the potential to just reload and reload and reload....the same can't be said for Norris or York or Alliance...etc. You kind of get the picture. I am pretty old, but an OLDER coach said that the same thing was happening years ago with Prep football. They seemed to get all the talent and they seemed to win all the time....It wasn't all that fair to the rest of the teams that couldn't do the same. This is surely part of the problem as well.

And I am sure there are more factors, but I feel these are two of the biggys.

So how do you sort it out....OUCH....this is unknown!

Ross prescribes to the Auburn theory....realign.

Others would like to see the 1.35 factor for Catholic Schools.

Still others want to see Free and Reduced Children and At Risk Children and SPED children NOT counted in the overall populous count

Get rid of optional enrollment...and make it count in Catholic Schools or Parochial Schools as well.

And there are many others.....

I know I sound like a drum, but we need to look at everything, throw everything out there and come up with a plan that will work NOW and for the long run. Sure...realignment might be something for the short haul, but I tell you, if you look at the trends.....it won't end up reaching the purpose. Contraction is a thing of the future. The movement of people to urban areas is a fact....I can go on and on, but if we move this thing to a new alignment, most assuredly, within 10 years D will be a shambles and C won't be far behind...and then YEAH...Ross will be able to say....See, we should have three classes...but do we? NO! We don't need to legislate and then legislate again and then again. We don't need to make wrestling so different as to say....well, we don't have the numbers and we aren't track and we aren't football, so let's go to three classes....I know this hasn't been done in the past and the NSAA won't look at this too kindly...

We need to get the coaches and AD's to get involved...dialogue and figure out what is in the best interest of everyone in wrestling.

A lot of good points not sure where I stand as a fan other than I think that NE only needs 3 classes. The champs in all classes are worthy just the depth is lacking.

HB, what makes you think that any school can pick the class they want to compete in. I personaly don't think it hurts Skutt one bit to be in "A". But I don't think schools get to choose. And if they did, what a mess. If schools can chose to go "up", can they choose to go "down"? If they choose to go "up" one year, can they choose to go "down" the next year? Can schools choose where they will compete in all the other sports? I may be wrong and probably am, but I can't imagine the NSAA having a system that would allow this kind of a mess.

Move all the Omaha area recruiting teams to A leave the little west teams alone or some one like Omaha Gross will be the next Skutt to deal with .It don't mater to us we can compete with any individule but will never be able to go for a team state title with 400 enrolement vs 2000 plus .

quote:

Hastings 39th
Scottsbluff 6th
Lexington 27th
Beatrice 26th
Blair 23rd
Omaha Skutt Catholic 1st
Grand Island Northwest 21st
Alliance 7th

This certainly does not look like it will bring in more parity into class A. It looks to me like it, with the exception of Skutt, will further separate the haves from the have nots.

I agree with Panther in that open enrollment is really the problem here. If you take the kids that wrestled in other high schools and put them back in their original high schools, you would certainly see much better team races and more parity in both A and B. Unfortunately, open enrollment is a bigger issue than what is best for wrestling in the state of Nebraska.

It is also my opinion that adding more teams to Class A would decrease the opportunities for athletes. Whether we like it or not, many, if not most, athletes compete because they want to get some sort of reward in the end (state medals, notierty, etc) By adding more competitors, this further eliminates the opportunities for reward and will reduce the number of athletes that will go out for wrestling. ***This will not effect the big time Millard Souths or Skutts of the world because they will get theirs but it certainly will effect the lower tier schools and further increase the divide*** that some are arguing will be decreased by adding these 8 schools. Not many athletes want to compete for a team that loses consistently and especially when they don't see much of an opportunity for some reward in the end.

The "problem" with open enrollment is that it allows wrestlers to go wrestle for programs they WANT to go wrestle for. If you have wrestlers leaving your school district, you have to look at your own wrestling program and see if it is your program that is lacking. Some coaches want to do away with open enrollment because it will hide weaknesses within their own program!

There have been a lot of good thoughts posted about this subject and a lot of thoughts based on emotion. I think a problem occurs with the things we have seen in these posts, i.e. contact the AD, contact NSAA, contact the Board of Control, etc. It seems to me that the Nebraska high school wrestling structure is controlled by groups (AD's, principals, superintendents, Board of Control, NSAA, etc. who for the most part seem to have very little interest in wrestling. This is not meant to be a blanket indictment of those groups, some schools are blessed with administration who are very supportive of wrestling. I'm sure that some Board of Control members and some NSAA officials are supportive of wrestling. It just seems to me, and I hope I'm wrong for the athletes'sake, that as collective bodies the groups mentioned before do not seem to be big wrestling boosters.

I would like to see the coaches unite and ask for audiences with the policy makers to represent the ideas and feelings of the coaches and the wrestlers. I would propose that each district in the state would have a representative on a coaches' panel. That would give 16 panelists who are well diversified in size of school and geographic location. All coaches in the state could meet at the state tournament and resolve the 2-3 topics that were causing the most heartburn. The district representatives could then poll the coaches in their respective districts to learn how they could best represent their district.

When I was coaching in Iowa the coaches of the district championship teams were the panel members. I'm not sure that is best. As an alternative the coaches in each district could elect the coach that they thought could best represent them. The coaches' panel met with members of the Iowa High School Athletic Association and members of the Representative Council of the Board of Control about a month after the state tournament to discuss and plan the shaping of the sport. Did we always get what we wanted? No way. Were we are able to help shape the future and make changes in the sport? Very much so.

If you ask me (and nobody did) my top two priorities for the first year would be:

Wrestling rules meetings: I believe they should all be conducted by a good official (the same official at all meetings), in a gymnasium with a mat and two high school wrestlers in workout gear. The official conducting the meeting, who is also in workout gear, could use the wrestlers to demonstrate things to look for in stalling, loss of control, etc. The meetings would last much longer than they do now because all of the GOOD officials would be down on the mat questioning and discussing various rules and interpretations. I think the various officials' associations do a great job of training their members. The problem arises because the Omaha Officials Association has morphed into one interpretation of a rule, the Lincoln Association a slightly different interpretation, and the Panhandle Association a third. If the teachers of the various officials' associations were all taught by the same teacher there would be much more uniformity in rules intrepretations throughout the state.

Second would be the classifications. I don't know all of the inner workings of the classifications but would offer these observations.

1. No matter how many classes there are the smallest school in the class is always going to be substantially smaller that the largest school in that class and only slightly bigger the the biggest school in the next smaller class. So we can play, "If only they had moved the line up a little way or down a lttle way" until grappling man's cows come home and somebody is always going to think they got the short end of the stick.

2. No wrestler should ever qualify for state by just making weight as has happened a few times in the past. That indicates the number of schools in the class is too small or we are qualifying too many wrestlers out of that district.

3. The argument that the smallest schools in a class will always have trouble competing with the biggest schools is valid in the big picture but the biggest schools in a class that have bad programs will also always have trouble competing with the smallest schools in the class that have good programs. And size is much less important than the caliber of the program. For example, go back 20 years and you will see that in 4 or 5 years the Class A state tournament was won by schools who are now in Class B. I don't know, but seriously doubt that Alliance, Hastings, Gering, and Scottsbluff have substantially smaller enrollments today than they had when they won Class A.

Just food for thought.

Good points Mr. Ryan, but remember that 20 years ago we did not have open enrollment.Teams at the top ran through their cycle of good talent years and faded back in the pack.That doesn't seem to happen now as the top programs are selected by the best wrestlers, and visa versa and there is no longer the cycle effect. Look at class A this year, Milliard South lost some good wrestlers, but replaced them with kids that transfered in (at least 4 starters who were on another team last year).Skutt every year has talented kids who were trained elsewhere show up on their doorstep. As long as that is within the rules,you wont see much change.I am not trying to insinuate anything improper from any top program either.I totally respect Doug and Brad as coaches for what they are able to do.They are within the rules.I just remember back to when the talent was dispersed by geography rather than popularity.

quote:

Originally posted by grapplinman:
I sure in the heck don't know wrasslin....

Where did that comment come from, out of left field? Sounds like a couple of people are figuring out who wrasslin is. The last couple of your posts try distancing yourself from him. Is there something you dont want to tell us?

The guilty sound guilty.

quote:

The "problem" with open enrollment is that it allows wrestlers to go wrestle for programs they WANT to go wrestle for.

No that problem is that other schools do not enjoy the same priviledge that the Omaha schools do and it gives Omaha schools a competitive advanatage.

I guess Iwill try and cofuse some of us INCLUDING MY SELF!
The teams Mikey posted are as follows in order of size with Gretna being the dark horse or ? mark.
Hastings, Scotts Bluff, Lexington, Beatrice, Blair, O Skutt(evil, evil), GINW, Alliance, Gering, and Gretna?

Points scored at the state tounament, again by SIZE!
Hastings 3pts NO PLACERS 0 FINALIST
Scotts Bluff 75pts 4 PLACERS 1 FIANLIST
Lexington 20pts 1 PLACER 1 FIANLIST
Beatrice 20pts 1 PLACER 0 FINALIST
Blair 27.5pts 1 PLACER 0 FINALIST
Skutt(evil) who can count that high
10 PLACERS 8 FINALIST
GINW 30 pts 2 PLACERS 0 FINALIST
Alliance 64.5pts 3 PLACERS 0 FINALIST
Gering 57pts 3 PLACERS 1 FINALIST
Gretna 31pts 1 PLACER 1 FINALIST
The #'s above have the Finalist in the #of placers so as not to think 1 and 1 make 2 HMMM!

In Class A there was 1 team not scoring and 4 totalscoring 10 or less.

Class B there were 5 teams not scoring and 17 total scoring 10 or less

Class C there were 9 teams not scoring and 24 scoring 10 or less.

Class D had 20 teams not score and 34 score 10 or less.
I may be a # off here or there but those #'s came from NWI's brackets!

This appears to me that all this is about is SKUTT (evil), Why don't you go look at the finalist for both A and B, I would pick A winning 9 and B 5 but it very well could go 7 and 7!

This is not about parity this about SKUTT, and if you are going to single them out, ridicule them, accuse them, wear dumb shirts, hate them (very strong word if you think about it), and plain BLAME THEM for your lack of success you need to get a life! Those kids work there tails off, just because they put on a Skutt singlet does not mean they are better than you! But it may mean they have a GREAT Coaching staff, exceptional faciities, can draw from a bigger population base ( so can Gross, Roncalli, Elkhorn, Byran, and others in the Metro area). Why isn't Pius the power in Lincoln or maybe Lincoln Christian? Both of these I consider to have a very SOLID program and for years it is said Pius gets the best kids $$ can buy. Well I say it goes back to the kids wanting to go ther to be coached by the best around.

Congrats to them to be able to build this from NOTHING.

As far as LSW goes I would bet Aaron gets lumped in to this discussion because he was an assitant coach at Skutt. As I have said before on this forum HE IS ONE OF THE REASONS my son choose LSW. We have open enrollment in the LPS District and could have choosen several schools.
I have heard people say that he is to emotional, he jumps up and down or hugs his kids and other coaches when they get a win. Yes he is an emotional guy ( maybe that is a detrement in this MACHO sport) but I appreciate him showing those emotions to the kids to me it shows he really does care! Some say he compalins about some of the things LPS does, if I am not mistaken had he not complained the LPS schools would have been driving back and forth from Omaha for the state tournament!

And if anyone thinks he recruits YOUR NUTS! He is doing what it takes to build a program, he is invovled with the kids, they have a little kids club, and he has started a club for offseason work. I can tell you he almost always came to my son's after season matches at Tournament of Champs, State games, Midwest Classic, etc if he at all possibly could. Hes a great guy and if people are talking or complaining about him and LSW then GREAT they are either envious or worried I am guessing BOTH!

I really do not know Brad all that well but I will tell you that every time I have seen him he acknowledeges me, when he can he asks how my son was doing, he would shake his hand at tournaments, I witnessed him take time at the State tournaments (at what appeared to be out of his way) to talk to him. And I will tell you that there are 4 coaches (other than Aaron) that he always talked about as being GREAT GUYS 1 of them is Brad,RR, and Coahes McCurdy and Skiles of East! Pretty good company I would say!

Brad and Aaron I would say to you take all this criticism as a compliment obviously you are doing some things right!

As a class B coach and a former class D wrestler, I am in favor of the move. I have been in both situations now and feel that the move to 40 is needed.

Class D districts have 16 teams at districts. Class A has half as many teams. Win two in a row and in you going to state. Win two and lose 1 and you are going to state. In Class D, the road to state is much more difficult. Now I know everyone is going to say that in a lot of class D schools the teams don't have all the weights full. That is true, but true for a lot of teams no matter the class. I also know that the argument will be that Class A has much tougher competition, which is not necissarily true. There are good athletes all over the state and one of the reasons I love wrestling is because it is a team sport yet also an individual sport. You don't have to worry about finding ten other studs to line up with you to get a win. It is you against the man across from you. More enrollment means more choices of athletes, not necisarily better athletes. This would put more equality number wise across districts. This will make it tougher overall to qualify for state in Class A and will give better numbers across the board as far as teams in each district. Just my thoughts, they might not be how you feel but just my thoughts.

P.J. Smith

Yes wrasslin's identity must be getting out in the open. Here is a quote from CPrep coach:

By the way, Wrasslin, what is with your anti-Catholic rhetoric? I have heard two anti-Catholic things from you in a week. The first was face-to-face at the State meet, the second was in another thread here on huskermat.

Sounds like he knows, why don't you let the cat out of the bag coach so we can all put a name with the posts?

The thing about this being a "Skutt issue" is: I really don't think Skutt cares WHERE they are classified...I'm sure Brad Hildebrandt would be more than willing to accept a move up to Class A if the situation called for it. His kids have already proven they can compete with -- and be successful against -- the top Class A teams.