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PIAA dropping from 14 to 12 weights?

a lot has to do with exposure. When I was growing up in Clearfield all of our dual meets were mostly Friday night and all were on the radio. So if you didn't go to the meet (a real Friday night lights scenario) you could listen on the radio. Our gym was filled with many more spectators than the bball team and we had a full compliment of cheerleaders. Made for a pretty cool atmosphere. All the schools we wrestled seemed to be similar - PO, StateCollege, BEA, Altoona, LockHaven, Bellefonte, Curwensville, etc. Oh well, the golden days of losing weight!

so... if ESPN would invest in h.s. and college wrestling like they do basketball, just think of the popularity shift after a few years. Anyone have the $$ to donate to disney to make that investment? Exposure means a lot, how many horrible or non-remarkable songs sell due to airtime - creates the fad!
 
My thinking is theres too much emphasis on what the correct number of weight classes are as it relates to how it impacts team results. In essence, leveling the playing field so teams with incomplete rosters are afforded a better chance to win.

Im more interested in getting the most wrestling (and wrestlers) on the mat as can be done reasonably. Many teams can field a full roster, some with 1-2 forfeits. I think thats the norm and is acceptable.

However, some schools forfeit 5-6 and its a bummer sitting through that. But Id rather sit through that than having good wrestlers shut out because the number of weight classes shrunk... and therefore some of these kids will opt for other sports
 
The arguments for weight class reductions boil down to whether you value duals over tournament. Personally as long as the individual state tournament brackets remain full, I would hate to lose any weight class.
 
It's not just the total number of forfeits that may occur if one team is down 5 or 6 weights, it's the shenanigans that sometimes follow. Duals (and tournaments) are far more interesting and fun to watch where the rosters are mostly full and you can expect the starters at each weight to wrestle each other. Obviously there will always be some strategy and some some guys bumping weights, but....

Case in point, my younger son was a senior and his team was wrestling for the league title. If we won, we'd be league champions and we hadn't won a league title that wasn't shared in 40 years. Obviously the kids and the coaches from my son's school both wanted this dual win badly. My son wrestled 152 and during the hand shake before the dual, we were shocked (and pleased) that the rival school had bumped their 145, who was ranked #1 in the state, to 152 to wrestle my son (apparently thinking that they'd pick up a W at 152 and avoid a pounding at that weight). It was to be this young man's 100th career win (if he won) and believe me when I tell you that my son was excited for the opportunity and he had no intention of lying down to be the 100th victim (he was friendly with this kid, often drilled with him and truly believed that he had a chance to win).

The dual was starting at 152 and they sent out first, so after the #1 ranked kid came out, our coaches took a huddle and decided to forfeit the weight, rather than to send my son. My son went on to bump up and win by fall at 160 (we bumped up several other kids as well and ended up winning the dual meet and the league title), but he was bothered by the fact that his coaches didn't give him much chance to win against the highly ranked kid (who ended up losing in the finals at PIAAs 3-1), especially given that the final outcome would have been the same even had my son gone out and got decked or teched (he wouldn't have). What's worse is that the parents and family of the other kid took it very badly and there was nearly some fireworks in the gym when our team's coaches chose to "rob" this kid of his 100th win and to cheapen it (it was also a road dual for us, so the crowd WAS hostile when they saw this happen). I felt very badly for the family and the wrestler and my son felt badly about it. Afterwards the kid's father came to me and told me that he knows that my son wanted to wrestle his son and that he didn't hold anything against him, but it still cheapened this kid's 100th win and the dual in general as far as I was concerned. It's just one example and doesn't amount to a hill of beans in the full context of the argument. I just think duals are a lot more exciting and fun to watch when people wrestle at each weight and starter goes against starter.



JohnnyHandsome said:
My thinking is theres too much emphasis on what the correct number of weight classes are as it relates to how it impacts team results. In essence, leveling the playing field so teams with incomplete rosters are afforded a better chance to win.

Im more interested in getting the most wrestling (and wrestlers) on the mat as can be done reasonably. Many teams can field a full roster, some with 1-2 forfeits. I think thats the norm and is acceptable.

However, some schools forfeit 5-6 and its a bummer sitting through that. But Id rather sit through that than having good wrestlers shut out because the number of weight classes shrunk... and therefore some of these kids will opt for other sports
Click to expand...
 
billrag said:
It's not just the total number of forfeits that may occur if one team is down 5 or 6 weights, it's the shenanigans that sometimes follow. Duals (and tournaments) are far more interesting and fun to watch where the rosters are mostly full and you can expect the starters at each weight to wrestle each other. Obviously there will always be some strategy and some some guys bumping weights, but....

Case in point, my younger son was a senior and his team was wrestling for the league title. If we won, we'd be league champions and we hadn't won a league title that wasn't shared in 40 years. Obviously the kids and the coaches from my son's school both wanted this dual win badly. My son wrestled 152 and during the hand shake before the dual, we were shocked (and pleased) that the rival school had bumped their 145, who was ranked #1 in the state, to 152 to wrestle my son (apparently thinking that they'd pick up a W at 152 and avoid a pounding at that weight). It was to be this young man's 100th career win (if he won) and believe me when I tell you that my son was excited for the opportunity and he had no intention of lying down to be the 100th victim (he was friendly with this kid, often drilled with him and truly believed that he had a chance to win).

The dual was starting at 152 and they sent out first, so after the #1 ranked kid came out, our coaches took a huddle and decided to forfeit the weight, rather than to send my son. My son went on to bump up and win by fall at 160 (we bumped up several other kids as well and ended up winning the dual meet and the league title), but he was bothered by the fact that his coaches didn't give him much chance to win against the highly ranked kid (who ended up losing in the finals at PIAAs 3-1), especially given that the final outcome would have been the same even had my son gone out and got decked or teched (he wouldn't have). What's worse is that the parents and family of the other kid took it very badly and there was nearly some fireworks in the gym when our team's coaches chose to "rob" this kid of his 100th win and to cheapen it (it was also a road dual for us, so the crowd WAS hostile when they saw this happen). I felt very badly for the family and the wrestler and my son felt badly about it. Afterwards the kid's father came to me and told me that he knows that my son wanted to wrestle his son and that he didn't hold anything against him, but it still cheapened this kid's 100th win and the dual in general as far as I was concerned. It's just one example and doesn't amount to a hill of beans in the full context of the argument. I just think duals are a lot more exciting and fun to watch when people wrestle at each weight and starter goes against starter.
Click to expand...

Matching up is part of the strategy in every sport. Some NBA players are either benched or inserted based upon the matchups. Again, manufacturing closer matches by rules, limits on weight classes etc is heading towards the participation trophy mindset

A school can only put out what they have and should live with the results. Improve the roster, adjust your scheduling... whatever it takes. Are we soon going to handicap teams X points so the final score looks more competitive?
 
JohnnyHandsome said:
Matching up is part of the strategy in every sport. Some NBA players are either benched or inserted based upon the matchups. Again, manufacturing closer matches by rules, limits on weight classes etc is heading towards the participation trophy mindset

A school can only put out what they have and should live with the results. Improve the roster, adjust your scheduling... whatever it takes. Are we soon going to handicap teams X points so the final score looks more competitive?
Click to expand...

Of course not. You don't have to win that argument with me. I'm the most competitive and least sissified sports fan that you'll find. I just find some of the juggling to be troublesome. We see guys bumping up or down to avoid a good match even when it won't outcome the final score or outcome. I know that you see certain kids and certain teams doing the same in the NCAA, but that doesn't make it right.
 
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billrag said:
Of course not. You don't have to win that argument with me. I'm the most competitive and least sissified sports fan that you'll find. I just find some of the juggling to be troublesome. We see guys bumping up or down to avoid a good match even when it won't outcome the final score or outcome. I know that you see certain kids and certain teams doing the same in the NCAA, but that doesn't make it right.
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Some of that is a direct result of seeding points for the states. In NJ, a potential loss to a wrestler youre higher seeded than can flip flop your seeding in the state tournament. So some coaches protect these wrestlers and force different match ups..

I hate that too, but understand.
 
JohnnyHandsome said:
Some of that is a direct result of seeding points for the states. In NJ, a potential loss to a wrestler youre higher seeded than can flip flop your seeding in the state tournament. So some coaches protect these wrestlers and force different match ups..

I hate that too, but understand.
Click to expand...
What came first, seed protection or Tom Ryan?
 
impalanut said:
I don't know how they classify schools in Pa, but why not have divisions based on participation.
Click to expand...

Participation is not a factor or consideration in classifications in PA. For every sport for which the PIAA has more than one class, PA classifies based on the total number of male students (for boy's sports) and total number of female students (for girl's sports), in grades 9th through 11th. The classifications are in force for 2 years, and then every school is reclassified based on the student numbers for each respective school.
 
Tom McAndrew said:
Participation is not a factor or consideration in classifications in PA. For every sport for which the PIAA has more than one class, PA classifies based on the total number of male students (for boy's sports) and total number of female students (for girl's sports), in grades 9th through 11th. The classifications are in force for 2 years, and then every school is reclassified based on the student numbers for each respective school.
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Interesting, why only 9-11, why exclude seniors?
 
I am glad PIAA is going to 12 weight classes. As a coach, teacher, I can't begin to tell you how many kids don't want to wrestle since they'll have to wrestle varsity! We all think every kid wants to "start". In the sport of wrestling, it's not true. No one wants to go out in front of a crowd and get their ass handed to them. JV is where first year wrestlers should be. Unfortunately, any kid who goes out for a team is put in a starting role. Every year we have kids in our area who are 20 match winners and they don't have a clue what they're doing. Why the good record....they're getting forfeits and wrestling other first year wrestlers. To add to the problem, the fans quit coming since the product is bad. Most my friends don't even follow the sport in High School anymore. When I wrestled in the early 80's, I was JV for 2 years. By the time I "started", I had a clue what I was doing. May not have ever won states, or even a tournament, but I wasn't worried about embarrassing myself. Kids nowadays are.
 
oldcougar65 said:
yes things appear to be going in reverse. I had a friend who wrestled for Clearfield in the '50s. He showed me a newspaper article about a Clearfield-Belefonte dual meet: had to be moved to Penn State's Rec Hall to handle the crowd of over 5,000. This was in like 1958.

We had about 100 kids try out for our team in the mid 60's, then whittled it down to about 60 wrestlers. Forfeits were unheard of. I did receive a forfeit once. His coach said his kid was sick, "suffering from a lack of intestinal fortitude". We averaged around 2,000 per dual, more for the big matches.
In the 80's attendance and participation was still pretty good. I went to a Downingtown-Great Valley dual and had to sit in the cafeteria and watch the meet on closed circuit TV. (It was great!)

But now we have smart phones and Facebook and Twitter. To take a couple hours a day for wrestling practice is a totally unreasonable demand on kids' screen time. So there is ever dwindling participation and attendance.

And another factor is specialization. Heinlein said specialization is for insects. In one thread Geof Petrie was mentioned, a true three sport superstar. But today, the really good kids specialize, wrestle year round, get fantastic training, great coaching, scientific weight training. A lot of average Joes don't want to deal with those guys. It's a deterrent to participation when you know you are often going to face some fanatic who has been fine tuned in the art of wrestling, while you are just doing it for the fun of it.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the Heinlein quote, Think it's time to reread a few of his books.
 
Wpial Bigot said:
I am glad PIAA is going to 12 weight classes. As a coach, teacher, I can't begin to tell you how many kids don't want to wrestle since they'll have to wrestle varsity! We all think every kid wants to "start". In the sport of wrestling, it's not true. No one wants to go out in front of a crowd and get their ass handed to them. JV is where first year wrestlers should be. Unfortunately, any kid who goes out for a team is put in a starting role. Every year we have kids in our area who are 20 match winners and they don't have a clue what they're doing. Why the good record....they're getting forfeits and wrestling other first year wrestlers. To add to the problem, the fans quit coming since the product is bad. Most my friends don't even follow the sport in High School anymore. When I wrestled in the early 80's, I was JV for 2 years. By the time I "started", I had a clue what I was doing. May not have ever won states, or even a tournament, but I wasn't worried about embarrassing myself. Kids nowadays are.
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I experience both sides of that coin... We have trouble filling our 14. Most nights, we don't. We end up with quite a few new kids, and they get hammered on (Class AAA in MN) in our conference if they wrestle Varsity. BUT, many times they take going down or being on JV as a demotion or making them lesser. They piss and moan when they get thrashed in front of our 10 fans, but cry and feel bad if we enter them in a tournament on JV to get more developmentally-appropriate situations. I've tried every way to explain to them that wrestling in a JV bracket means nothing but practice and adjusting their goals from not going 0-2 or placing in a Varsity bracket to placing high or winning the JV one.

It's different for different kids. And it's easy to say, "Well, they need to recruit their hallways better. We have no problem filling a JV, C Squad, etc." And ya know what? Coaches are trying. But when you have little to no positive accomplishment as a TEAM, it's hard to get kids to join said team. Especially in a niche sport like wrestling. Some of it is on coaches, and as a coach, I take it as my responsibility to get athletes into our wrestling room. I'm not saying that we need to cater to my team or the lowest common denominator, but as fewer and fewer teams can even field a full JV, there's got to be something done.

I wrestled JV in SE MN until 10th grade roughly 2008. We had full JV Duals, exhibitions of extras off JV, a full conference JV tournament which was important to win... That same conference tournament has brackets of 4 or less... I bet less than a quarter of Varsity duals start with a FULL JV dual in our corner of the state.

There's less participation, especially the further away from major metropolitan areas you get. Don't kill the sports outside the cities and hotbeds for the interests of the ones that will be stable no matter what.
 
I've said this before and I will say it again. Drop in participation is not exclusive to wrestling. It's just a different era.

I graduated with 900 kids. We had a 9th grade football team with 70 kids. In 10th grade we got to move up with the varsity practice and there were 125 kids. A full 10th grade, JV and varsity team. 9th grade wrestling, we practiced in the gymnasium with 40 kids on one mat and a full freshman team with wrestle offs. 10th grade we went to the varsity room with 65 kids in there. Never a forfeit for JV or Varsity. In the spring I played baseball freshman year and then moved to the track team as a soph for kicks. Never thought about taking a season off until I was a JR.

My son attended the same school district. Only graduated with about 650 as the school district had split, but still the percentage of athletes had dropped precipitously. He wrestled varsity as a freshman and saw garbage time with the varsity football team as a freshman before becoming a 2-way starter as a soph. Even though he wasn't as good an athlete as his father as I tell him all the time, lol. 55-60 kids 9-12 on the football team when he was a freshman. Compared to about 200 when I was in high school.

Back then I didn't even consider not playing a sport - everybody was playing something. Now even your elite athletes are 2 sports at best in the bigger schools. I don't see this changing anytime soon.
 
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dicemen99 said:
I've said this before and I will say it again. Drop in participation is not exclusive to wrestling. It's just a different era.

I graduated with 900 kids. We had a 9th grade football team with 70 kids. In 10th grade we got to move up with the varsity practice and there were 125 kids. A full 10th grade, JV and varsity team. 9th grade wrestling, we practiced in the gymnasium with 40 kids on one mat and a full freshman team with wrestle offs. 10th grade we went to the varsity room with 65 kids in there. Never a forfeit for JV or Varsity. In the spring I played baseball freshman year and then moved to the track team as a soph for kicks. Never thought about taking a season off until I was a JR.

My son attended the same school district. Only graduated with about 650 as the school district had split, but still the percentage of athletes had dropped precipitously. He wrestled varsity as a freshman and saw garbage time with the varsity football team as a freshman before becoming a 2-way starter as a soph. Even though he wasn't as good an athlete as his father as I tell him all the time, lol. 55-60 kids 9-12 on the football team when he was a freshman. Compared to about 200 when I was in high school.

Back then I didn't even consider not playing a sport - everybody was playing something. Now even your elite athletes are 2 sports at best in the bigger schools. I don't see this changing anytime soon.
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Dont know how old you are, I'm in my 60's, wrestled & played football in HS. When discussing smaller class size, think about how many kids these days transfer to schools like Blair, St Eds et al for sports and/or academics.

That wasnt going on during my HS years. The small number of kids transferring back then were basically getting kicked out for disciplinary reasons. I didnt know class sizes were shrinking but if they are, couldnt this be a significant factor
 
JohnnyHandsome said:
Dont know how old you are, I'm in my 60's, wrestled & played football in HS. When discussing smaller class size, think about how many kids these days transfer to schools like Blair, St Eds et al for sports and/or academics.

That wasnt going on during my HS years. The small number of kids transferring back then were basically getting kicked out for disciplinary reasons. I didnt know class sizes were shrinking but if they are, couldnt this be a significant factor
Click to expand...
I'm a bit younger than you (in my 50s) but it was similar during my time. Not as many transferring to privates or at least I wasn't as aware of it. I don't think that this is statistically significant, however, in terms of our discussion about depth and forfeits.

I really don't know if class sizes are shrinking. They did in my area, but that was because of school splits in areas of population growth. If they are nationwide, that would surely have an impact.
 
Granted this is nation-wide data...

According to NCES, the National Center for Education Statistics, 14-17 year olds, or roughly the age of high schoolers, here's the ebbs & flows of the national population...

1970's: 15,924,000 (1970) in this age range. From there, it increased until 1975 (17,128,000) before declining all the way through 1990.

1980's: 16,143,000 (1980) in this age range. From there, it declined dramatically through the end of this decade (1989: 13,536,000).

1990's: 13,329,00 (1990) in this age range. From there, a rapid rise through the end of this decade (1999: 16,007,000).

2000's: 16,144,000 (2000) in this age range. From there, steady increase during the decade (2009: 17,232,000).

2010's: 17,066,000 (2010) in this age range. From there, small but steady decrease during the decade (2017: 16,737,000).
 
RoarLions1 said:
Granted this is nation-wide data...

According to NCES, the National Center for Education Statistics, 14-17 year olds, or roughly the age of high schoolers, here's the ebbs & flows of the national population...

1970's: 15,924,000 (1970) in this age range. From there, it increased until 1975 (17,128,000) before declining all the way through 1990.

1980's: 16,143,000 (1980) in this age range. From there, it declined dramatically through the end of this decade (1989: 13,536,000).

1990's: 13,329,00 (1990) in this age range. From there, a rapid rise through the end of this decade (1999: 16,007,000).

2000's: 16,144,000 (2000) in this age range. From there, steady increase during the decade (2009: 17,232,000).

2010's: 17,066,000 (2010) in this age range. From there, small but steady decrease during the decade (2017: 16,737,000).
Click to expand...

Ok how many of the kids in the age range were native to this country in the 70's, 80's 90's vs 2000's and 2010's. Most kids in the 70's 80's 90's were White or Black with family traditions in sports. In the 2000's and 2010's most are from outside (or 1st generation) and they don't hold the same traditions. One of the reasons why I feel soccer is getting more popular and football is declining.
 
Mikefln said:
Ok how many of the kids in the age range were native to this country in the 70's, 80's 90's vs 2000's and 2010's. Most kids in the 70's 80's 90's were White or Black with family traditions in sports. In the 2000's and 2010's most are from outside (or 1st generation) and they don't hold the same traditions. One of the reasons why I feel soccer is getting more popular and football is declining.
Click to expand...
Soccer vs football might also be a result of the concussion / brain damage issue that more parents are becoming knowledgeable about.
 
Mikefln said:
Ok how many of the kids in the age range were native to this country in the 70's, 80's 90's vs 2000's and 2010's. Most kids in the 70's 80's 90's were White or Black with family traditions in sports. In the 2000's and 2010's most are from outside (or 1st generation) and they don't hold the same traditions. One of the reasons why I feel soccer is getting more popular and football is declining.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't necessary agree with you on that. Lots of reasons for some sports gains and others demise: 1) softer generation; 2) many more sport opportunities - lacrosse and soccer were not even options when I was in HS; 3) many sports are requiring all year training (like soccer in some cases); 4) wrestling is going year round as well (I know my club has tried to stay away from the high fee's but the bottom line there is a cost that could keep some away, especially in the inner city); 5) Being in central Va, I find the consistency of programs lacking due to middle and high school coaching changes. We can't find coaches around and if we do they move on... lots of reasons - I know many coaches went to work in the private world or school administration in order to make a better living...
Probably could go on, but that is enough. Let's not take away from the good that is evolving - good PR and access to wrestling info and more...
 
I think they should make heavyweight unlimited again (that would add a few wrestlers). Twelve weight classes seems more ideal for competitions than participation, I guess it's just what people prefer.
 
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