Article in the OWH today. Some bold statements, some fence riding, and some controversy. Sounds like publicity to me! A wrestling article in the paper in april? Couldn't be! Someone will post a link I'm sure. Just not me.......anatomy test to grade!

Finally out on web

I really enjoy the coverage that he OWH gives to nebraska wrestling but, they could have interviewed a coach outside of the metro area. Of course every class A school does not want those 8 teams, regardless of rather it is Skutt or not, to move up to A. Ask a class B coach from Aurora, Plattsmouth, or Boone Central what they thought. I just thought it would have given the article more balance.

It was a very good article. I liked it.

That's just a silly way to write an article that clearly has more than one side-basic journalism 101 is to cover both sides of the debate equally. Oh well, its just like the Sopranos. Absolute power corrupts, absolutely.

I am looking forward to the issue being put to rest. The proposal should indeed go through. It makes legistical sense regardless of Skutt, but it appears fairly evident that it will fail. Coach Denson, maybe you won't oppose the issue with such passion in three years. I guess we'll wait and see . . . Coach Hildebrandt and the Skutt program have certainly raised the bar for all of us in Class B, and I for one appreciate and enjoy the competition. -Aaron Groff

Why would a Class A wrestler not want to wrestle the largest schools and best "known" teams and wrestlers in the state? If we have a chance to improve the competition in Class A by moving an additional 8 teams up....Let's do it!

Because all the Class A coaches are afraid it might hurt Class D

Im excited to actually see Class A have districs like all the other classes. This is going to make the state tourney so much better. I cant wait.

The NSAA has to serious consider the message that they are sending the rank and file if they vote the "40" proposal down.

If the proposal does go down to defeat it will be just another example of the only class that matters is Class A (i.e. Lincoln and Omaha).

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Red Rocker,

If you want to see tougher classes, bit the bullet and go to 3 classes. 48 - 96 - and the rest.

Ok I did some math A-48, B-64, and C-107.

Another thought would be to add a week to the season and have a "super" state tournament. The top 4 placers in class A, B, C, and D would form a 16 man bracket just like our current state format of 1 vs. 4, 2 vs. 3, etc. Nebraska's wrestling season is a week shorter than Kansas and Iowa. It's 2 weeks shorter than Ohio, so no one should complain about the season being too long. Each year everyone debates which class/wrestler is tougher, let them prove it on the mat.

The best way to determine the 8 best wrestlers at a given weight bracket is to have a true second, and then make it 2 from each class and do a 8 man tournament, then after the first three-five years we can pick up trends(for instance say in 2/3 years Class D had the number 7 and 8 placers, that would lend itself to the logic that D is much weaker than the other classes, and force them to wrestle in against the third place wrestlers of the other classes to make the 8 man tournament*Note, I am not saying this is what I believe would happen, just a general example*) But as we know this will NEVER happen.

Any news?

The measure failed to pass just as expected.

2. CLASS STATUS. In delaying proposals to expand Class A membership in football and wrestling, the board put into motion a study that could lead to a restructuring of the classification system. NSAA executive director Jim Tenopir went so far as to suggest the time may be nearing when six classes in some sports may be too many.

3. EIGHT IS ENOUGH. In adding medals and points for seventh- and eighth-place finishers at the state track meet, the board unwittingly invited similar requests from wrestling and swimming coaches down the road.

According to the Omaha World Herald they are going to study the issue along with the reclassification of football. Quote from the Omaha World Herald: "The state's classification system, in place for 12 years, will be studied this summer after requests to change Class A from 28 to 30 teams in football and from 32 to 40 in wrestling." Although the World Herald could be wrong.

HB, Aaron Groff, and friends....I am pretty up front with my thoughts and beliefs about key issues in wrestling. I think I have proved over and over again my loyalty to the state of NEBRASKA and my willingness to work toward the betterment of wrestling in the state. I was doing this 24 years ago and will continue in the future....not just three years. I would welcome you to join in Aaron......or maybe you are just too busy?

I said it before and will repeat again....I don't care what we do with class A as long as it is logical, founded in data, and certainly NOT self-serving. If you read the proposal, it fails all three of these tests...and I will sit down with anyone to go over the language...It is quite simple.

This whole proposal was a MOVE SKUTT UP proposal. Very self-serving.

I plan to propose next year, to the NSAA, a plan to have class A the same in all sports, whatever that number may be. If that number is 40, then we have 40 in football, basketball, track, etc....NOT just wrestling. I can live with whatever that number is.....just make it sensible and across the board.

I am working on the proposal and intend to have it well written, backed by data, and something for the entire state, not just one situation.

Wanna help, Aaron?

I know I have a tendency to make the same point over and over again but when I think people still don’t get it, I am compelled to try again. Maintaining Class A at 32 teams instead of moving to 40 is not about competition, it is about participation. I do believe level of competition is a factor to be considered and when Class A was moved to 24 teams it became the overriding factor. With only 24 teams the competition in Class A became too watered down. In that situation the lowered level of competition our weighed any benefits of dropping to 24 teams. I believe that decision was totally based on football, the smaller class A schools did not want to have to compete with the mega schools like Lincoln Southeast (the irony of this is that I believe Hastings, a team that dropped to Class B won state in Class A the year before the change). The decision was to make the change across the board with all sports and this proved to be a big mistake in wrestling. The year we had 24 teams in Class A was the year we had byes in Class A. So I disagree with the Grapplinman, I believe it does make sense to have different numbers for different sports. This is what we have had since wrestling was at 24 teams and I think it has worked fine. I do think you need to look at each sport individually and do what is best for that sport. I believe 32 teams in Class A is the best thing for wrestling in Nebraska. HB can sarcastically joke about how Class A coaches are concerned about Class D, but I truly do believe our present Class system is the best for all levels of wrestling.

You see competition, or equity of competition, is not the only thing we should be concerned about in fact it is certainly not the most important thing we should be concerned about. If you just want to make things more competitive then just have one class. If you do this you will find out which is the toughest team in Nebraska and you will find out who is toughest wrestler at each weight class. The problem with this is you will be destroying wrestling in Nebraska. Sure Howells can compete with any team in Nebraska and I am sure there are others, but if there was only one class in Nebraska I am quite sure you would find Class D teams that would start dropping wrestling. If this happens there might be a future Howells out there that will drop wrestling and there might be a future Brad Vering who never gets to wrestle. People site California for how tough it is because it only has one class. Well I would guess that there are not very many teams the size of Howells that have wrestling in California. I would also wager to guess that if you consider how tough wrestling is per capita then you would find that Nebraska wrestling is much better than California wrestling.

I have been a little off the track but my point is that you have to consider what is best for wrestling in Nebraska and I am convinced that 32 teams in class A is better for Nebraska wrestling than 40 teams. I have said that we need to consider things other than competition or even equity of competition, in our decisions. Well I think the thing that should be our highest priority is maintaining the highest level of participation in wrestling. As I have said a number of times before the top 32 teams represent by far the largest number of potential participants in wrestling. The problem is those 32 team probably have the lowest percentage of participation in wrestling. I don’t even believe at my own school I have the percentage of students out for wrestling that I should. So I am sure some of you believe we should be punished for our poor percentage of participation in Class A by adding 8 more schools to Class A. The problem is you will actually be making the problem worse. Let’s consider a school with poor participation in Class A. Let’s say that school only has 20 or less students out for wrestling. I am guessing this is true of some Class A schools. Maybe this school was able to qualify two kids for state. If we add two teams to this schools district their chances of qualifying those two wrestlers goes down. With 40 teams or 10 teams in a district maybe they won’t be able to qualify any kids for state. Now I ask you will this encourage or discourage students at that school to come out for wrestling. Don’t tell me that it is there problem!!! If you want wrestling to prosper in the state of Nebraska, if you actually believe wrestling is good for students, then you should want a school with 1,600 students to have a large number of students out for wrestling. You should not want to encourage a policy that will make it more difficult for the coach, in that school of 1,600 students, to recruit students to come out for his team.

I don’t want to sound like I am totally unselfish in this, which would simply not be true. I had 10 state qualifiers this year and if I was in Class B I doubt if I would have had 10 state qualifiers. Yes I enjoyed having 10 state qualifiers and I do believe it will help me in encouraging students to come out for wrestling next year. I have 10 students who will be talking in the halls about the positive experience they had at the quest center. This can’t help but encourage participation. Even though I would probably have had fewer qualifiers in Class B, I still believe the population in my school justifies me having 10 qualifiers. Now on the surface this might seem unfair to Class B and in once since it might be, but the reality is Class B does not have a participation problem or at least not to the extent that Class A does. I am guessing the per capita participation in Class B is much higher than it is in Class A. This is a credit to the class B coaches, but it also might be in part due to the higher percentage of state qualifiers Class B has to its student population. So I acknowledge that we in Class A might not be holding up our end of the deal but does it make sense to institute a policy which makes it more difficult for us to do so?

I have admitted that you have to consider more than one factor and I do believe that competition is one of those factors. When we went to 24 teams in Class A it became the overriding factor, but is it an overriding factor now? I do not think so. The level of competition in Class A is not so significantly low so as to warrant a change. There is probably nobody still reading at this point but if you are thanks for considering my points.

Does anyone know how the vote went? I mean was it 6-0, 5-1, or what? And who voted for/against it?