improve wrestling in ohio - 64 qualifiers

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As long as this thread has completely gone off the rails, why are we limiting this State Championship to just Humans? Horses, German Sheppards, Crocodiles, Warthogs?


Honestly, there are a lot of good points brought up in this thread and I'm sure OneDivision had great intentions with his post. I would say that to anyone looking to effect positive change, coming to yappi is probably not the most productive move.

While it's not perfect, what we have here in Ohio is structured better than in most other states. Virginia for example has 6 classes with 1/2 the # of participants in Ohio- I think Georgia is the same- 6 classes. Connecticut w/ a population 25% of that of Ohio and participation numbers 20% of Ohio has 3 classes with like 30 schools in each class. New Yorks's sectional system is so unbalanced that often the second & third best kids in the state never make out of their section, while mediocre wrestlers from the PASL, and way upstate sections (7 & 10) qualify for the states with little competition. California with almost double the participation numbers as Ohio, has 1 class, and I think a series of 4 or 5 qualifying tournaments in order to get to the States- talk about a meat grinder. My point is that while things can always be improved, Ohio wrestling is pretty damn great!
 
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One Division said:
Wouldnt it be more incredible if you had a 64 kid bracket in Columbus??!!!! March Madness.
One Division doesn’t change the regular season.
And yes, several sports have only one Division.
and California has only one Division.
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You understand that California has a bunch of really good kids go unnoticed and unrecruited because of one division. It’s also impeded growth at local level.

Increasing local depth would fix half your issues you have.

oh. And. If you care about it that much. Stop chirping for the one division for some measly local state tournament. Put your kids in Fargo
 
We only have one Division in Ice Hockey, Gymnastics, Field Hockey.
[/QUOTE]
But those schools are mainly division 1 schools, with a few small public school representatives. I would guess.
 
Standing Granby said:
I can assure you that impugning the MS coaches who have dedicated 6-8 months of their lives every year to preparing our sons and daughters for HS wrestling is not a good way to sell your argument. Many of those MS coaches are young men getting the experience they need to coach a HS someday. They are being groomed by the HS head coach. If your school has a piss poor MS program, you need to look at your HS head coach.
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In those cases you speak of--SIMPLE solution--make those MS coaches to be groomed part of the high school staff.

But really, part of the problem is some of these small schools can't get anyone competent. If you can't see that OH middle school wrestling is a mess then you are either blind or you just don't want to see. Let those kids in the room with the HS. Let them wrestle JV. Let the good ones wrestle varsity with better coaching and partners--and fill a TON of those forfeited 106 and 113 weight classes. I don't understand why we hold on to this artificial distinction or line between 8th and 9th grade.

Oh, and maybe, just maybe, you keep kids in their school instead of all the decent ones just cub wrestling like so many people on here seem to hate. Just sayin'.......
 
DoubleBoots said:
In those cases you speak of--SIMPLE solution--make those MS coaches to be groomed part of the high school staff.

But really, part of the problem is some of these small schools can't get anyone competent. If you can't see that OH middle school wrestling is a mess then you are either blind or you just don't want to see. Let those kids in the room with the HS. Let them wrestle JV. Let the good ones wrestle varsity with better coaching and partners--and fill a TON of those forfeited 106 and 113 weight classes. I don't understand why we hold on to this artificial distinction or line between 8th and 9th grade.

Oh, and maybe, just maybe, you keep kids in their school instead of all the decent ones just cub wrestling like so many people on here seem to hate. Just sayin'.......
Click to expand...

I can assure you that I am not blind...I do have to wear glasses, but mostly so that I look smarter than I really am...

However, I do understand that there are some programs with bad coaching at the MS level...I would also suggest that there are some programs with terrible coaching at the HS level. So, do we just put all kids, youth through college in the same room?

I am not advocating for keeping the barrier between MS and HS. In fact, I do not like having that barrier. Not because I feel there is a huge divide between MS and HS coaching, but because it just doesn't make sense to me. Why can my kids go train the other 9 months of the year together, but not during the season? Why can't my 8th grader that has wrestled for 7 years not practice with my 9th grader that has only been wrestling for 2?

My point was simply to say that your approach to getting it changed has a lot of flaws. 1st, as was stated earlier, Yappi is probably not the correct forum for making progress. 2nd, dumping on "BAD MS coaches" is probably a terrible selling point...And lastly, lets not pretend that all MS coaches suck and all HS coaches have it right. The bigger the program, the better the opportunity you have to snag a good coach. Whether that be MS or HS. "If you build it, they will come"...I heard that somewhere and thought I would say it...Not even sure if it applies here, but it sounded cool.

Nothing personal my man. Just giving my opinion.
 
One Division said:
Its time to go to One Division in Ohio.
3 Divisions waters it down.
We don't have a true State Champion. We have 3. Who is the best in the State?
We have 3 State-Runner ups. it makes no sense.

School size makes no difference in Individual Sports.

Each wrestler has the same opportunity to train.
In Football and Basketball, large schools have a huge advantage. More kids to choose from. Only 5 spots in Basketball.

In Track and Swimming, does the size of your school affect your speed? No.

Numbers are way down in Ohio.
Many Sectionals have 4 to 6 in a bracket. its a joke.



Here's the Plan:

One Division.
64 in a bracket at State.
2 day State Tournament.
Top 16 in each District Advance.
Top 8 in each Sectional Advance.
Sectionals would all be triple the size.
They should be bigger than most league tournaments.
Currently Sectionals are smaller than many leagues.
Many Sectionals are easier than league tournaments.


64 man State is do-able.
Compare to most National Tournaments.
Most Nationals have 6 divisions. One for each age group starting at Kindergarten.
Most are done in One-Day. Think TOC.

California and New Jersey do One-Division.
Why can't we?

Its and Individual Sport. Its a Merit Based Sport.
It is watered down in Ohio.

Fix Wrestling in Ohio.
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Let’s work on getting the numbers back up, 3 divisions gives kids hope of a state championship. Were you a state champion?
 
I've been beating this drum for my native land of Indiana so why not my 2nd land Ohio. 3 tournaments total. Team Duals classed, a classed individual tournament, and to end the season a single class individual tournament.
 
To state that larger schools do not have an advantage in “individual sports” is a faulty argument. The more students a school has to choose from gives a better chance to have stronger competition in a wrestling room. Practicing against better competition makes one better. Secondly larger schools and private schools usually have more resources/ money to spend on better equipment, better coaches and to travel to better tournaments. The same argument can be made in track and XC.
 
Go two divisions and let D3 combine with neighboring school to form school1/school2 team and use both enrollment numbers to place them in a division and they might be able to do duals. Then two divisions make sense
 
DoubleBoots said:
D3 is not competitive. D2 has some pretty weak classes too. PA is two classes and their State is phenomenal competition. My top 3 suggestions for Ohio:
1). Go to 2 divisions;
2). Eliminate JH wrestling distinction and let them wrestle HS like NY (this fills the lower weight classes, solves the problem with bad JH coaching, allows kids higher quality partners and practices and eliminates BAD middle school wrestling);
3). State tournament in February so we are not behind the 8 ball in freestyle every year.
Thank you.
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d3 isn’t competitive?!?!?!? are you serious
 
One Division said:
Its time to go to One Division in Ohio.
3 Divisions waters it down.
We don't have a true State Champion. We have 3. Who is the best in the State?
We have 3 State-Runner ups. it makes no sense.

School size makes no difference in Individual Sport

Fix Wrestling in Ohio.
Click to expand...
I have to stop you at that. School size makes a difference. Take the top 10 D1 teams of the past 5 years and stack them up to the other divisions and this thread would not be supported. D1 has been so top heavy, you have results were a D1 lower place or state qualifier would push around a D2 & D2 elite. Fairfield High School and Mason are some of the biggest schools in the state( have been in the top 10 of the state tournament). And La Salle, Elder, Moeller, and Harrison are some of Cincinnati's problems for D2 & D2. When those divisions get past Cincinnati, the central schools and Cleveland schools will took away hopes of competing. If you do a top 10 rankings of all divisions for the past 5 years, you won't want a single divisions state.
 
One Division said:
School size makes no difference in Individual Sports.
Click to expand...

This is a colossal misconception on 2 fronts.

1. Wrestling is not solely an individual sport. Without good teammates to push you every day you will not be as good as you can be. Iron sharpens Iron.

2. School size can be extremely important. The bigger the school the more likely there are an increased number of athletes who can push each other in practice. Bigger schools tend to have a deeper talent pool which makes a team better which in turn makes the individual better. Are there exceptions to this...yes, but in general it holds true.

I would also bet that if we went to 1 division you would see all the best kids from smaller schools in the transfer portal to the bigger schools so that they could have a better practice room (more than what is already going on). This would destroy the smaller school programs and eventually lead to schools dropping the team. Numbers would go down statewide due to the small schools having ZERO chance to compete.

During my 21 years of coaching wrestling in Ohio across all 3 divisions (at the same school...we went from D3 to d1 in 6 years!) I can say without question that D1 is on a whole different level than D3. The highest level of D3...maybe the state final 4 could compete seriously in D1. Most of the others would struggle to even qualify for the state tournament. If you look at who most of those kids are at D3, they are usually the only kid from their school at state or even the schools first ever qualifier. Those small schools will never be able to compete with the big guns in D1.

When I was coaching in D3 I always insisted it was just as tough...after being in D1 its just not close. If you haven't experienced all 3 divisions personally it really is hard to describe the difference.
 
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LucMurphy134 said:
As long as this thread has completely gone off the rails, why are we limiting this State Championship to just Humans? Horses, German Sheppards, Crocodiles, Warthogs?


Honestly, there are a lot of good points brought up in this thread and I'm sure OneDivision had great intentions with his post. I would say that to anyone looking to effect positive change, coming to yappi is probably not the most productive move.

While it's not perfect, what we have here in Ohio is structured better than in most other states. Virginia for example has 6 classes with 1/2 the # of participants in Ohio- I think Georgia is the same- 6 classes. Connecticut w/ a population 25% of that of Ohio and participation numbers 20% of Ohio has 3 classes with like 30 schools in each class. New Yorks's sectional system is so unbalanced that often the second & third best kids in the state never make out of their section, while mediocre wrestlers from the PASL, and way upstate sections (7 & 10) qualify for the states with little competition. California with almost double the participation numbers as Ohio, has 1 class, and I think a series of 4 or 5 qualifying tournaments in order to get to the States- talk about a meat grinder. My point is that while things can always be improved, Ohio wrestling is pretty damn great!
Click to expand...

I noticed you didn't comment on the PIAA (2 divisions) and undeniably best high school wrestling state in the country. Maybe they are on to something over there? Why wouldn't you want to imitate the best?
 
rr23724 said:
This is a colossal misconception on 2 fronts.

1. Wrestling is not solely an individual sport. Without good teammates to push you every day you will not be as good as you can be. Iron sharpens Iron.

2. School size can be extremely important. The bigger the school the more likely there are an increased number of athletes who can push each other in practice. Bigger schools tend to have a deeper talent pool which makes a team better which in turn makes the individual better. Are there exceptions to this...yes, but in general it holds true.

I would also bet that if we went to 1 division you would see all the best kids from smaller schools in the transfer portal to the bigger schools so that they could have a better practice room (more than what is already going on). This would destroy the smaller school programs and eventually lead to schools dropping the team. Numbers would go down statewide due to the small schools having ZERO chance to compete.

During my 21 years of coaching wrestling in Ohio across all 3 divisions (at the same school...we went from D3 to d1 in 6 years!) I can say without question that D1 is on a whole different level than D3. The highest level of D3...maybe the state final 4 could compete seriously in D1. Most of the others would struggle to even qualify for the state tournament. If you look at who most of those kids are at D3, they are usually the only kid from their school at state or even the schools first ever qualifier. Those small schools will never be able to compete with the big guns in D1.

When I was coaching in D3 I always insisted it was just as tough...after being in D1 its just not close. If you haven't experienced all 3 divisions personally it really is hard to describe the difference.
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After coaching in several states, school size classifications.. it is absolutely amazing to me how many people get such the little chip on their shoulder and never want to acknowledge things like this. Even when they should know better
 
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