Posted on May 04, 2013 09:34 | Edited by MLee on May 04, 2013 15:40
Chris, it's not a secret the top national tournaments have set weight classes. (History lesson) Our state had set weight classes too and adapted to help make the tournament better. I know you weren't around for those days, but the people that ran the tournaments were intellegent people that changed the format to help promote the sport, which at the time, was pretty much non-existent in our state at the youth level. Fast forward 10 years or so, and our #'s and wrestling have never been better at all levels. So my question for you is: why do you think NOW "is the time to change the youth format?" You and your boys attend a couple national tournaments and we should now go back to the format that we originally had? Is it possible that you (and a few others) are ONLY looking at change for how if affects YOUR kids? I consider you a friend, love your kids, and respect your opinion, but be honest about why you want change.
This idea that some of us are unwilling to change by a few of you is unfounded. I'll gladly change my opinion if someone can show evidence that set weight classes is better for OUR state. As mentioned (for years now) as soon as the #'s warrant qualifiers, our state will ultimately go towards some set weight class format I suspect. That was the original plan when the 10% rule was implemented. Until then, run the #'s, as I have multiple times. If you choose a format and examine the results, you'll draw the same conclusion I have: w/out qualifiers, set weight classes in our state w/ the current # of kids creates more issues and makes our tournament a mess. If you're hellbent on seeing set weight classes, become a coach and help recruit more kids to our sport! We need about 500 or so more to justify qualifiers.
By the way, we had a wrestler from our club attend the TOC and had 6 kids in his weight class...the same # he had at our state. How is that possible? This is the largest one day tournament in the world!
Also, I have to believe, the weight cutting that goes on in those tournaments is in a complete different stratosphere than in our state. We've heard of 50 lb kids dropping 8 lbs!! Is anyone in our state aware of that type of weight cutting going on? I'm aware of kids and teams dropping a couple lbs before the final weigh ins (still think its moronic), but nothing that extreme. Maybe I'm naive, I just don't believe that excessive weight cutting is widespread in our state.